Before They Were Famous

Before becoming a part of the next wave of Afrobeat hitmakers, the artist known as Tems was born Temilade Openiyi on June 11th, 1995 in Lagos, Nigeria. With her father being British Nigerian, Tems and her family moved to London when she was still just a baby. Still, they’d return to Nigeria some four years later where her parents got divorced shortly thereafter. From that point forward, Tems was raised alongside her brother, Tunji, by their mother in the neighborhood in a tiny one-bedroom apartment. On Sunday everyone would attend the same local church and everyone in their community always se...

Despite most of us having to spend 2020 under lock-and-key, Jamaican dancehall artist Skillibeng spent the majority of last year spreading his name all around the world thanks to some great tracks. Without a doubt, the last year has provided Skillibeng with a string of breakthrough moments, including the release of his single “Brik Pan Brik”, jumping on a remix of Pop Smoke’s “Dior”, and dropping his debut mixtape “The Prodigy” which featured an appearance from his mentor, Popcaan. Today, Skillibeng is arguably more popular than his former idol and he knows he needs to continue working hard to keep it that way. A...

BEFORE CRIS CAWLEY would forge an impressive career for herself as the mastermind behind Game Changer Publishing. BEFORE CRIS CAWLEY would extend her brand by offering her clients a suite of professional programs designed to help them become their very best. BEFORE CRIS CAWLEY would have nearly 1K Subscribers on YouTube and 108K followers on Instagram at the time of this recording. One sure fire way to make an impact on the world is to write a best-selling book. Unfortunately, the process of getting that book published can be a dauting experience for darn near anyone, especially if you don’t...

Before almost single-handedly winning France the World Cup with a rare hat-trick in the Final match of the tournament, Kylian Mbappe was born on December 20th, 1998 in the city of Paris -- and as the athlete himself once suggested in a children’s book made about his life, from the very beginning, Kylian Mbappe was born into football. In a lot of ways, you could also say that Kylian was born in the right place at the right time. His local football club, AS Bondy, was where his Cameroon-born father, Wilfried, used to coach under-15s and would go on to...

Another year, another list of celebs who passed away, 2022 saw its fair share of celebrity deaths with many of those we grew up with passing away of natural causes but also some young stars like Takeoff and PnB Rock who lost their lives at young age needlessly. As we have become accustomed to, its been another challenging year for the world of rap and hip hop but also for other stars to Gen Z like Aaron Carter, Coolio, and Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins. We are going to go through a ton of bios here today, off the top we...

Aubrey Drake Graham, the everyman of hip-hop, is a man who can dominate an entire year musically without even releasing his own album, it's happened before. However, this was not one of those years, at least with being prolific because Drake did still dominate but he did so by releasing a ton of new music including two new albums, one of which was an experimental house album, the other a collaboration with great 21 Savage.However, all of the new music and collaborations did not come without controversy or spicy headlines for the media tabloids to run with. Drake is also...

Genius, tyrannical, revolutionary, and dangerously egotistical, those are four descriptions that contrast in their own unique way, however, they are also 4 ways that one could describe the artist Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, and even then that's a very surface level way to put it. In the year 2022 Ye had probably one of the most unique years of his career from his creative endeavors to controversy and the wild statements he makes, now Ye really isn't a stranger to any of those things I mean you could make a list of the crazy things he's done every year but...

There were plenty of crazy moments in Hollywood and the world of Social Media. MrBeast passes PewDiePie, The return of Brenda Fraiser, Heidi Klum dressed as a worm for Halloween, Rihanna had a baby, Julia Fox & Kanye West, Ben Affleck back with J Lo & off the Jamesons, Pete Davidson dating everybody, every school teacher on earth quitting to get on Only Fans, Elon Musk taking over Twitter, The Try Guys cheating scandal, Harry Styles Spitting on Chris Pine, Billie Eilish Deep Fakes, Tom Brady splits from Giselle and half of Hollywood is exposed for Crypto scams. That’s just a sh...

