Mexican rapper from Atlanta include Kap G, Lisa Lopes, and three more. These rappers have ties to Atlanta, Georgia in their music or life.
Atlanta is one of the most fertile landscapes for rap music. The South was largely overshadowed by the East and West coast during much of the 1990s.
It was overshadowed by the East because New York is the birthplace of Hip Hop, and the West because it’s the region that popularized the genre. However, things started taking a turn in the 2000s.
Though acts like Outkast and the Dungeon Family had started bringing the South some appeal, it was the explosion of Atlanta as the breeding ground of the future of Hip Hop in the late 2000s that made the city an enviable rap utopia.
So, here is a list of five rappers who were either born, raised, or later moved to Atlanta.
1. Kap G
Kap G is the pseudonym of the Mexican-American rapper George Ramirez. He was born on July 31, 1994.
Though he was originally born in Long Beach, California, he was raised by his parents in College Park, Georgia, which is one of the suburbs of Atlanta.
The rapper was the youngest of seven children. He went to and graduated from Tri-Cities High School.
Kap G started rapping in 2011 but first gained fame by collaborating with the Chicago rapper Chief Keef when he released his debut single, “Tatted Like Amigos.” The success of this single alongside Keef’s co-sign led to him gaining the attention of Kawan Prather, an A&R Representative for the famed Atlanta group, Dungeon Family.
After discovering the rapper, Prather helped him get signed to Atlantic Records. The rapper would gain more recognition in 2014 when he released his debut mixtape, Like a Mexican on March 6 of that year.
The rapper continued the success of his debut mixtape by releasing his second mixtape, Real Migo Shit 3 on July 10, 2015. However, he would gain more success with his third mixtape El Southside, which he released on March 7, 2016.
El Southside would feature many prominent artists like Young Thug and YFN Lucci. It would also contain his best-known song, Girlfriend, which would go on to peak at number 10 on the Bubbling Under Hot 100 chart on Billboard.
On the strength of that single and its parent mixtape, Kap G got selected for arguably the most famous thing he’s done, which is to be featured on the cover of the XXL Magazine. The rapper was one of the members of the XXL Freshman class of 2017.
XXL magazine is one of the most important magazines in Hip Hop, and since the mid-2000s they’ve been picking ten rappers that best showcased the future of rap by adding them to their freshman list. Many famous rappers have built their careers due to the kickstart that being on the XXL freshman list gave them.
Kap G would share his class with prominent upcoming rappers from his day like Kamaiyah, A Boogie wit Da Hoodie, PnB Rock, Playboi Carti, Amine, Kyle, Ugly God, MadeinTYO, and XXXTentacion. Many rappers from his class like Amine, A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie, and Playboi Carti have gone on to have amazing careers.
Sadly, Kap G is not one of them as he has failed to capitalize on the fame that XXL gave him, and has since drifted into obscurity.
2. Lisa “LeftEye” Lopes
Lisa Lopes, known to many as Lisa “LeftEye” Lopes, was a rapper and a singer. She was best known for being a member of the group, TLC.
Born on May 27, 1971, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Lopes would move to Atlanta in late 1990 to become a dancer. However, she spent much of her young life in Philadelphia, where she was born to Wanda Andino, a seamstress, and Ronald Lopes Sr, who was a US Army staff sergeant.
Lopes came from a multi-ethnic background as she was of Cape Verdean, Mexican, Portuguese, and African-American descent. She also had a younger brother named Ronald Jr. and a sister named Rain.
Sadly, she didn’t have a happy childhood as her father was very strict. According to the singer, he ran the household as a boot camp owing to his army training.
However, he was a talented musician and Lopes inherited his talent. Her father could play many instruments like the harmonica, clarinet, saxophone, and piano.
Her parents would separate while she was in school, and she would live with and was raised by her paternal grandmother until she moved to Atlanta. As stated above, she would move to Atlanta in 1990 and formed a girl group called 2nd Nature with her Tionne Watkins and Crystal Jones.
Jones would leave the group soon enough, and TLC’s manager, Perri Redid, would bring Rozonda Thomas. In order to fit the theme of the group’s name, Rozonda started going by Chilli.
