Image via Complex Original
Before A$AP Rocky became one of the most successful acts to come out of NYC in recent years, the Harlem rapper went through a fairly tough phase in his life. As a child, Rocky spent two years living in homeless shelters. "My dad, he used to make bad choices. He used to sell drugs for a living. And we had a good life up until he got caught and got incarcerated," Rocky told Big Boy's Neighborhood in 2013. "My mom, her only option was just homeless shelters."
He's not the only rapper who has dealt with the burden of having no place to call home. From 2Pac to Yelawolf to Lil' Kim, many other lyricists have, at one point in time, been homeless. With stories as unique as their music, here are 20 Rappers Who Used to Be Homeless. Talk about starting from the bottom.
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Machine Gun Kelly
Before Machine Gun Kelly hooked up with Puff Daddy and Bad Boy Records, the Cleveland rapper found himself homeless at the age of 17 when he and a friend were evicted from their apartment. The timing couldn't have been any worse, as MGK's girlfriend was pregnant too.
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DJ Quik
When DJ Quik was a kid, he and his family found themselves homeless when their house was foreclosed on. The Compton native touches on this incident on his 2011 record "Killer Dope," rapping, "Way back when I was homeless, way back when I was carless/Way back when my sisters used to kick me out their apartments."
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2Pac
2Pac dealt with many hardships throughout his life, including living homeless for brief periods of time. He frequented homeless shelters in New York and Baltimore, as well as when he first moved to California in the late '80s.
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Cappadonna
Wu-Tang Clan's unofficial member Cappadonna was homeless at one point in his life. But here's the catch: While most rappers on this list lived on the street because they had no choice, Cappadonna made the conscious decision to live as a vagrant. “I was actually living in the street. It was by choice. But it was more of my way of rebelling against the materialistic world." That, and he was having issues with his wife, who also happened to be his manager. Tough times.
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Charles Hamilton
Charles Hamilton seemed like a rags to riches story when he joined Interscope Records in 2007, as the Harlem rapper went from living on the streets to signing with one of the biggest record labels in the country. That relationship didn't work out so well though. "Dead ass Jimmy, I dont need it man, take the deal/At least homeless I knew that I was safe for real," Hamilton raps on "Supersonic's First Freestyle." As evidenced by his most recent interview, Hamilton isn't doing so well without Jimmy Iovine.
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Fat Trel
Fat Trel's life running streets has been well-documented, but there were obvious repercussions that came with it. "I left my mom's house at 16. I dropped out in ninth grade. I was doing a lot of crazy stuff in the streets," he says, explaining that he decided to stay on the streets than go back home. "I used sleep in the laundromat or sleep at the bus stop."
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Brother Ali
Though Brother Ali's music career was starting to take shape in the late 2000s, the Midwest rapper was still not making enough money to put a roof over his head. "Not two years ago I was homeless, I mean crashin' on the couch of my homies," he raps on his 2009 record "Fresh Air."
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ScHoolboy Q
During ScHoolboy Q's drug dealing days, the Cali rapper spent some time bouncing around from place to place. “When I was 22, I was basically homeless–not living on the street, but I didn’t have nowhere to stay,” ScHoolboy says of the experience. “I was just hanging out, hoping for something good and making bad decisions.”
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Yelawolf
Before Yelawolf made it big signing to Eminem's Shady Records in 2011, the Southern rapper was living homeless in Berkeley, California. "This is what I'm at now, this is what I've gotten to," Yelawolf recalls, before making the decision to get his life together.
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Jay Electronica
Jay Electronica's homeless experience has been shared in lyric form from the New Orleans rapper. "When I was sleepin' on the train/Sleepin' on Meserole Ave out in the rain/Without even a single slice of pizza to my name," he spits on "Exhibit C." He also touches on it on "Who's Gonna Save My Soul," rapping, "I be at the homeless shelter, Jefferson and Bankhead."
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Bodega Bamz
Bodega Bamz hit a rough patch in his musical pursuit when his father kicked him and his brother Ohla out of the house. This also meant to time working in the studio, which their dad initially built for them at home. "We had no studio, we had nowhere to go, and Ohla [and I] had to sleep in his car for a few days."
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Pitbull
As a teenager, Pitbull was kicked out of his mom's house when she found out he was hanging out with the wrong crowd. "She said, 'Grab what you can in 20 minutes and get out!' I said, 'Alright,'" Pitbull recalls. Life hack: don't disobey your mom's wishes.
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Joey Fatts
Before Joey Fatts started to gain traction as a rapper and producer, the Long Beach native basically lived as a vagabond, crashing on friend's couches while he pursued his music career. Fatts remembers a specific moment when A$AP Rocky reached out to him. He just so happened to be sitting in someone's garage at the time. "He called my phone and told me that I was his favorite producer, I was sleeping in a garage. I was homeless and shit, so that was a big deal to me."
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Lil' Kim
When Lil' Kim was eight years old, she and her mother left an abusive household, but didn't have any place to stay. "There was a time when my mother and I were living out of the trunk of her car," Lil' Kim says of the experience. "We slept in the back seat." She later dealt with a second stint of homelessness when her father kicked her out of the house as a teen.
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KRS-One
KRS-One, also known as The Teacha, learned life the hard way as a teen living at The Bowery Mission homeless shelter in New York City.
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Dizzy Wright
When Dizzy Wright was in seventh grade, he and his family spent time living in a homeless shelter when their financial stability fell apart. "We stayed [at the homeless shelter] for like five months," he says.
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R.A. the Rugged Man
Earlier in his career, R.A. the Rugged Man spent time living homeless, which he raps about on his record "Lessons" off his debut studio album Die, Rugged Man, Die. "I got love for Havoc from Mobb Deep/When I was broke sleeping in the street/He hooked me up with a free beat."
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Crooked I
Crooked I has touched on his time living homeless. "I grew up on welfare and food stamps; sometimes we was homeless," he told Baller Status back in 2009. He also rapped about it on "Offshore," a recent track that features his Slaughterhouse brethren. "Fuck going back to that book store I used to sleep in/My homie let me stay on Saturday and Sunday/I used to be homeless like the weekend."
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Tory Lanez
Toronto-based rapper Tory Lanez was a teenager when he found himself on the streets with nowhere to go. "I was 14. I had just moved to Toronto at this point. My grandma kicked me out the crib," he said of the experience. "After a while it came to a point where I was just like, 'This is not what I’m supposed to be doing. I’m not supposed to be sleeping on park benches.'"
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