After turning himself into the biggest childhood actor of all time with the holiday classic “Home Alone”, Macaulay Culkin would see his acting career dry-up by the time he turned 14. And yet -- he still somehow managed to wind up a perfectly happy 42-year-old with a fiancée and baby, living the type of life few childhood stars ever get the chance to experience. Before all of that, Macaulay Culkin was born on August 26th, 1980 in New York City to his father, Christopher Culkin, a former child actor turned lackluster Broadway star, and his mother Patricia Brentrup. The two were never...

The actor, former child star and teen heartthrob that captivated a generation, Jonathan Taylor Thomas also known as JTT has had quite the career. Once a pop culture mainstay that you'd find a photo of on the inside of a teenage girl’s locker in the late 90s, now the man is something of an enigmatic presence that is able to go 8 years without anybody taking his photograph. But before his rise and fall from fame, JTT was born on September 8, 1981, in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. He grew up in a household with his parents, Stephen and Claudine, and his older brother, Jo...

American YouTube star, TikToker and Instagram personality Lofe has been steadily building a reputation for himself as one of the internet’s most promising new voices in comedy over a period of almost four years now. After a particularly tumultuous youth which would see him battling with depression, loneliness, and fixating on failure resulting in suicidal thoughts, Lofe would finally find his calling at the age of 18 when he first began uploading a series of promising sketches displaying a range of comedic abilities that have since become undeniable. In fact, Lofe might very well now be one of the best pr...

BEFORE a just barely thirty-year-old man with a mop of brown hair would earn himself enough crypto-currency clout to be known simply by his initials -- SBF -- Sam Bankman-Fried was born on March 6th, 1992 on the campus of Stanford University. As the son of two Jewish Stanford Law professors, Barbara Fried and Joseph Bankman, Sam spent a large percentage of his childhood playing games like chess, bridge, “Magic the Gathering” and the video game series “League of Legends” when he wasn’t busy attending class at an elite prep-school known as Crystal Springs Uplands where he excelled academically in almost eve...

BEFORE becoming one of the most promising female Emcee’s to emerge out of New York City in a hot minute, Murda B was actually born in late October in the city of Boston, Massachusetts, which means there’s a pretty good chance that that “B” in her name – well, it might stand for Boston. So, how did Murda B become the next big thing out of Sev-Side if she’s really from Bean-town? Well, to hear her tell it, Murda B had herself a boyfriend from that area of New York City and after meeting his crew, she formed connections...

BEFORE being detained in Russia and eventually being exchanged in a prisoner swap for the notorious criminal known as “The Merchant of Death”, women’s basketball star Brittney Yevette Griner was born on October 18th, 1990 in the city of Houston, Texas. For the most part, Britney’s upbringing was relatively ordinary as the youngest of four children being raised by a homemaker and a police officer. But sooner rather than later it became clear to Griner, as well as everyone else, that she was far from what most people would consider to be ordinary. In the pages of her memoir, “In My Skin...

BEFORE being used as a bargaining chip in a one-for-one prisoner swap that freed women’s basketball star Brittney Griner, convicted arms dealer Viktor Bout otherwise known as the “Merchant of Dеаth” -- was born on what’s believed to have been January 13th, 1967. Douglas Farah, a senior agent at the International Assessment and Strategy Center who once co-authored a book on Bout told CNN in 2010 that Viktor’s early days are still largely a mystery, even to high-up government officials. That being said, according to multiple passports, Bout was likely raised in Dushanbe, Tajikstan as the son of a bookkeeper...

BEFORE becoming one of the most successful and prolific underground rappers of recent memory, Lucki was born Lucki Camel Jr. on May 30th, 1996 in Chicago, Illinois at Masonic Medical Center on the city’s North Side. While he might have entered this world on the city’s North-side, Lucki was primarily raised on the West End where he attended school in the suburb of Maywood. During his earliest years, Lucki used to harbor aspirations of becoming a football player while playing wide receiver for his school team. The only problem is that he wasn’t very good at it. Like, at all...

