Joseph Edgar Foreman (born July 28, 1974), better known by his
stage name
A stage name is a pseudonym used by performers and entertainers—such as actors, comedians, singers, and musicians. Such professional aliases are adopted for a wide variety of reasons and they may be similar, or nearly identical, to an individu ...
Afroman, is an American rapper, singer, songwriter, comedian and musician. He is best known for his songs "
Because I Got High", released in 2000, and "
Crazy Rap", which was released in 2001 and both were featured on his album ''
The Good Times''. Afroman was nominated for a
Grammy
The Grammy Awards (stylized as GRAMMY), or simply known as the Grammys, are awards presented by the Recording Academy of the United States to recognize "outstanding" achievements in the music industry. They are regarded by many as the most pres ...
award in 2002.
Early life
Born in Los Angeles, Afroman initially grew up in
South-Central Los Angeles
South Los Angeles, also known as South Central Los Angeles or simply South Central, is a region in southwestern Los Angeles County, lying mostly within the city limits of Los Angeles, south of downtown.
It is "defined on Los Angeles city maps as ...
. He later lived in
Palmdale in the
High Desert of
Southern California
Southern California (commonly shortened to SoCal) is a geographic and cultural region that generally comprises the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. It includes the Los Angeles metropolitan area, the second most populous urban ...
, and then Hattiesburg, Mississippi.
Career
Afroman's musical career began in the eighth grade, when he began recording homemade songs and selling them to his classmates.
"The first tape I made was about my eighth-grade teacher", he once recalled. "She got me kicked out of school for
sagging my pants, which was a big deal back then. So I wrote this song about her and it sold about 400 copies: it was selling to teachers, students, just about everybody. And I realized that, even though I wasn't at school, my song was at school, so in a way I was still there. All these people would come by my house just to give me comments about how cool they thought the song was." Foreman also performed in his church at a young age, playing both the drums and guitar.
In 1998, Afroman released his first album, ''My Fro-losophy'', and later relocated to
Hattiesburg, Mississippi
Hattiesburg is a city in the U.S. state of Mississippi, located primarily in Forrest County (where it is the county seat and largest city) and extending west into Lamar County. The city population was 45,989 at the 2010 census, with the popul ...
,
where he met drummer Jody Stallone, keyboardist/bassist Darrell Havard and producer Tim Ramenofsky (a.k.a. Headfridge).
Ramenofsky produced and released Afroman's album ''
Because I Got High'' in 2000 on
T-Bones Records; it was distributed primarily through concerts and the file-sharing service
Napster
Napster was a peer-to-peer file sharing application. It originally launched on June 1, 1999, with an emphasis on digital audio file distribution. Audio songs shared on the service were typically encoded in the MP3 format. It was founded by Sha ...
before its title track was played on ''
The Howard Stern Show
''The Howard Stern Show'' is an American radio show hosted by Howard Stern that gained wide recognition when it was nationally syndicated on terrestrial radio from WXRK in New York City, between 1986 and 2005. The show has aired on Howard 100 a ...
''. Afroman was inspired to write the song's lyrical content by his unwillingness to clean his room, and he ran with the idea of everyday tasks being derailed by drug use.
In late 2001, the song became a hit and was featured in the films ''
Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back'', ''
The Perfect Score'', and ''
Disturbia'' later in the 2000s. "Because I Got High" was nominated for the
Grammy Award for Best Rap Solo Performance in 2002.
After the single's success, Afroman joined the lineup of
Cypress Hill
Cypress Hill is an American hip hop group from South Gate, California. They have sold over 20 million albums worldwide and have multi-platinum and platinum albums. They are considered to be among the main progenitors of West Coast and 1990 ...
's fall festival "Smoke Out" with the
Deftones
Deftones is an American alternative metal band formed in Sacramento, California in 1988. They were formed by Chino Moreno (vocals, guitar), Stephen Carpenter (guitar), Abe Cunningham (drums), and Dominic Garcia (bass). During their first f ...
,
Method Man
Clifford Smith, Jr. (born March 2, 1971), better known by his stage name Method Man, is an American rapper, songwriter, record producer, and actor. He is known as a member of the East Coast hip hop collective Wu-Tang Clan. He is also half o ...
, and others. After this,
Universal Records
Universal Music Group N.V. (often abbreviated as UMG and referred to as just Universal Music) is a Dutch–American multinational music corporation under Dutch law. UMG's corporate headquarters are located in Hilversum, Netherlands and its ...
signed Afroman to a six-album deal, and Universal released ''The Good Times'' in 2001. ''The Good Times'' was a compilation of Afroman's first two albums and some new tracks.
