Before They Were Famous

Before becoming a part of the next wave of Afrobeat hitmakers, the artist known as Tems was born Temilade Openiyi on June 11th, 1995 in Lagos, Nigeria. With her father being British Nigerian, Tems and her family moved to London when she was still just a baby. Still, they’d return to Nigeria some four years later where her parents got divorced shortly thereafter. From that point forward, Tems was raised alongside her brother, Tunji, by their mother in the neighborhood in a tiny one-bedroom apartment. On Sunday everyone would attend the same local church and everyone in their community always seemed to know everyone else. With Lagos being such a big city and Tems having a quiet demeanor, she often felt alone in the midst of the sprawling capital and so she began writing poetry as a means to deal with her complicated emotions

BEFORE CRIS CAWLEY would forge an impressive career for herself as the mastermind behind Game Changer Publishing. BEFORE CRIS CAWLEY would extend her brand by offering her clients a suite of professional programs designed to help them become their very best. BEFORE CRIS CAWLEY would have nearly 1K Subscribers on YouTube and 108K followers on Instagram at the time of this recording. One sure fire way to make an impact on the world is to write a best-selling book. Unfortunately, the process of getting that book published can be a dauting experience for darn near anyone, especially if you don’t happen to have the necessary connections in the industry. But that’s where entrepreneur Cris Cawley comes in. Over the past two decades, she’s devoted the bulk of her time to starting her own company known as Game Changer Publishing and along the way she’s helped a whole host of people accomplish the dream of publishing a successful selling book in 90 days or less. Not only that, but she’s also an award-winning coach and consultant who offers her clients guaranteed ways to succeed in growing their brands. But sometimes it can be hard to believe the hype when you don’t know anything about the person promising to change your life around for the better. So, today, we’re going to introduce you to Cris’s story and give you a taste of how she accomplished her remarkable achievements on our newest episode of Before They Were Famous!

Another year, another list of celebs who passed away, 2022 saw its fair share of celebrity deaths with many of those we grew up with passing away of natural causes but also some young stars like Takeoff and PnB Rock who lost their lives at young age needlessly. As we have become accustomed to, its been another challenging year for the world of rap and hip hop but also for other stars to Gen Z like Aaron Carter, Coolio, and Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins. We are going to go through a ton of bios here today, off the top we have The Queen who was 96. A personal fav of mine, Ray Liotta from Goodfellas fame. One of the strangest deaths of the year was Anne Heche age 53. As well as Ivana Trump who is said to have fallen down her stairs. From the world of comedy, we have Bob Saget, Gilbert Godfried, and Louie Anderson are three comics who passed around the same time. We also have 4 actors who all portrayed Italian mobsters. Other big names like Meatloaf and the White Power Ranger Jason David Frank. Some stars we had time to cover over the past year, others we didn’t have time to produce a full biography video on like TV DJ Stephen ‘tWitch’ Boss who took his own life just before the holidays. In today's video, we will pay a quick tribute to all those we lost over the year 2022. If I missed anyone please let me know and feel free to leave your condolences in the comments below. Now, let’s get into this video.

Genius, tyrannical, revolutionary, and dangerously egotistical, those are four descriptions that contrast in their own unique way, however, they are also 4 ways that one could describe the artist Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, and even then that's a very surface level way to put it. In the year 2022 Ye had probably one of the most unique years of his career from his creative endeavors to controversy and the wild statements he makes, now Ye really isn't a stranger to any of those things I mean you could make a list of the crazy things he's done every year but what this man has done in 2022 ladies and gentlemen is a different beast altogether. As I said Ye has always been controversial and polarising however this year we saw Ye shift from being someone who transcends, delivers nuance, and is divisive to someone who is just objectively wrong and some might even say harmful or dangerous. From disastrous album roll-outs to public disputes with his wife and Pete Davidson to embarking on a campaign of anti-Semitism that even made Alex Jones ayo bruh chill. Many dubs this as the year we lost Ye, obviously not in a literal sense the man is still here and well, but more in a cultural and social sense, Ye meant and did a lot for a lot of people so it was tough but many had to put their foot down and say they are done with Ye. So here are the 5 craziest things that Mr. West has done in the year 2022 right here on Before They Were Famous.