After becoming one of the hottest reality television stars of an entire generation, Tila Tequila has gone on to live one of the strangest and most troubling lives of recent celebrity memory. Make a fortune off her love life? She’s done that too. But those moments of glory feel like a million years ago compared to her more recent ventures into anti-Semitism, self-harm, and some truly bizarre religious beliefs. Long before she’d become a train wreck, Tila Tequila was born to Vietnamese parents in the country of Singapore on October 24th, 1981. Her parents fled to that sovereign island nati...

BEFORE becoming the latest twist in the ongoing Megan thee Stallion and Tory Lanez courtroom drama, Kelsey Nicole was born on August 28th, 1995 in Victoria, Texas. That’s where she grew up in what she’s described as a relatively lower-class family, which inspired her to work as hard as possible to develop her own financial freedom. Kelsey’s ties to the music industry go as far back as the day she was born. Her father was Emmitt Harris, a local rapper known as 50 Pak. Prior to the birth of Kelsey and her sister Ciara, Harris had made a name for hi...

AFTER making waves in the adult entertainment industry that are still reverberating to this day, Mia Khalifa is now earning nearly as much money in 24-hours as she once made throughout the entirety of her adult entertainment career while continuing to hold the medium accountable. Long before all of that, Mia Khalifa was born Sarah Joe Chamoun on February 19th, 1993 in the city of Beirut and was raised in what she’s referred to in the past as a very conservative Catholic family. After attending a French language private school in her native country, Mia would immigrate to the United St...

Before becoming the first openly transgender solo artist to earn the top spot in the Billboard Hot 100 Chart, singer Kim Petras was born on August 27th, 1992 in the small German town known as Hennef. Located about 40 minutes from Cologne, Petras’ hometown was very heavy on what she likes to call “farm vibes” and boasted a ton of livestock including cows and horses. In fact, her family’s nearest neighbors were located more than ten minutes away while she was growing up. Born to an architect for a father and a dance teacher for a mom, you could say that music was alwa...

BEFORE becoming “SteveWillDoIt’s” on and off again girlfriend, Celina Smith was born on February 22nd, 1999 and grew up an only child in a single-parent household in Orlando, Florida. Now, I’m not going to lie to you – a whole bunch of the “finer” details about Celina’s life have yet to be revealed. In fact, outside of her relationship with Steve -- which goes back considerably farther than you might think – we don’t know a whole lot about Celina’s past. But here’s what I was able to uncover. According to Celina’s Instagram page – she and Steve first met while still...

Ever since Georgian fashion designer Demna became the artistic director of the European fashion-house Balenciaga in 2015, the once lauded brand has become far more infamous for its controversy than its clothing. But the surprising thing to discover is how often that’s been by design – like that time they remade IKEAS’s 99-cent shopping bag as a $2,000 luxury good. Hell, they even dressed one of the sexiest women in the world in a head-to-toe black body stocking and then sent her up a flight of stairs to the Met Gala. Poor Kim. But something tells me we probably really should have s...

AFTER kick-starting her wildly successful career with a viral video that asserted her as hip-hop’s “icy girl”, rapper Saweetie has been hard at work on her debut studio album. Unfortunately, a high-profile lover’s quarrel and some questionable sales-numbers have recently thrown a wrench into all of her best laid plans. But long before all that would come to fruition, Saweetie was born Diamonte Valentin Harper on July 2nd, 1993 in the city of Hayward, California. Largely raised in the Bay Area, Saweetie earned her eventual stage name from her grandmother, who used the loving term of endearment as a nickname...

These days everybody is looking for love, some people never find it while some people find it in the wrong places, but sometimes you find it in the wrong person. Social media has a paramount effect on the way we view and navigate relationships whether we like it or not. Gone are the days when we would only hear about famous power couples on talk shows or media tabloids now we are able to keep up with seemingly every moment a couple shares together and some celebrity couples are just inescapable. At this moment in time is there any couple...

