Biography of Big Daddy Kane

Brooklyn-ite Big Daddy Kane (born Antonio Hardy, KANE is an acronym for King Asiatic Nobody's Equal) has nicely been able to balance his image as the ultimate hipster with the requisite solemnity and air of indignation and anger necessary to creditably deliver messages of Afrocentric awareness and Muslim reverence. He's done alternately inspirational, prophetical, ridiculous, and scandalous raps over his career, and has also managed to include duets with the maestro of love Barry White and legendary comedian Rudy Ray Moore, aka Dolemite, who laid waste to Kane in a dozens (insult-swapping) classic. Big Daddy Kane has been a high profile figure the past couple of years. Not only has he appeared in such films as Posse and Gunmen, but he also posed in Madonna's controversial photo book Sex, and issued a defiant disc Looks Like a Job for Big Daddy Kane that offered no apologies for past actions and ridiculed unnamed individuals he claimed were fronting as gangsters. After 1994's Daddy's Home, he was absent from the studio for four years prior to releasing Veteranz Day. ~ Ron Wynn

Biography of UGK

Southern gangsta rappers Pimp C and Bun B formed UGK (aka Underground Kingz) in the late '80s and signed to Jive Records for their major-label debut album, 1992's Too Hard to Swallow. After second album Super Tight..., UGK hit the R&B charts with 1996's Ridin' Dirty, which ascended to the number two spot. Dirty Money followed in late 2001. Pimp C began serving at three-year jail sentence in early 2002, putting UGK on ice until 2007, when the double album Underground Kingz appeared. ~ John Bush

Biography of Kool G Rap

A key figure in the rise of the East Coast rap sound, Kool G Rap was born Nathaniel Wilson in Queens, New York on July 20, 1968; he turned to hip hop while in high school, and soon began collaborating with one DJ Polo (whom he met through mutual friend Eric Barrier, better known as one half of the legendary duo Eric B. and Rakim). Teaming with producer Marley Marl, Kool G Rap (short for "Kool Genius of Rap") and DJ Polo recorded their debut 12-inch "It's a Demo," an underground favorite which led to the release of their 1989 LP Road to Riches. After two more joint efforts, 1990's Wanted: Dead or Alive and 1992's Live and Let Die, the duo went their separate ways and Kool G Rap made his solo bow in 1995 with 4, 5, 6; he returned in 1998 with Roots of Evil, and that same year also contributed to UNKLE's all-star Psyence Fiction. ~ Jason Ankeny