Before They Were Famous

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 Thomlinson, but he was adopted by his parents, Allen and Sue Dісk who then passed on their last name. During his childhood, Andy got to see a whole bunch of the world thanks to the fact that his father served as a commander of a nuclear submarine in the United States Navy. Andy’s family lived in seven different places, including Yugoslavia, before moving to Joliet, Illinois in 1982 when he was 17 years old.

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 his family lived on top of a bar that his father owned. Unfortunately, his mother was struck down by illness in 1975 when he was only five. After this tragic turn of events, Bryan and his three siblings, Kim, Ronald, and Ray were taken in by their Uncle and spent the next two years living in Prince George, British Columbia – a fast growing logging town that was on its way to becoming the second largest city in the province and one with more millionaires per capita than anywhere else in Canada.

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? Throughout her childhood she was unsure, but that never stopped her from working towards it. Starting at around eight-years-old, Lola began using words as an outlet to express herself creatively. With her father having never had much of a presence in her life, her mom sent her to spend a summer in Birmingham, Alabama at her grandmother’s house. That’s where Lola came across a music video for the rap duo Kris Kross and instantly fell in love with hip-hop. While watching that video, Lola turned to her grandma and told her point-blank that one day, she was going to become a rapper herself. But a lot would happen between that realization and the fulfillment of her dreams. With how uncomfortable she was discussing the difficult emotions she was experiencing, Lola begged her mom to bring her home a bunch of journals from the 99-cent store and began chronicling her feelings as often as possible

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 known as Red Dragon Karate. By the time he reached 12, Frank had already earned his first black belt and became committed to passing on the Code of the Dragon through teaching. As he grew older, he’d absorb further art-forms including Taekwondo, Judo, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and Muay Thai on his way to gaining experience as a mixed-martial artist. Then, in 1994, Frank would become the owner of Red Dragon Karate where he had begun his journey 14-years-earlier. When Jason David Frank was introduced in 1993 as one of the original six crime-and-monster-fighting superheroes that were masked head-to-toe in flashy armor and kung-fu skills, it wasn’t actually something that was meant to last. Fans of the series will no doubt remember that Frank started off his career as Tommy Oliver, the Green Ranger in Season 1. At first, he was introduced as an enemy of the Power Rangers during the five-episode arc known as “Green with Evil” – but when it became clear that he had instantly turned into a fan-favorite character, he signed on for a recurring role and inevitably made his way over to the side of good by transforming into the White Ranger and becoming the new leader of the group.

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”. Fuzzz99 -- who also goes by the name Mol Fanikos -- began their content creation on TikTok in January of 2020. Six months later, they’d achieve their first viral video with a clip that earned over 342,000 views and well over 120,000 likes. So who is Fuzzz99 off camera? Due to the severity of the hatred being sent in Buzzz 99’s direction his real name, location, age haven’t really come to light but one duet revealed that he is likely 26 years old. Due to the vast amount of hate coming in left right and centre other social media apps like Instagram have been set to private. There is no famous birthdays page. Very little info, we do a little more about Buzzz’s birth genders which he revealed himself in a viral tik tok.

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 two or three brothers somewhere around the house and he’d catch up with the others whenever he could. In regards to growing up in Newark, Bandman never knew what he was going to experience on any given day and this led to him growing up pretty fast. You could certainly say that he was a product of his environment, but Bandman always did what he could to turn that to his advantage. For instance, while attending Maple Avenue Elementary School from kindergarten through Grade 5, he heard the beat that would eventually become the sample of his breakthrough track “Heartbroken” for the first time.

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 this one time that he almost caught a game-winning pass at the end of the 95 AFC Championship game against the Pittsburgh Steelers. For the most part however, Amari was primarily raised by his mother Johanna alongside his sister, Savanna. Johanna is a former model and current brand ambassador-slash-entrepreneur who split from Aaron during Amari’s childhood and pursued entertainment opportunities for herself and her kids like the Lifetime series “Bringing Up Ballers”. This reality show aired back in 2017 and followed five Chicago-based families as they sacrificed and struggled to support their promising up-and-coming basketball playing sons. Think “Basketball Wives” meets “Dance Moms” and you’ve got a pretty good sense of what this show was like. It was an unusual level of exposure for a teenaged athlete, but it helped Amari share his basketball talents with the rest of the world and he appreciates everything his mother has done for him throughout his life, including offering shooting technique advice.

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 beginning. Now, unfortunately, I can’t tell you Kazumi’s birth name. Believe me -- we asked -- but because she keeps her career a secret from her parents, she hasn’t revealed her given name to the wider world at large just yet. What we do know is that after being born in Kuwait, it wasn’t long before Kazumi’s parents moved their family of Filipino heritage to California where she would spend her childhood growing up in Northeast Los Angeles. In fact, Kazumi would stick around this part of the country for the next two decades and over those years she’s come to consider herself a true LA native.

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 whipping his hand with a wire coat hanger. Then, in 2016, he and his siblings left their mom behind and immigrated to the United States, settling in New York City – more specifically, Courtlandt Avenue in the Bronx – to live with their father. At the time of his arrival in North America, Diallo couldn’t speak a single word of English, so he quickly integrated himself in not only the city’s culture, but his new step-family as well and within two years he was speaking the language fluently.

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 always let him play music all around the house as loud as he wanted and when other moms would ask why she’d let her son listen to music at such a high volume, she’d tell them that at least that way, she always knew where he was and what he was getting up to. Chauncey wasn’t the only musician in the family either. His Uncle, Rodney Benford, was a member of the R&B group Troop, and he encouraged his young nephew regularly to pursue his talents to their fullest extent by skipping out on other normal teenaged social activities like parties to focus on developing his musical abilities.