After turning himself into the biggest childhood actor of all time with the holiday classic “Home Alone”, Macaulay Culkin would see his acting career dry-up by the time he turned 14. And yet -- he still somehow managed to wind up a perfectly happy 42-year-old with a fiancée and baby, living the type of life few childhood stars ever get the chance to experience. Before all of that, Macaulay Culkin was born on August 26th, 1980 in New York City to his father, Christopher Culkin, a former child actor turned lackluster Broadway star, and his mother Patricia Brentrup. The two were never married but still produced a brood of seven children, including five sons and two daughters – all of whom lived in a cramped New York City apartment where the kids shared a series of bunk beds jammed into one room. Unfortunately, Macaulay never had much control over his own career and wound up at the mercy of his father in particular, who often chose his son’s roles for him. After early roles in television series like ‘The Equalizer” and the hit comedy film “Uncle Buck”, Macaulay’s big break came when he was just eight-years-old on the set of John Hughes’ masterpiece, “Home Alone”.

American YouTube star, TikToker and Instagram personality Lofe has been steadily building a reputation for himself as one of the internet’s most promising new voices in comedy over a period of almost four years now. After a particularly tumultuous youth which would see him battling with depression, loneliness, and fixating on failure resulting in suicidal thoughts, Lofe would finally find his calling at the age of 18 when he first began uploading a series of promising sketches displaying a range of comedic abilities that have since become undeniable. In fact, Lofe might very well now be one of the best pranksters in the history of the art form. And if you don’t think pranking is an art form, well after listening to this dude’s story your opinion on that might change a little bit. So, if you’ve ever wanted to learn about the many obstacles Lofe had to overcome to see himself blow up over the course of the past year, then stay tuned to our newest episode of Before They Were Famous to find out!

BEFORE becoming one of the most promising female Emcee’s to emerge out of New York City in a hot minute, Murda B was actually born in late October in the city of Boston, Massachusetts, which means there’s a pretty good chance that that “B” in her name – well, it might stand for Boston. So, how did Murda B become the next big thing out of Sev-Side if she’s really from Bean-town? Well, to hear her tell it, Murda B had herself a boyfriend from that area of New York City and after meeting his crew, she formed connections and relationships that would last her a lifetime. These hook-ups would pay off in the long run because back when she was younger, Murda B spent most of her free-time expanding her horizons by learning new things. She not only taught herself how to a play wide-range of instruments, she also developed a passion for make-up and singing as well. As for how Murda B went from singing to getting involved in drill-rap? Well, according to her, she did it to prove a point to an ex-boyfriend, someone who liked to fancy himself a pretty spectacular rapper but then got showed up by his partner when she decided to spit-fire in his face. He might not have been embarrassed badly enough to quit his own aspirations all together, but Murda B still left her ex behind in the dust as her career eventually took off and his continued to stall. Prior to that, Murda B was often encouraged by her friends to pursue the artform in a meaningful way because they believed that as talented a female rapper as she was, she could have a chance to go all the way.

BEFORE being used as a bargaining chip in a one-for-one prisoner swap that freed women’s basketball star Brittney Griner, convicted arms dealer Viktor Bout otherwise known as the “Merchant of Dеаth” -- was born on what’s believed to have been January 13th, 1967. Douglas Farah, a senior agent at the International Assessment and Strategy Center who once co-authored a book on Bout told CNN in 2010 that Viktor’s early days are still largely a mystery, even to high-up government officials. That being said, according to multiple passports, Bout was likely raised in Dushanbe, Tajikstan as the son of a bookkeeper and an auto-mechanic. At the age of 18, he was conscripted into the Soviet Army after having spent much of his youth playing competitive volleyball according to a New Yorker profile. After being forced into military service, Viktor served two years in an infantry brigade in western Ukraine, before graduating from the Military Institute on Foreign Languages, which has a reputation for being a well-established feeder school for Russian military intelligence. In other words – the likelihood is that Viktor was a Soviet officer, ranking as highly as perhaps even a Lieutenant. During his time in the Russian forces, Bout worked in war-torn areas like Mozambique and Angola, where Russia had large military presences at the time. He first landed on the radar of the wider world at large when the United Nations began to investigate him in the early-to-mid 1990s. That’s also right around the time the United States began to get involved as well.

