Birth Date: March 15, 1981

Birth Name: David Brown

How'd You Get in The Game?:

Rap Music, Music was always a part of my life from the beginning. I got in the game from just being heard back in the day. I ran into Cash Money and it didn't happen from there. That was the first established group of people that I met who were ready and were making money in the game. That was 4 years ago. Music has always been a part of me but It just got serious in the past 5 or 6 years.

How'd You Hook Up With G-Unit?:

After my situation with cash money didn't work, I went back to Nashville, TN. I did whatever it takes to make money. I built a relationship with Juvenile. I was at home, and he decided to create a label. So I decided to go out with him on the road, and record, shop myself and with him. We went to NY two and a half years ago .. Juvi had a studio in his bus, and was looking to work with other artists. 50's name was brought up and I was a fan, so I really wanted to make it happen. So 50 ended up coming through, and brought Banks & yayo. We just vibed, we played songs, and he was playing his shit, I was playing mine. It led to us recording a song. It was on "50 Cent's The Future" Mixtape. I had a little 8 bar verse titled a "little bit". From then, I just stayed in touch. 50 said that if my situation happens, I'll come for you, I'll holla. And he did.

What's Your Favorite Song off 'Beg for Mercy'?/Why?:

'G'd Up'. I like the song. For 1, the track is crazy. It was produced by Dr. Dre. It has me, Lloyd Banks and 50 Cent on the song. It's what the average ghetto child goes through everyday, and we touching on that subject in the song.

What's Your Favorite Song of all time?/Why?:

Tupac's 'All Eyes On Me'. I really like that song for the simple fact that I feel it now. I understand a little more about what he was saying in that song, and what I'm seeing now.

Who were your influences growing up?:

I caught the Tupac/Biggy era. Tupac, Dre, Eminem. I'm young so I pay my respect to the old school, but I can't sit here and tell you that I was listening to those records and understood what it was saying.

What Made You Want to be a Rapper?:

I've been illegal for so long you understand? Just to do something that I'd love to do, and its legal. It drew my attraction because I've got a true love for the music before the money. So if I can do something I love and make money I'm with it. My inspiration is my Daughter. To provide for her. That's my Extra Push. I don't' ever want to go back to Having Nothing. That makes me go 10 times harder then the average rapper.

What Artist and/or Producer Would You Like to Work with?:

Timbaland. I wouldn't mind working with Timbaland. As far as artists I've always wanted to work with 50, Em, Dr. Dre, and Snoop.. so that has come true. I've accomplished that. I wouldn't mind working with Scarface, Jay-Z and Snoop on my Solo Project.

How do you feel about the Southern Rap Movement being so strong right now?:

I respect all Southern Artists. The South .. We got a lot of weight on our shoulders. Anyone coming from the south I got a ear for. I love Little John, DTP, Luda's whole thing, TI, UGK, Style Camp, Serving the world click they gone be real hot.

What other Album, aside from 'Beg For Mercy', are you anticipating this year?:

We so focused. All I'm worried about is this 'Beg for Mercy' Album. I can't stop listening.

What's your Most Memorable Moment Since Everything Jumped Off In The Past Year?:

Buying my Mamma a house, and seeing a smile on her face. I lived in the projects till I was 22 years old. I'm 22 now. I lived in the project by choice. The lifestyle became accustomed to me and my family, so you don't really want to leave. When I got my Mamma up out of there, that's the most memorable thing in my life.

What do you do in your free time when you have it?:

Smoke Weed.

What's the Difference between performing Here in the US and Abroad?:

I think that here they know the music. They get a chance to see you here. Overseas you don't get to see us period, so the thought of us not coming back draws everybody, and it makes more people come together, it's a lot more energy.

Anything Else You Want to Say?:

The Dirty South Is here. Nashville, TN, that's where I'm from! It was a long time coming, but we here now, and it's all good.

Date of Birth
31 March 1978, Jamaica, Queens, New York City, New York, USA

Birth Name
Marvin Bernard

Nickname
The Talk of New York
Yayo

Height
6' (1.83 m)

Trivia

Member of 50 Cent's group G-Unit.

Was incarcerated in Rikers Island on a gun charge. The day after his release he was arrested again for violating his parole.

Has a daughter named Maniyah, whom was born in 2003.

His stage name "Tony", stands for Talk Of New York

His debut album 'Thoughts of a Predicate Felon' has been certified platinum.

Personal Quotes

I really don't care if it sells or generates any money towards Interscope, because Interscope only cares about three people: Eminem, Dr. Dre and 50 Cent. I'm not going to sit here and grow grey hairs over it. I'm gonna give you the best music possible because 50 is going to make sure I'm all right. I can do five shows with 50 and make over $100,000 being his hypeman. So me going on tour with 50, I can generate millions of dollars that a artist would make doing shows off their own album. - On his upcoming second album, 'Godfather of the Ghetto'. [2007]

Where Are They Now

(February 2005) Working on his debut album scheduled for a May 2005 release.

