His name may be Lil Jon, but he is certainly a large figure in the hip hop industry. In fact, he is one of the largest names in the whole hip hop industry.
Aside from being an established rapper and producer, Lil Jon is also known as the founder of crunk music. Crunk music is actually a sub-genre of hip hop. It is a combination of a lot of aspects, such as Southern hip hop, bass music, and Bounce Music. The act Lil Jon the Eastside Boys is actually the pioneering team-up of this sub-genre.
A graduate from Douglass High School in Atlanta, Jonathan Smith started out as a host on a radio show on BET. His exposure to the hip hop industry led him to start making remixes for artists like Jamaal, Xscape, and Too $hort. He also got to working for the record label So So Def Recordings, which specializes in the Crunk elements Southern hip hop and bass music. Interestingly, this label is actually owned by hip hop mogul Jermaine Dupri. Thus, the group Lil Jon the Eastside Boys was born.
In 2001, Lil Jon Eastside Boys released the album Put Yo Hood Up. The cover of the CD itself brought much controversy to Lil Jon Eastside Boys. The cover shows Lil Jon wearing a confederate flag as a covering. But this did not stop Lil Jon bia bia from hitting the charts for Lil Jon. Bia' Bia' became one of the Top 20 downloads as well.
2002's Kings of Crunk came next for Lil Jon. The single Lil Jon throw it up off the album did make tracks for Lil Jon. But it was get low Lil Jon that made Lil Jon a household name in the industry. Rappers Busta Rhymes, Elephant Man, and the Ying Yang Twins are featured in get low Lil Jon. Not long after its release, Lil Jon get low soared to 2nd place on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart. Plus, the Lil Jon i eastside boyz ? get low mp3 was included in the Need for Speed Underground soundtrack. But the Lil Jon i eastside boyz ? get low mp3 was edited due to profane content. Still, this led to more exposure for Lil Jon.
In 2004, Lil Jon was busy releasing his album Crunk Juice and collaborating with rappers like Usher and Trick Daddy. His single Lil Jon what you do came off Crunk Juice. Rapper Lil Scrappy is featured in the Lil Jon what you do track. Lil Jon also featured in the lets go Lil Jon track with Trick Daddy. He also worked with Twista for this track.
Lil Jon teamed up with eminem ft d12 Lil Jon for the Anger Management 3 Tour for the summer of 2005. Judging from the success of the eminem ft d12 Lil Jon, that must have been a must-see show!
Lil Jon prepared a Lil Jon clean release of his coming solo debut album Crunk Release. This Lil Jon clean release was made available in 2006. But his solo debut album is yet to be released late March 2007. But it's great of him to provide a preview of what to expect from this album!
Lil Jon worked with a lot of rappers for this solo installment. These rappers include Snoop Dogg, R. Kelly, Young Jeezy, Ludacris, Eminem, and Three 6 Mafia. In fact, the Three 6 Mafia are featured in the second single, Lil Jon act a fool. Even if the album has not been released yet, Lil Jon act a fool has already made its way to iTunes just after Halloween. The Lil Jon act a fool track has hit at least 600,000 plays on iTunes already. With this exposure, fans will be singing act a fool lyrics by Lil Jon way before the album's release. It would be no surprise that people will already have memorized act a fool lyrics by Lil Jon.
As busy as his career has been, Lil Jon still made time to come up with Lil Jon instrumental tracks for the J. Arm - Instrumental Kings Vol. 2. This is how dedicated the rapper is to his career growth.
Lil Jon also holds something else up his sleeve. He is one of the few celebrities who foiled Ashton Kutcher's efforts to punk him on the MTV show Punk'd. The rapper recognized the actors assigned to be customs agents. He then asked for Kutcher to come out, saying "You can't punk the King of Crunk!" Now, that's some eagle eye you have, Lil Jon!