After becoming one of the hottest reality television stars of an entire generation, Tila Tequila has gone on to live one of the strangest and most troubling lives of recent celebrity memory. Make a fortune off her love life? She’s done that too. But those moments of glory feel like a million years ago compared to her more recent ventures into anti-Semitism, self-harm, and some truly bizarre religious beliefs. Long before she’d become a train wreck, Tila Tequila was born to Vietnamese parents in the country of Singapore on October 24th, 1981. Her parents fled to that sovereign island nation by boat from Vietnam when Tila was still in her mother’s womb. Alongside the rest of her family which includes her two older siblings, Daniel and Terri, Tila left Singapore when she was a year old and immigrated to the United States where she settled in Houston, Texas. When asked to reflect upon her childhood in America, Tila has often described her upbringing in Texas as challenging, to say the least

AFTER making waves in the adult entertainment industry that are still reverberating to this day, Mia Khalifa is now earning nearly as much money in 24-hours as she once made throughout the entirety of her adult entertainment career while continuing to hold the medium accountable. Long before all of that, Mia Khalifa was born Sarah Joe Chamoun on February 19th, 1993 in the city of Beirut and was raised in what she’s referred to in the past as a very conservative Catholic family. After attending a French language private school in her native country, Mia would immigrate to the United States alongside her parents in 2001 to escape the dangers of the South Lebanon conflict. Once in America, Mia would settle in Montgomery County, Maryland where hers was the only family of Lebanese descent in the area. As such, she struggled to fit in.

BEFORE becoming “SteveWillDoIt’s” on and off again girlfriend, Celina Smith was born on February 22nd, 1999 and grew up an only child in a single-parent household in Orlando, Florida. Now, I’m not going to lie to you – a whole bunch of the “finer” details about Celina’s life have yet to be revealed. In fact, outside of her relationship with Steve -- which goes back considerably farther than you might think – we don’t know a whole lot about Celina’s past. But here’s what I was able to uncover. According to Celina’s Instagram page – she and Steve first met while still in high-school and started dating when she was 14 and he was 15. Soon afterwards they kick-started their relationship which would go onto last a number of years ... even if there have been some bumps along the way which we’ll get into further in a moment or two. Now, only a few months ago, SteveWillDoIt’s YouTube channel was taken down as a result of him having posted clips of himself gambling on his secondary channel without taking the necessary steps to protect himself from the platforms’ rigorous protocols when it comes to that sort of thing.

AFTER kick-starting her wildly successful career with a viral video that asserted her as hip-hop’s “icy girl”, rapper Saweetie has been hard at work on her debut studio album. Unfortunately, a high-profile lover’s quarrel and some questionable sales-numbers have recently thrown a wrench into all of her best laid plans. But long before all that would come to fruition, Saweetie was born Diamonte Valentin Harper on July 2nd, 1993 in the city of Hayward, California. Largely raised in the Bay Area, Saweetie earned her eventual stage name from her grandmother, who used the loving term of endearment as a nickname. And even though she had herself a couple of industry contacts thanks to her mom’s former reputation as a model who popped-up in a few iconic hip-hop videos back in the day -- including DMX’s “What These B*tches Want” and Nelly’s “Ride wit Me” -- Saweetie says that it was always her intent to make it on her own merit. Saweetie grew up listening to the classic rap-stylings of artists like 2Pac, Biggie, and Lil Kim – which meant that by the time she was thirteen, she was already writing her own lyrics in a journal that she kept in her room. Shortly thereafter she’d perform for one of the first times ever at a high-school talent show taking place during Black History Month. But knowing that she needed a back-up plan just in case – Saweetie also made sure to place an emphasis on completing her education. After graduating from Monterey Trail High School in Sacramento County, she began her post-secondary education at San Diego State before eventually transferring to the University of Southern California.

Before earning her first cross-over hit with “Big Energy” and seeing over a hundred of her unreleased tracks leak onto the internet, the rapper Latto was born Alyssa Michelle Stephens on December 22nd, 1998, in Columbus, Ohio to bi-racial couple, Misti Pitts and Shayne Stephens. At the age of two, her parents moved the family from Ohio to Atlanta, Georgia where Alyssa grew up on the South Side in Clayton County and bonded with her father over their shared interest in drag-racing. As a kid, Alyssa was always drumming up ingenious ways to earn a little extra scratch. She not only sold candy in the halls of her elementary school but when she got a little bit older, she claims she would sometimes make around $10K a night by throwing house parties and charging an entry fee at the door, while also marking up snacks like chips and soda on the inside. During these parties, Alyssa would play the music from some of her favorite artists, not only rappers that her father introduced her to like Tupac, Bone Thugs N Harmony, as well as the NWA, but her own favorites like Nicki Minaj and Gucci Mane as well.