LUDACRIS LIFE BIOGRAPHY:

 
  Ludacris is the stage name of Chris Bridges, born on 11 September 1977, in Champaign, Illinois, USA. During his early years he moved to Atlanta, which is where he would go on to make a name for himself as one of the most prominent Dirty South rappers of the new millennium.

   Ludacris' musical career goes back to childhood. To infancy, in fact. Born while his parents were still in college he found himself at many house partys, soaking in the music at an age most kids are still teething.

 
"They were always jamming to the old school stuff, like Frankie Beverly and Maze, Cameo, all that kind of music," said Ludacris. "They used to take me to college parties and let me get out in the middle of the floor and dance for all the other students."

   His love affair with music continued into his pre-teen years. At age 12 he joined a Chicago based hip-hop outfit called the Loudmouth Hooligans. Moving to Atlanta the same year, he pursued his goal with a vengeance. During his time at College Park's Banneker High School, he started battling in the lunch room, often getting so involved in the verbal contests that he would forget to eat. Later he started performing, showing up at talent shows, and at clubs.

 
"I would show up at any venue that had an open mic" he said.

   Ludacris began his music career as a radio DJ personality, Chris Lova Lova, on the V103 urban radio station in Atlanta, Georgia. He eventually landed a gig on Atlanta's then-new hip-hop station Hot 97.5 gaining a job producing the night show. It was here that Ludacris worked his rhymes on the mic, got the 411 on the music industry and became known throughout the Atlanta area. Eventually, Ludacris leaned toward a career as an MC rather than as a radio disc jockey. Ludacris made his mark rapping on voice over promos. He ended up being as recognizable as some of the deejays.

 
"I started rapping on the station promos. We did them over all of the top hits, so people got to hear me rap over tight beats."

   He made his recorded debut on "Phat Rabbit", a track from Timbaland's 1998 album 'Tim's Bio: Life from the Bassment'. Although both Timbaland and Jermaine Dupri showed interest in signing Ludacris, he decided to take matters into his own hands, and released the album 'Incognegro' independently on hiw own 'Disturbing The Peace Entertainment', in 1999. Fueled by the single "What's Your Fantasy," which got as many as 500 spins a week on radio in some southern markets, and went to no.1 on a local radio station, the album sold over 50,000 copies, most of them sold out of the trunk of Ludacris' car. That success caught the eye of many major labels including Def Jam and president Scarface. After a long courtship by several labels, Ludacris decided to go with Def Jam South. Def Jam Records signed Ludacris in 2000, and created a new imprint, Def Jam South, totally around him.

   Ludacris' major-label debut single was "What's Your Fantasy", from his 'Back For The First Time' album, which was made up mostly of tracks from 'Incognegro'. In addition to introducing Ludacris, his first single and music video, which became an MTV2 hit, gave America its first glimpse of his fellow Disturbing Tha Peace member Shawnna, a female rapper who has just recently begun to achieve some success of her own. In addition to singing the chorus on "What's Your Fantasy" and appearing in its video, Shawnna, along with Trina and Foxy Brown, contributed original verses to a remix of the track that featured Ludacris himself on the chorus.

   A wide range of influences show up on "Back for the first time". The hard hitting "U Got A Problem", displays a braggadocious verbal performance that demonstrates Ludacris' way with the metaphor. On the Organized Noize produced "The Game Got Switched" he raises the bar on weak MCs ("too many rookies/not enough pros"). Most of the album is produced by Ludacris' in-house producer Shondre. He's responsible for the first single, the hiccuping "What's your fantasy" in which Ludacris flips rapid fire sex rhymes over Shondre's ATL bass-inlfluenced track (at one point he imagines getting his freak on in the Georgia Dome during a Falcoms game).

   In 2001, "Southern Hospitality" became an even bigger urban radio and video hit, achieving heavy MTV2 airplay and moderate MTV airplay. Back For The First Time's third single was the controversial "Ho", which, due to lyrics, was banned or restricted on many radio stations and whose video was not played by MTV, MTV2, or even BET, although it was available online at Launch for some time.

   During the summer of 2001, Ludacris, with the help of Nate Dogg, released a single off of the Rush Hour 2 soundtrack called "Area Codes". A continuation of the lyrical themes started with "Ho", the song and video were only played in an edited version in which all uses of the word "ho" were replaced with the word "pro". Despite this the song is now a classic, and it achieved great success for Luda And Nate, and also the movie. To this day the song is still one of which Luda will always be remebered for.

