Jermaine Dupri at Drai's Nightclub

Artist Profile

About Jermaine Dupri

Jermaine Dupri Mauldin — born September 23, 1972, in Asheville, North Carolina, and raised in Atlanta, Georgia — began his professional music career at age 9 as a dancer before discovering the teen hip-hop duo Kris Kross at age 14 at an Atlanta mall and producing their 1992 debut single Jump, which reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 and was named the 23rd most successful song of the 1990s by Billboard. He founded So So Def Recordings in 1992 as a joint venture with Columbia Records, building a label that signed Xscape, Bow Wow, Da Brat, Jagged Edge, and Anthony Hamilton. His production work with Usher — beginning with My Way (1997) and spanning multiple albums through the 2000s — generated chart-topping singles including Nice & Slow and contributed to one of the most commercially successful producer-artist partnerships in R&B history. He produced 11 Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles with Mariah Carey, Usher, Monica, and Nelly, and was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. His DJ career runs parallel to his production legacy: Dupri was one of the first hip-hop DJs to hold a five-year residency at Wynn Las Vegas, establishing Las Vegas credentials as a live performer. His sets at Drai's Nightclub and Hakkasan span the decades of hit records he produced, delivering a live DJ experience that works as a retrospective through the peak commercial years of hip-hop and R&B. Guest list through NoCoverVegas. Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jermaine_Dupri