(August 2005) Released his debut album, "Thoughts of a Predicate Felon" on August 30th, 2005

Lloyd Banks is unsatisfied. Unsatisfied, despite having an incredibly successful 2003. A 2003 where he was crowned the street's number one artist, appeared on the year's top-selling record, and sold another 2 million-plus copies of an album with his own rap troupe. Lloyd Banks is so unsatisfied he's titled his G-Unit/Interscope Records debut The Hunger For More.

"When I say The Hunger For More, it could be referring to more success," says Banks, the lyrical submachine gun of 50 Cent's G-Unit arsenal. "It could be more money. Or respect. More power. More understanding. All those things lead up to that hunger for more, because my 'more' isn't everybody else's 'more.' I feel like I made it already, because I already got what everybody on the corners of the neighborhood I grew up in is striving to get. God forbid anything happen to me, my family is straight. So anything that happens after this is just me progressing as a person."

Banks's personal progression is seen throughout his debut album, especially on numbers like the soul-dipped "When The Chips Are Down," which features the Game; and the Eminem-produced "Til The End," an elegiac meditation on mortality tinged with twinkling keys and bolstered by choral flourishes. On the other end of the musical spectrum is the arena-rocking "Playboy" the festive "Heart Of Southside," which features G-Unit member Young Buck and horns bigger than your speakers; and the melodically cacophonous "Perfect Match," where Banks teams up with Brooklyn's Fabolous to exchange pearled strings of witty bon mots geared at the fairer sex. The Hunger For More's first single, the party-starting "On Fire" proves that Banks's music is at home in the clubs as it is the streets. "My record follows the same format of Get Rich Or Die Tryin' and Beg For Mercy, but it's just me so it's a whole different sound," says Banks. "I got all new producers. I'd rather break a producer than do what everybody else does. There's no guarantee that a big-name producer is gonna give you that hit record. You can pay $100,000 for one song; there's no guarantee that it's gonna be that one. It's only what you make it. And that's what I'm gonna show everyone."

Lloyd Banks was born Christopher Lloyd 22 years ago and raised in Jamaica, Queens. "My mom is Puerto Rican, my pops is black," he informs. "It was kinda like when I was with my mother's side of the family I was the bad seed, I was the one who was most unlikely to succeed. And then when I was with the black side of the family, I was the angel, because all my uncles are career felons." His parents were young and never married. And his father, who chose to pursue tax-free income on the streets, spent more time behind bars then he did with his son. That left his mother to raise a young man who was close to 6 feet tall by the 6th grade and who started sprouting facial hair in his early teens. "My mother showed me everything," Banks says. "When I was in the 3rd grade, she took a cucumber and showed me how to put the condom on." Like many kids in the inner city his age, Banks sought to escape the poverty and death of his environment.

Early on he took to writing various musings--ghetto poetry, loose narratives, nothing quite structured, though he was influenced by rap gods like Big Daddy Kane and Slick Rick. "I listened to Big Daddy Kane a lot, cause that's what my pops listened to," he says. Banks's favorite songs were Rick's "Young World" and Kane's "Smooth Operator," and "Ain't No Half-Steppin'." High school didn't agree with Banks, so he dropped out before his 16th birthday. The freewriting he had been doing had morphed into full-fledged rhymes, but that was a secret. "I never let nobody know I did it," he says. But he soon got his courage up. "I started rhyming outside and everybody started telling me, 'You should shop your material.' This is before I even got in the studio."

Banks appeared on local mixtapes, becoming one of the neighborhood's best unsigned rappers. His only competition was a childhood friend named Tony Yayo. One day, Tony, along with another childhood friend who rapped under the name 50 Cent, approached Banks with the idea of becoming a group. If Banks wanted to be down, he could be part of the crew that they were calling G-Unit. Banks was down. "I always felt like if I was to get into doing rap professionally, I wanted to get into it with somebody who was from my neighborhood," he says. "Who better than people who I've known my whole life?"

Fronted by 50 Cent, G-Unit quickly redefined the urban music industry. They produced a series of street albums with original numbers and high-quality artwork, making the discs something more than a bootleg, but not quite an independent release. 50 Cent was soon signed to Shady/Aftermath/Interscope Records and released the instantly classic, record-breaking Get Rich Or Die Tryin', on which Banks was featured. Then came G-Unit's Beg For Mercy, which was still riding high in the top 20 of the Billboard 200 after four months on the shelves. Though these successes allowed Lloyd Banks to tour the world multiple times over, one accomplishment means a bit more than all the rest: Earlier this year, Banks was anointed as 2003's Mixtape Artist Of The Year due to his appearance on G-Unit mixtapes as well as his own Money In The Bank series.

