Jermaine Dupri

While Jermaine Dupri’s career straddles distinct eras of music—and has endured through radical changes in its distribution—his instincts as a hit maker have only become more finely honed. Dupri was born in North Carolina in 1972 and raised in Atlanta, the city he soon turned into his own lab, playground, and overflowing talent pool from which to pluck new stars. Through his So So Def Recordings label, he launched acts like Kris Kross, Xscape, and Da Brat, and was instrumental in shaping the careers of Usher, Mariah Carey, and Bow Wow. Well versed in the glossy aesthetics of late-’90s hip-hop and R&B, Dupri helped transform the former genre in the 2000s as one of the early believers in snap music, the irresistibly minimal rap style typified by So So Def’s Dem Franchize Boyz. A notable rapper in his own right, Dupri’s distinctive voice allows him to hold his own on titanic singles with JAY-Z (“Money Ain’t a Thang”) and Ludacris (“Welcome to Atlanta”).