Ludacris
The breakout success of rapper Ludacris has given hopeful artist making a living on the radio hope for their dreams of making it big time in the music business... Or as Ludacris would say, Biz-naz! Born on September 11 in Champaign, Illinois while his parents were still in college, the rapper with the given name Chris Bridges was even as an infant embraced with music, as partying parents often had house jams. Chris had a love for music and performing at pre-teen ages, joining the Chicago based hip-hop outfit called the Loudmouth Hooligans. At around the age of 13, Chris gave himself the name Ludacris, explaining, "The nickname is something I made up. I have kind of a split personality - part of me is calm cool and collected, while the other side is just beyond crazy. My lyrics are ludicrous, my live shows are ludicrous - ludicrous like off the chain crazy." With the new name, Ludacris' family moved to Atlanta, so he had to keep it on the solo tip although admits to being part of many groups. The rapper engaged in verbal contests during lunchtime during his time at Banneker High School, to the point that he would skip eating. In later school years, Chris visited the club scene saying, "I would show up at any venue that had an open mic."

Ludacris got a big break landing an intern job at Atlanta's hip-hop station Hot 97 where he did his thing on promo spots. Eventually, he started co-hosting the night show "Future Flavors" with Poon Daddy and was earning a name for himself throughout Atlanta's hip-hop community. Ludacris explained the opportunity at the station really catapulted his efforts to hit big time, "Once I got the internship up at that radio station things kinda started going real quick, and I started doing drops for every DJ that was on the air for one. And for another I started meeting a lot of people and getting contacts and trying to be in the studio with all kind of artists and, you know, one thing led to another." Ludacris helped his chances of reaching fame by saving his cash so that he could release his own album, Incognegro. The 5'8" rapper's independent project did pretty well selling 30,000 copies, which of course caught the interest of major labels. Ludacris ended up going with Def Jam South and from there it's been nowhere but up for the rapper.

Def Jam re-released his Incognegro disc as 'Back For the First Time' where it was juiced up by Atlanta-based producers Organized Noize, Jermaine Dupri, and Timbaland. Ludacris made cameo's on Timbaland's "Phat Rabbit" from Tim's "Life from the Bassment". Among his other collaborations were the huge hit by the huge Missy Elliott, "One Minute Man" and his recent collaboration with Jermaine Dupri "Welcome To Atlanta". As for his solo work, it has been Word Of Mouf which has created hit after hit. Among the chart toppers have been "Rollout", "Area Codes", and "Saturday." The Ludacris contribution on the Goodlife Album also was a huge hit, with "Fatty Girl" being one of the big hits on the all-star record.

Ludacris has been relatively silent on the personal bizznazz, probably the way he likes it. No doubt his lyrics that degrade women aren't going to land him too many top celebrity chicks naked in the sack, but plenty of ho's in every area code are likely to get nude for the rapper wading in cash. Ludacris explains his lyrics many women object to saying, "It could be just like a woman calling a man a ho, because women call men hos, too. It's not necessarily a bad thing. . . . It means somebody who has casual sex, like, with different people." Either way, Ludacris don't want you to know, as he explained in his song and video to 'Rollout': "It's kinda like the real-life concept that I might go to the mall with my sister and somebody might spot us and automatically be like, 'That's Ludacris' girlfriend.' The video will be set upon a story where it's a lot of stuff going on and people getting the total wrong impression and telling lies."