"I take pride in that, 'cause I'm not qualified for an MTV Award or a Vibe Award or a Grammysor any of that yet," says Banks. "I got my name through the mixtapes. That's why people know Lloyd Banks today. That's where it built from. I skipped what a lot of rappers have to go through to get put on. I skipped Making The Band, I skipped [106 & Park's] 'Freestyle Fridays,' the Lyricist Lounge--I skipped all that. I made my name on the mixtapes, on the streets. And that's the hardest thing to get right there."

Despite so many things going his way, Lloyd Banks is not prepared to take it easy. "People will tell me all the time, 'Look at your setup. You're guaranteed to make it.' I get upset when I hear that. Ain't nobody guaranteed nothing. I feel like they're looking at the situation wrong, 'cause I don't take advantage of nobody. I don't work less because you're working harder. I work real, real hard even though I know 50's there. He's there, he supports me 110 percent, but I don't want to put no extra pressure on him when I can do it. At the end of the day, I find myself working twice as hard."

Working twice as hard and still hungry.

DeShaun Holton born October 2, 1975, professionally known as "PROOF," is a vital member of D12 and is Eminem's crucial right-hand man, who often coordinates the stage shows and also assists with the completion of set lists for Eminem's solo performances. Proof /Big Proof /Derty Harry is an astounding freestyle artist and winner of the 1999 Freestyling competition deeming him one of Detroit's most recognized and respected wordsmiths.

Proof is the only member of D12 to appear in Eminem's groundbreaking film 8 Mile, he appears as Lil' Tic, an MC extraordinaire, in the beginning and briefly in the end of the film, however, Mekhi Phifer's character "Future" portrays Proof's real-life persona and the development of what would become a loyal and vital relationship between Proof and Eminem. Proof's success in not solely founded in his affiliation with Eminem. He was certainly flourishing before he first rose to national prominence as a part of the D12 posse. Proof, Detroit's most notorious MC and previous host of the emcee battles at Maurice Malone's Hip Hop Shop would meet the rapper who later rose to the top of the hip hop scene and became known to the world as Slim Shady/Eminem/Marshall Mathers.

"We all knew each other growing up in Detroit," Proof remembers. Proof pushed Eminem to battle. This created the street buzz that was crucial to their future and secured a record deal with the prominent producer/artist Dr. Dre's Aftermath/Interscope records. Eminem refused to travel the miles of success alone though, the relationship that developed between Proof, Eminem, Bizarre, Kon Artis, Koniva, and Swift/Swifty McVay laid the foundation for D12, and their multi-platinum album Devil's Night (which sold 4 million copies worldwide), spawned the controversial single "Purple Pills," and was released on Eminem's Shady Records/Interscope label in 2002, followed by their second multi-platinum album World released in 2004. Proof candidly stated, "forget about the word real, D12 keeps it right."

In 2005 Proof ventured out to create his own record label, Iron Fist Records, and release his first solo CD "Searching for Jerry Garcia," due in stores worldwide August 9, 2005 - the 10thyear Anniversary of Jerry Garcia's death. The strong artist roster on his upcoming CD includes such world-renowned rappers as Method Man, Nate Dogg, Eminem, 50 Cent, Obie Trice, MC Breed, and of course members of D12. Proof named the album after the former Grateful Dead front man because he observed uniqueness within a universal quality to express freedom and commonality juxtaposed with the ills that led to Garcia's demise. Proof cleverly notes, "Despite his genius, Jerry Garcia died from drugs, stress, and poor diet. At one time or another we all struggle through one of those things, so in a way, we all have a little Jerry Garcia in us." The album's scrupulous amalgamation of hard-core hip hop, reckless rock, and thoughtful jazz with live instruments lays bare his soul and undeniable skill. "I want to show that you can talk about more than one thing in hip hop. Rapping about cars and your Rolex is played out," says the MC. "You can be different and still be successful." For this, he exists as living Proof.
But, Late 2005 In A Detriot Club Proof Was Shot And Killed.The Funeral Was Huge With Alot Of Famous Rappers There To Pay Respect.

Olivia Longott was born in Brooklyn in 1981. Her father is of Cuban origin and her mother is a native of Jamaica. She was raised in the district of Jamaiqua in Queens in New York.
She began singing in the church choir, where she also learned to play the piano and violin making.

In 1999, she became the first artist to be signed to the label Clive Davis, J Records. His eponymous first solo album was released in 2001. The singles "Bizounce" and "Are U Capable" featuring Eve with are excerpts. This album does not meet the expected success, and Olivia has quickly returned from J Records.

In 2004, Olivia reappears as a member of G-Unit label. She had indeed contributed to the album Beg For Mercy, and it will make a notable appearance on the album of 50 Cent The Massacre with the tube "Candy Shop."

His new album, Behind Closed Doors was expected to emerge in 2005 but it seems rather it was given in 2007 ...
The first excerpt of this album is released in 2005. "Twist It" a duet with Lloyd Banks did not meet with success expected, which led to push the album. More recently, we have heard on the air his latest single "Best Friend" (Remix) featuring with 50 Cent.

Very little information concerning emanate from the G-Unit Olivia, and it seems to be a bit left out for several months...