Afroman started releasing his music independently and mostly through the Internet in 2004,
and that year, he recorded ''Jobe Bells'', which
satirized
Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of shaming or e ...
traditional
Christmas songs.
Afroman was part of the 2010
Gathering of the Juggalos
The Gathering of the Juggalos (The Gathering or GOTJ) is an annual festival put on by Psychopathic Records, featuring performances by the entire label roster as well as numerous well-known musical groups and underground artists. It was founded by ...
lineup.
In October 2014, Afroman released a remix of his hit song "Because I Got High" in order to highlight the usefulness of cannabis as part of the effort to legalize its sale across the United States.
Personal life
Religion
In 2003, Afroman declared himself a
Christian
Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words ''Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χρι� ...
.
Assault case
On February 17, 2015, Afroman was midway through his performance at a live music venue in
Biloxi, Mississippi
Biloxi ( ; ) is a city in and one of two county seats of Harrison County, Mississippi, United States (the other being the adjacent city of Gulfport). The 2010 United States Census recorded the population as 44,054 and in 2019 the estimated popu ...
, when a woman walked on stage. She approached Foreman from behind, drink in hand, while dancing. When she touched Foreman he spun around and punched her off the stage. He was subsequently escorted offstage by security and was arrested and taken into custody, and charged with
assault
An assault is the act of committing physical harm or unwanted physical contact upon a person or, in some specific legal definitions, a threat or attempt to commit such an action. It is both a crime and a tort and, therefore, may result in cr ...
. He was released on bond shortly thereafter.
There were reportedly 12 to 15 security guards on duty to manage a crowd in excess of 500 people. When interviewed, Foreman's representative claimed that the act was an involuntary reflex caused by the woman invading his space. He also stated that he mistook the woman for another audience member who had been consistently heckling him. He publicly apologized and sought assistance with anger management.
Raid on Ohio home
On August 23, 2022, TMZ reported that Afroman had taken to social media and posted images and videos of his home in
Adams County, Ohio being raided by the sheriff's department. He reportedly asked for attorney
Ben Crump
Benjamin Lloyd Crump (born October 10, 1969) is an American attorney who specializes in civil rights and catastrophic personal injury cases such as wrongful death lawsuits. His practice has focused on cases such as Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, ...
.
Local news media reached out to law enforcement who declined to give any information about the warrant and search. Afroman posted the raid was about a marijuana vape pen. He also posted about a previous burglary on his home where he was threatened with arrest by the sheriff's department if he kept checking about the progress of the case and was told they didn't have time.
Discography
*''My Fro-losophy'' (1998)
*''
Because I Got High'' (2000)
*''
Sell Your Dope'' (2000)
*''
The Good Times'' (2001)
*''
Afroholic... The Even Better Times'' (2004)
*''
Jobe Bells'' (2004)
*''4R0:20'' (2004)
*''The Hungry Hustlerz: Starvation Is Motivation'' (2004)
*''Drunk 'n' High'' (2006)
*''A Colt 45 Christmas'' (2006)
*''Waiting to Inhale'' (2008)
*''Frobama: Head of State'' (2009)
*''Marijuana Music'' (2013)
*''The Frorider'' (2014)
*''Happy to Be Alive'' (2016)
*''Cold Fro-T-5 and Two Frigg Fraggs'' (2017)
*''Save a Cadillac, Ride a Homeboy'' (2020)
*''Lemon Pound Cake'' (2022)
References
External links
*
*
Afromanat
Discogs
Discogs (short for discographies) is a database of information about audio recordings, including commercial releases, promotional releases, and bootleg or off-label releases. While the site was originally created with a goal of becoming the ...
{{DEFAULTSORT:Afroman
1974 births
Living people
African-American Christians
American hip hop singers
Musicians from Hattiesburg, Mississippi
Rappers from Mississippi
Rappers from Los Angeles
Underground rappers
California Democrats
Cannabis music
Mississippi Democrats
West Coast hip hop musicians
American male drummers
American male bass guitarists
20th-century American singers
21st-century American singers
20th-century American drummers
21st-century American drummers
Guitarists from Los Angeles
Guitarists from Mississippi
20th-century American rappers
21st-century American rappers
African-American male rappers
21st-century American bass guitarists
20th-century American bass guitarists
20th-century American male singers
21st-century American male singers
African-American guitarists
20th-century African-American male singers
21st-century African-American musicians