Before earning her first cross-over hit with “Big Energy” and seeing over a hundred of her unreleased tracks leak onto the internet, the rapper Latto was born Alyssa Michelle Stephens on December 22nd, 1998, in Columbus, Ohio to bi-racial couple, Misti Pitts and Shayne Stephens. At the age of two, her parents moved the family from Ohio to Atlanta, Georgia where Alyssa grew up on the South Side in Clayton County and bonded with her father over their shared interest in drag-racing. As a kid, Alyssa was always drumming up ingenious ways to earn a little extra scratch. She not only sold...

In today's society, the world that makes up celebrities and pop culture, in general, can best be described as a circus and that's still sugarcoating it. From athletes to actors and actresses to musicians, sometimes we tend to forget how much influence these people can have over everything, and cancel culture in many ways is a by-product of that powerful and sometimes dangerous influence. Cancel culture has exacted its wrath on a number of celebrities but I think there have been few in recent memory who have truly felt its wrath more than Ye, the artist formerly known as Kanye...

Before sitting down to attend one of the most controversial dinners in recent memory alongside Ye and former President Donald Trump, alt-right commentator Nicholas J. Fuentes was born on August 18th, 1998 in La Grange Park, Illinois. A former student of Lyons Township High School, Fuentes was active in the student body as a member of the speech team as well as the institution’s Model UN. In fact, in May of 2016, he was one of four students invited to greet Governor Bruce Rauner during his visit to the school and escorted the politician inside of the building. It was also wh...

BEFORE becoming an American musician known for pumping out some truly psychedelic pop songs, Steve Lacy was born on May 23rd, 1998 in southern Los Angeles County to an African American mother and a Filipino father. Taking part in a largely middle-class upbringing, Steve attended private school during his early years and was shielded from the rougher parts of Compton by his mother who regularly encouraged him and his three sisters to stay inside as often as possible. For the most part, Steve’s father was absent from his childhood and would tragically pass away when his son was only 10-years-old. Fo...

When Sky Bri showed-up as a guest on the first episode of the Sidemen’s “Tinder in Real Life” dating series, she set the internet on fire by flashing her ample sized assets while in the midst of meeting Mike Majlak. Sky began her career a couple of years ago. While living in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Bri wasn’t happy spending her days working at Target, earning somewhere around $1,000 a month. So, to supplement that income, she and her then-boyfriend began filming some of their nightly aerobic-sessions, which she then uploaded to “OnlyFans”. Shortly thereafter, Bri reached out to professionals who taught her t...

The trouble with Andy Dісk and his plunge into the Dark Side of Fame began long before headlines revealed that he’d been arrested in Santa Barbara, California on felony burglary charges after allegedly entering a home under construction and stealing multiple power tools. Stealing something might be a brand-new offense for Dісk, but groping is most definitely not. And if he’s not having problems keeping his hands to himself, well, he’s probably somewhere out there in La La Land, doing illegal stuff. In some ways, Andy Dісk fall from grace is a tragic chain of events th...

After American comedian and actor Andy Dісk would make a name for himself on a series of cult-classic 90s television series like “The Ben Stiller Show” and “NewsRadio”, he’d be heralded as “the most talented, gutsy, and truly strange comic of his generation” by Time Magazine. But then came the turn as a series of outlandish controversies would see him spiral out of control on his path toward becoming one of the most disliked individuals in Hollywood. But long before that switch-flipped, Andy Dісk was born in Charleston, South Carolina on December 21st, 1965. His actual birth name was Andrew Thomlin...

The rapper and record executive known today as Birdman was born Bryan Christopher Brooks on February 15th, 1969 at Charity Hospital in New Orleans, Louisiana. Due to his father, Johnnie Williams, not signing his son’s birth certificate, Bryan would adopt his mother Gladys’ surname of Brooks. Far more unusual than that however, was the fact that for the first 30-days of his life, Bryan wasn’t given a first name at all and was simply referred to as “Baby” by those closest to him -- a nickname he would continue to use well into his adult life. As a kid, Bryan and...

