Where was the rapper who took over the 45 King born
Flavor Unit The Flavor Unit is a crew of emcees and DJs from New York City and Northern New Jersey. It is now known as the Unit. The original version of the crew centered on producer the 45 King. It was Mark's connections to radio personalities DJ Red Alert and DJ Chuck Chillout that initially got the crew noticed, but the original members also all had formidable rhyme skills and wrote streetwise lyrics. The 45 King eventually fell into serious drug abuse and Queen Latifah took over the name; it became her umbrella organization. Flavor Unit Management is run by Latifah, one of the original members of the Flavor Unit, and Shakim Compere. Past management clients were Monica, OutKast, Faith Evans, Total, SWV, Almighty RSO (a group featuring Ray Dog, better known today as Benzino), Groove Theory, Monifah, Gina Thompson, LL Cool J, Zhané, Donell Jones, and Naughty By Nature.
Blu (rapper) John Barnes III was born on April 15, 1983, in Los Angeles, California. He was introduced to Hip Hop through his father, who gave him LL Cool J, Fat Boys, Kool Moe Dee, Ice-T, Too Short, 2 Pac, and Geto Boys tapes as a young kid. His parents split when he was 6, and his stepfather was a pastor who restricted him from listening to hip hop and secular music. He sang in the church choir and the choir in school. His cousin wrote his first rap when he was 13, which they incorporated in their dance routines that they did all over the neighborhoods. In High School, Blu moved to San Pedro where he began freestyle rapping in ciphers, making karaoke mixtapes, and battling rival crews. He broke his ankle in 12th grade and dropped out shortly after he realized he would not be able to play basketball the rest of the season and many of his friends were killed in gang wars. Blu kept rapping while maintaining odd jobs like selling shoes, warehouse work, and doing lights for movie sets.