Ludacris

Christopher Brian Bridges (born September 11, 1977), known professionally as Ludacris, is an American rapper and actor. Ludacris is the founder of Disturbing tha Peace. Ludacris has won Screen Actors Guild, Critic’s Choice, MTV, and 3 Grammy Awards. Along with fellow Atlanta-based rappers Big Boi and André 3000 of OutKast, Ludacris was one of the first and most influential “Dirty South” rappers to achieve mainstream success during the early 2000s. In 2014, Ludacris was featured in Forbes list titled “Hip-Hop Cash Kings”, as he earned $8 million.Born in Champaign, Illinois, Ludacris moved to Atlanta at age nine, where he began rapping. After a brief stint as a DJ, he released his first album Incognegro in 1999, followed by Back for the First Time also in 2000, which contained the singles “Southern Hospitality” and “What’s Your Fantasy”. In 2001, he released Word of Mouf, followed by Chicken-n-Beer in 2003 and The Red Light District in 2004. He took a more serious approach with his next two albums, Release Therapy (2006), and Theater of the Mind (2008). His next record, Battle of the Sexes, was released in 2010 and featured the tone of his previous albums. Ludaversal was released on March 31, 2015. As an actor, he has appeared in films including Crash (2004), Gamer (2009), and New Year’s Eve (2011) and is best known for playing Tej Parker in The Fast and the Furious film series.Christopher Brian Bridges was born in Champaign, Illinois, the only child of Roberta Shields and Wayne Brian Bridges. He later moved to the Chicago area, where he attended Emerson Middle School in Oak Park and Oak Park & River Forest High School for one year. He then moved to Centreville, Virginia and attended Centreville High School for one year. He attended Banneker High School in Atlanta, Georgia and graduated in 1995. From 1998 to 1999, he studied music management at Georgia State University. Bridges is of African American and English ancestry, and has said that one of his great-great grandfathers was Choctaw. He is a distant cousin of late comedian Richard Pryor. Bridges wrote his first rap song at age nine when moving to Atlanta, and joined an amateur rap group three years later.

Written Dianne Washington

Now That’s Ludacris!: Happy Birthday Luda

I’m not that big of a fan of Southern rap like that but if you ask me to name my favorite Southern rap artists, I would say OutKast, T.I., Kris Kross, Nelly, Gucci Mane and my all time favorite Ludacris. Besides OutKast, Ludacris is one of those Southern rap artists to me who has good music and has a delivery that’s different than most rap artists of the South. A lot of Southern rap artists to me mostly say things that I don’t understand and their sound is something I’m not always into or can’t get into like that. I’m not dissing the South but that’s just me personally, it’s a totally different ball game for me but Ludacris is definitely the truth. Hits like “What’s Your Fantasy?”, “Saturday (Ooh Ooh!)”, “Sex Room”, “Move Bitch”, “Runaway Love”, “Area Codes”, the list goes on and on. Not only can he flow so effortlessly on the mic but I like his style, he’s funny and has songs that I can sit and listen to all day and Luda definitely got the hits for days. Every time I think about Luda, I think about those days of me as a kid growing up in the early 2000’s watching BET and seeing Ludacris music videos all the time. His videos were like Busta Rhymes and Missy Elliott, those animated, funny, weird looking characters and hanging upside down from walls and shit, it was dope. Nobody else from the South keeps my interest like the way both OutKast and Ludacris do. A signature Ludacris joint always has that random but expected “DTP!” or “Disturbing Tha Peace!” yell out in the beginning of the song. Ludacris hands down, is the only Southern rap artist whose collection I can sit down and listen to from top to bottom, beginning to end. His songs had great stories, funny stories, he even had songs that were touching and honest. He had club bangers, street anthems and songs about life that touched on serious topics, Luda is the guy who can do all different kinds of joints. If I could pick my favorite Luda album, it would be “Chicken-n-Beer” because going through his album, that one has all of his best songs to me. The rest have 1 or 2 songs out of the singles released that I felt were more dope compared to the rest of the songs but on this album, all of the joints released were equally dope and that album is my favorite album cover too. That’s what catches my attention about Luda, he’s animated like I mentioned before about the music videos. I can’t forget to mention his acting stuff too. The only movie he did I cared for and liked the most was his role as Skinny Black on “Hustle & Flow” with Terrance Howard and Taraji P. Henson. Really dope movie and I haven’t seen it in a long time too. Southern rap without this man would be ludicrous but Southern rap with a guy that brings lots of good and funny energy in his songs with a “DTP!” chant and a fast but dope delivery, now that’s LUDACRIS!