Davood Ali Asgari, better known by his stage name Locksmith, is an American rapper from

Richmond, California Richmond is a city in western Contra Costa County, California, United States. The city was municipal corporation, incorporated on August 7, 1905, and has a Richmond, California City Council, city council.

. He is half of the former underground duo

The Frontline The Frontline is an American rap duo from Richmond, California, consisting of Left and Locksmith, also known as Lock.Hildebrand, Lee (2005)RICHMOND VIOLENCE FUELS HIP-HOP DUO, ''San Francisco Chronicle'', June 26, 2005, retrieved 2010-07-06 Th ...

, which pioneered the "New Bay" resurgence movement in the

Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay estuaries in Northern California. The Bay Area is defined by the Association of Bay Area Gov ...

in the 2000s.

Background

Locksmith was born and raised in

in the neighborhood of Crescent Park. His father is

Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...

, who had immigrated from

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

, and his mother was

African American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...

from

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

, originally from

Tennessee Tennessee ( , ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked state in the Southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the 36th-largest by area and the 15th-most populous of the 50 states. It is bordered by Kentucky to th ...

. For the greater part of his childhood, he was raised predominantly by his mother's side of his family as his father was the only one from his Iranian side, until he had gotten older when other paternal family-members also arrived. He has four older

half-sibling A sibling is a relative that shares at least one parent with the subject. A male sibling is a brother and a female sibling is a sister. A person with no siblings is an only child. While some circumstances can cause siblings to be raised separat ...

s from his mother's previous marriage. Between the 80s and 90s, his sister, who is a decade his senior, rapped as MC Spice and had opened up for the likes of

E-40 Earl Tywone Stevens Sr. (born November 15, 1967), better known by his stage name E-40, is an American rapper. He is a founding member of the rap group The Click, and the founder of Sick Wid It Records. He has released 26 studio albums to date, a ...

Blackalicious Blackalicious was an American hip-hop duo from Sacramento, California, made up of rapper Gift of Gab and DJ/producer Chief Xcel. They are noted for Gift of Gab's often tongue-twisting, multisyllabic, complex rhymes and Chief Xcel's soulful pr ...

and

Digital Underground Digital Underground was an American alternative hip hop group from Oakland, California. Their personnel changed and rotated with each album and tour. Digital Underground's leader and mainstay was Gregory "Shock G" Jacobs (also known as Humpty Hu ...

. In 2010, his mother died. Locksmith went to

De Anza High School De Anza High School is a secondary school located in Richmond, California, United States, named after Spanish explorer Juan Bautista de Anza. It is part of the West Contra Costa Unified School District and serves northeast Richmond, the unincorpor ...

in Richmond, and attended

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

, where he graduated in African American Studies. He played basketball during his youth, through which he met his childhood friend Left. After graduating from school, the pair worked as mentors at the West Contra Costa Youth Service Bureau where they mentored teenagers and adolescents. He worked there, part-time, for a decade before moving on to concentrate on his solo music career.

Career

Battle rap

Locksmith first gained notoriety outside of the

as a battle rapper. In 2003, after beating the likes of

Mistah FAB Stanley Petey Cox (born January 23, 1982), better known by his stage name Mistah F.A.B. (backronym for Money Is Something To Always Have–Forever After Bread), is an American rapper, songwriter, entrepreneur, community organizer and activist. ...

and A-Wolf on radio station 106.1 KMEL, he qualified for and became a contender on MTV's ''MC Battle'' joining a pool of 32 contenders, judged by

Just Blaze Justin Gregory Smith (born January 8, 1978), known professionally as Just Blaze, is an American hip hop record producer and DJ. Born in Paterson, New Jersey, Blaze attended Rutgers University for three years before dropping out to pursue his m ...

and

Kanye West Ye ( ; born Kanye Omari West ; June 8, 1977) is an American rapper, singer, songwriter, record producer, and fashion designer. Born in Atlanta and raised in Chicago, West gained recognition as a producer for Roc-A-Fella Records in the ea ...

. Locksmith was the only contender from the

West Coast West Coast or west coast may refer to: Geography Australia * Western Australia *Regions of South Australia#Weather forecasting, West Coast of South Australia * West Coast, Tasmania **West Coast Range, mountain range in the region Canada * Britis ...

. The event was the first-ever televised battle rap tournament. Locksmith then made it to the "elite eight"

live telecast ''Live Telecast'' is a 2021 Indian Tamil-language horror thriller web series written and directed by Venkat Prabhu and starring Kajal Aggarwal, Vaibhav Reddy, Anandhi, Ashwin Kumar Lakshmikanthan, Daniel Annie Pope and Priyanka Nair. The web s ...

on May 17, judged by

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 of t ...

Ludacris Christopher Brian Bridges (born September 11, 1977), known professionally as Ludacris (, homophonous with 'ludicrous' in American English), is an American rapper, actor, record producer and record executive. Born in Champaign, Illinois, Ludac ...

and

Kevin Liles Kevin Liles (born February 27, 1968) is an American record executive and co-founder and CEO of 300 Entertainment. In 2020, Kevin was recognized by Billboard Magazine as R&B/Hip-Hop Executive of the Year for both his efforts in activism and the c ...

. Despite his strong performance, he finished as the

runner-up {{Short pages monitor