James Todd Smith. LL Cool J. Ladies Love Cool James. Uncle L. One man with many names. A man of unlimited ambition and the talent to back it up. A man of undeniable influence who helped introduce the music of the urban underground into suburban homes across the country.

LL Cool J has done what most rap artists have not been able to: He has remained relevant for more than two decades. As a pioneer of the genre, he has evolved along with the constantly changing hip-hop culture and has remained a superstar. Despite a career marked by controversy and criticism from his peers, LL has continually shifted gears and reinvented his image and his music to stay at or near the top.

Melissa Arnette Elliott, better known as Missy Elliott, was born on July 1, 1971, in Portsmouth, Virginia. At the time of Missy’s birth, singer-songwriters ruled America’s popular music scene. Artists such as John Denver, Carole King, and James Taylor, and rock bands such as the Rolling Stones, Genesis, and Pink Floyd dominated the airwaves.

The record industry was booming in the early 1970s, and many record labels merged to form larger companies. Because so much money was being made, and thanks in part to the success of labels such as Motown in the 1960s, many of these companies took chances and formed rhythm and blues—or R&B—divisions. At the time, popular music was still fairly split along racial lines, and R&B was thought of mainly as “black music.” But as record companies made more money, and budgets loosened, they began hiring more upper-level African-American employees and signing black artists in greater numbers.

On a cold, rainy evening just before Halloween in 2002, an assassin’s bullet put an end to what was arguably the most influential hip-hop group of all time: Run-DMC.

At approximately 7:30 p.m. on October 30, Run-DMC’s longtime DJ, Jason Mizell—a.k.a. Jam Master Jay—was shot in the head at point-blank range in his New York City recording studio by an intruder. Jay was seated on a couch in the lounge playing video games when a masked man burst into his Merrick Boulevard studio and opened fire with a .40-caliber pistol.

In the year 2003, rapper Jay-Z was sitting on top of the world. In just eight years in the music industry, he had released nine full-­length albums and collaborated on four additional albums, selling more than 30 million records. He had helped to create a business empire based in the high-­profile industries of fashion and music. His personal worth was estimated to be more than $300 million. His name was linked romantically with one of the country’s most successful and beautiful R & B singers, Beyoncé Knowles. He had started a scholarship fund, had purchased a part of the NBA’s New Jersey Nets, had discovered and helped to develop countless platinum-­selling recording artists, had started a film production company, and was considered by many to be one of the best, if not the best, rapper of all time. What better time, then, to announce his retirement from the recording business? As he put it in the song “Encore” on his “retirement album,” The Black Album, “Jay’s status appears to be at an all-­time high / perfect time to say good-­bye.”

He was born Marshall Bruce Mathers III. He is best known to the public by his stage name, Eminem. In many of his songs and videos, he plays the role of Slim Shady. The combination has been powerful and successful. The mix of Marshall Mathers the man, Eminem the rapper, and Slim Shady the evil alter ego, has captivated and intrigued audiences worldwide. Eminem is one of the world’s most popular rap artists. Between 1999 and 2006, he sold more than 73,000,000 albums worldwide. He is one of the top-selling rappers of all time, second only to the late Tupac Shakur. (Interestingly, Eminem produced Tupac’s album Loyal to the Game. It is the eighth album of remixes and previously unreleased material to be released since Tupac’s murder in 1996.)