   Due to his recent successes Ludacris promptly completed his next album, 'Word Of Mouf' and released it at the end of 2001. Its lead single, "Rollout (My Business)", was produced by Timbaland and gave Ludacris his first taste at a minor mainstream crossover, and the song was enormous on urban radio. Its next two singles, "Saturday (Oooh, Oooh)" and "Move Bitch", performed similarly during 2002, and all three songs' videos enjoyed MTV, BET, and MTV2 support. However, "Move Bitch" was commonly referred to as simply "Move" by radio DJ's and the word "bitch" was just muted out wherever it occurred. The title of the video also appeared as just "Move" when played on American video stations. Despite the controversy, the video was nominated for a 2003 VMA, and Luda performed it live at the awards' pre-show. Ludacris also toured with Papa Roach in 2002 after the release of their sophomore album 'Lovehatetragedy'.

   In 2003, after music from the controversial "Move Bitch" had been used in a Pepsi commercial in which Ludacris also appeared drinking the soda, Pepsi came under fire from Bill O'Reilly for supporting Ludacris. O'Reilly believed that it was wrong for an international corporation like Pepsi to target the American teen audience by glamorizing a person like Ludacris, a “gangsta rapper” who had admitted having been in gangs and whose lyrics contained profanity, violence, and overt sexuality. O'Reilly urged his viewers to complain to and boycott Pepsi for its affiliation with Ludacris. Eventually, Pepsi gave in to O'Reilly and dropped Ludacris. However, this created more controversy than it ended, as Russell Simmons pointed out Pepsi's hypocrisy and what he considered even to be racism: Simmons argued that Pepsi could not legitimately fire Ludacris for being a presumed violent and profane role model while also employing the Osbournes, who are also known for being violent, vulgar, and profane. Simmons himself, along with Ludacris, then called for a black Pepsi boycott. In the end, Pepsi settled with Simmons by agreeing to help fund black causes, even though the Osbournes were permitted to keep their advertising contracts with the corporation. Ludacris, though annoyed about the situation itself, was happy that he got to keep the money that Pepsi had paid him for the ads. O'Reilly later protested Budweiser's deal with Ludacris.

   Luda also landed a major film role in the very successfull '2 Fast 2 Furious' movie. Luda recieved great praise for his first major Hollywoodrole. Luda had made a previous appearance in 'The Wash' the previous year, which also starred fellow rappers Dr Dre and Snoop, but that movie was nowhere near as succesfull to '2 Fast 2 Furious'. During the spring of 2003, Ludacris returned to the music scene after a brief hiatus with a new single, "Act A Fool" off the '2 Fast 2 Furious' soundtrack. At around the same time, he released the lead single from his upcoming album, 'Chicken & Beer', called "P-Poppin'". Neither of his new singles was as well-received by either the urban or pop audiences as his previous songs had been, and both music videos received only limited airplay. 'Chicken & Beer' opened strongly, but without a popular single, the album fell quickly.

   However, in the fall of 2003, Ludacris rebounded with his next single, "Stand Up", which appeared on both 'Chicken & Beer' as well as the soundtrack for the teen hip-hop/dance movie, 'Honey'. "Stand Up" went on to become Ludacris' biggest mainstream hit to date, peaking at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and garnering heavy airplay on mainstream pop, rhythmic, and urban radio stations, as well as on MTV, MTV2, and BET. However a rap group known as I.O.F. (It's Only Family) launched a lawsuit on Ludacris and producer Kanye West for copyright infringement over the hit "Stand Up".

   The album's next single, "Splash Waterfalls", was released in early 2004. Though not a pop hit, it became a success at urban radio and BET, thanks to its being Ludacris' most sexual video yet and an R&B remix that featured Raphael Saadiq and sampled Tony! Toni! Tone!'s "Whatever You Want". Luda next released "Blow It Out", a gritty song that had a heavily low-budget, gritty, and urban-looking music video, which was a huge departure from the colorful, sensual, R&B leanings depicted in "Splash Waterfalls". "Blow It Out" acted as a scathing response to Ludacris' critics, namely Bill O'Reilly, who is mentioned by name.

   Most recently On December 7 2004, he released his fifth album, 'Red Light District'. Which went straight to No.1 on the USA Billboard charts!