42 Little-Known Facts About Famous Rappers and Hip Hop

1. The Mercedes Ladies were the first all-female rap group.

2. P. Diddy used to be a back-up dancer for Big Daddy Kane and Heavy D.

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3. Nas co-wrote Will Smith’s “Gettin’ Jiggy Wit It,” and it was the only Grammy Award-winning project of his career.

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4. Lupe Fiasco admitted that Lasers is about his own inner battle with suicide. He said, “I wrestled with suicide. [I wanted to] document that in a song, explain to people what the fight of it is. There’s this wrestling with fame and success: How much is enough? How much of this money can I blow on Ferraris? What level of fame [shows] that I made it? Is it when the paparazzi are chasing me down the streets? Then I’m famous? Or am I famous now?”
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQk-FgJTSJw&w=584&h=390]

5. Andre 3000 went abstinent before ATLiens came out.

6. Ghostface Killah beat up Mase so badly that he had to have his jaw wired.

7. DMX used to collect bugs.

8. Lil’ Kim was at one time pregnant with Biggie’s baby, but had a miscarriage. She also used to transport drugs on the bus system for him.

9. In Poetic Justice, 2Pac was supposed to have a sex scene with Janet Jackson, but it didn’t end up being shot because he refused to get an HIV test.
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10. N.O.R.E. did time for murder when he was a juvenile.

11. Jay-Z shot his brother for stealing money from him.

12. Lil Wayne shot himself twice.

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13. Dr. Dre didn’t start smoking weed until he met Snoop. So when he raps “I don’t smoke weed or cess” in N.W.A’s 1988 album Straight Outta Compton, he wasn’t lying. At the time he really didn’t.

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14. Nas dropped out of school in the 7th grade.

15. When Biggie was recording “Notorious Thugs,” he wanted to practice his Bone Thugs style freely and unencumbered, and so he sent everyone out of the room while he practiced by himself.
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16. Jay-Z and Busta Rhymes went to high school together and once battled in their school cafeteria. DMX and Biggie also went to the same school.

17. Gwen Stefani has won the same amount of Rap Grammys as Nas, Drake, 50 Cent, and Busta Rhymes combined.

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18. “Bitches Ain’t Shit” by Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg isn’t really about bitches at all, but rather Eazy-E and N.W.A’s former manager Jerry Heller. In the first verse when Dre raps, “I used to know a bitch named Eric Wright,” he’s talking about Eazy-E of N.W.A, who Dre used to be homies with before they got into a long-lasting beef. Eazy-E and Jerry Heller were a team of sorts and are referred to in this song as “she” to highlight their bitch-ass-ness.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thzKEyhYTIA&w=584&h=390]

19. Not a single member of the group N.W.A had a criminal record.

20. Both Jay-Z and Dame Dash (co-founders of Roc-A-Fella) were in love with Aaliyah.

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21. In VHI’s 2002 documentary on Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes from TLC entitled The Last Day of Left Eye, she admits to referring to her drunk self as “Nikki”.
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22. Rick Rubin founded Def Jams Records in his NYU dorm.

23. Snoop Dogg will usually perform a show for prices upwards of $100k. But if you provide a good chunk of excellent weed, he will drop his price to $20k.

24. James Brown’s “Funky Drummer” is the most sampled song in hip-hop. Over 150+ hip-hop songs sampling “Funky Drummer” have been documented.

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25. Azealia Banks has admitted to being bisexual.

26. 2Pac Shakur shot two off-duty police officers because they were assaulting a young man. The charges against Shakur were dropped because it turned out the officers were intoxicated and in possession of stolen guns.

27. In 2009, Coolio did a stage dive, nobody caught him, and he ended up being beaten and getting his shoes stolen.

28. Cee Lo Green sang on TLC’s “Waterfalls”.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WEtxJ4-sh4&w=584&h=390]

29. Jay-Z wrote The Blueprint in two days.

30. Snoop Dogg went to school with Cameron Diaz and sold her marijuana at the time.

31. Eminem recorded his Slim Shady LP while he was on ecstasy.
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32. At 6’5”, 2 Chainz attended University of Alabama State on an athletic scholarship. He’s also just three years shy of 40.

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33. Real Housewives of Atlanta cast member Kandi Burruss wrote “No Scrubs”.

34. While Gucci Mane was filming his sex scene in Harmony Korine’s movie Spring Breakers, he fell asleep. Harmony said of Gucci, “In his entourage, everybody smokes weed from the beginning of the day to the end…So we’re inside this house in St. Petersburg, and the fucking weed smoke was so insane and Gucci was basically catatonic. I was like, ‘Gucci, you’ve got to have sex with this chick now!’…He wanted her to ride him so he wouldn’t have to do any physical labor.” Harmony continues, “So we’re shooting the sequence, and as he is getting fucked, I start to hear snores…He had literally passed out! And she was riding his dick the whole time. I’d never in my life filmed a sex scene where the dude was sleeping…and she was on top of him for a good 45 minutes.” To clarify…the sex was simulated.

35. Tupac’s step-aunt Assata Shakur is an activist and escaped convict who was a member of the Black Panther Party and Black Liberation Army. Between 1971 and 1973, Shakur was accused of several crimes and made the subject of a multi-state manhunt. After a series of criminal incidents, she was convicted of first-degree murder and in 2013 the FBI announced it had made Assata the first woman on its list of most wanted terrorists. In 1979, she escaped from prison and, since 1984, has been living in Cuba in political asylum.

36. TLC recorded the theme song for Nickelodeon’s All That.
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37. Rick Ross used to work as a correctional officer in the early 1990’s at the South Florida Reception Center.

38. Andre 3000 and Erykah Badu had a child, Seven, in 1997. Andre’s song “A Life In The Day of Benjamin Andre” is about his relationship with Badu.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjjHtSwFPnU&w=584&h=390]

39. Azealia Banks grew up in Harlem and pretty well-off too.

40. Waka Flocka Flame got his name from Fozzie Bear, of The Muppets.

41. There’s a video of Riff Raff doing cocaine, and then freestyling for 8 minutes straight.
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42. Aaaaand Rick Ross likes Tina Fey.