BEFORE becoming one of the most promising female emcees to ever emerge out of Brooklyn, rapper Lola Brooke was born Shyniece Thomas on February 1st sometime in the mid-to-late 90s and raised around Tompkins Avenue in the neighborhood known as Bed-Stuy. As you can tell from that quote, her childhood was far from easy, but that never prevented Lola from believing she was meant to accomplish something special. Everyday she’d wake up with a feeling deep inside of herself like she was meant to do something spectacular with her life. The question was, what was that something supposed to be...

Before actor Jason David Frank would pass away at the age of just 49-years-old, he made a name for himself as Tommy Oliver, otherwise known as one of the original “Power Rangers”. Frank was born on September 4th, 1973, in and those acrobatic abilities he regularly displayed on-screen weren’t manufactured through television magic because this talented actor wasn’t only an eighth-degree black belt in real life, he also possessed experience in multiple other forms of martial arts as well. His journey in the art of self-defense began at the age of four with the study of Shotokan Karate at a dojo k...

An online content creator who goes by the handle of Fuzzz99 might very well have earned themselves the title of “the most hаtеd TikToker” of all time and on this newest episode of the Dark Side of Fame, I’m going to tell you why. Look – when it comes to TikTok, there’s always going to be a bunch of creators that people don’t like. When it comes to describing the content of TikTok creator Fuzzz99 – the one thing you’ll quickly notice is the adjectives people throw around pretty freely. I’m talking words like “cringe” and “embarrassing”. Fuzz...

BEFORE he would make his case for being the Garden State’s hottest new artist, rapper BandmanRill was born on August 17th, 2002 to a family of more than eleven children! Raised in Newark, New Jersey, Bandman didn’t grow up around every single one of his siblings. Most of the time it was him, his mother, his father, his grandfather, grandmother, sister, aunt, uncle, and cousin living under one roof. But over the years, the people living alongside him would fluctuate. Some would leave -- including his dad -- while others would arrive, but for the most part, Bandman always had...

BEFORE he would dream of becoming an NBA superstar and briefly look up to Drake as a father-figure, Amari Bailey was born on February 17th, 2004 in the city of Chicago, Illinois, to his parents Johanna Leia and Aaron Bailey. Not unlike his son, Aaron Bailey is a former professional athlete who cut his teeth playing for Louisville University before eventually going pro as a member of the Indianapolis Colts whom he played for across five seasons. Amari’s dad didn’t play all that much with the starting line-up and served more as a kick-returner on special teams, but there was...

Before she would become an online content creator, influencer, business owner, and actress, Kazumi was born on February 14th, 1997 in the West Asian country of Kuwait. Over the past couple of years, Kazumi’s online fanbase became the first to recognize that there’s a lot more going on with this talented woman than meets the eye -- and while her TikTok clips, Instagram pics, and Twitter content are certainly appealing in and of themselves, it’s the depths of her ideology that’s taking the internet by storm. But before we get into all of that, let’s start at the beg...

BEFORE Bouba Savage would become one of the youngest hip-hop performers ever, he was born Boubacar Diallo on October 17th, 2006 in Conakry, Guinea. That’s where Diallo would spend the first decade of his life growing-up in an Islamic family in West Africa, where he learned to appreciate hot-sauce as his go-to condiment and got pretty good at basketball and soccer to boot. Unfortunately, he was a little bit less interested in reading an every-single page of the Quran during class hours and when he’d make the mistake of falling asleep, his teachers would ensure he regretted it by whip...

Before Hit Boy would earn his name by producing some of the biggest hip-hop tracks of the past decade, he was born Chauncey Alexander Hollis Jr. on May 21st, 1987. As a child, Chauncey grew-up in Fontana, a city about fifty miles East of downtown Los Angeles. For most of his young life, Chauncey’s father was in and out of prison, leaving him to be raised primarily by his mother – the one person he says he has to thank more than anyone else for believing in him from the start. From the time he was a kid, his mom would alwa...