So, TLC was born with Tionne as T-Boz, Rozonda as Chilli, and Lisa as LeftEye. The group would go on to become one of the most successful R&B groups of the 1990s and have nine top ten hits which also included four number-one hits like Creep, Waterfalls, No Scrubs, and Unpretty.
The group’s first three albums each were certified muti-platinum with their second album, CrazySexyCool selling over 12 million units worldwide, and their third album, Fanmail selling over 10 million.
Sadly, their third album would be the last to feature Lisa alive as the singer would meet her end on April 25, 2002, in La Ceiba, Honduras. She was driving a rented Mitsubishi Montero SUV and when she swerved to avoid an oncoming truck there was another car, and when she swerved to avoid that, her car rolled off the street and hit two trees, throwing Lopes to her death.
3. 6ix9ine
6ix9ine is the professional name of controversial Mexican American rapper Daniel Hernandez. He also goes by Tekashi69.
Born on May 8, 1996, in New York, Tekashi has had one of the strangest and most trouble-filled careers in the history of Hip Hop. Be it from the bizarre way he raps mixing yelling and shouting his verses and choruses to the many times he has snitched on his fellow gang members leading to rap fans over the world calling him a snitch.
He has completely worn out his welcome in his native city of New York, with many rappers and other gang members threatening death upon him if he sets foot there. This has led the rapper to move to other cities and states for protection, with Atlanta being his favorite.
To start from the beginning, the rapper was born to his Mexican mother Natividad Perez-Hernandez, a house cleaner and factory worker from Atlixco, Puebla Mexico, and his Puerto Rican father, Daniel Hernandez Sr. from Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico.
Natividad came to America in 1988 seeking opportunities and a better life. The rapper also has an older brother named Oscar Osiris Hernandez.
6ix9ine’s earliest successes were in sports and not rap, as he was assigned to a Major League Soccer team at age 13. Sadly, his mother declined, fearing what growing up outside of the home would do to him.
Despite such humble beginnings, the rapper managed to find huge success from 2017 onwards with his debut single Gummo being a sleeper hit. This early success was marred when he was arrested for racketeering charges in 2018.
Facing over 47 years in prison, 6ix9ine chose to testify against members of his gang, the Nine Trey, to reduce his sentence to only two years. He was granted early release in April 2020 due to his vulnerability to the disease.
Though many in the rap community have disavowed him due to his snitching, an activity considered the worst kind of betrayal in Hip Hop and gang culture, 6ix9ine not only saw his debut album, Dummy Boy, reaching platinum certification while in the trial but continued success once out of prison.
His first single after he left prison, Gooba, reached number 3 on the Hot 100, and his single Trollz, debuted at number 1.
4. Kid Cudi
Kid Cudi is the stage name of American singer and rapper Scott Ramon Seguro Mescudi. He is of Mexican descent from his father’s side.
Cudi was born on January 30, 1984, in Cleveland, Ohio to Lindberg Styles Mescudi, a house painter, substitute teacher, and WWII Air force veteran, who is of African-American and Mexican descent, and Elsie Harriet Banks, an African-American school choir teacher. He also has two older brothers named Domingo and Dean, as well as an older sister named Maisha.
Cudi’s relationship to Atlanta has to do equally with influence as well as location. The rapper has often lived in the city and has found influence from many rappers from the area, with the most notable one with Andre 3000, one-half of the greatest rap duo in the world, Outkast.
Scott however, got his start in New York when he moved there to pursue a music career. Inspired by alternative hip-hop groups like A Tribe Called Quest and the Pharsyde, he left Cleveland with $500 and a demo tape in 2003.
His life would change when he met his future mentor, the controversial rapper Kanye West, who was also born in Atlanta. Kanye would not only go on to be a huge influence in Cudi’s music but would sign the rapper to his label, GOOD Music, and get him his start.
Cudi would start his career professionally in July 2008 after releasing his first mixtape A Kid Named Cudi. The rapper would gain more fame and prominence in the latter half of the 2000s by appearing in various Kanye West projects like 808s and Heartbreaks and later his magnum Opus, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.
Alongside working with Kanye, Cudi would release his own albums, the legendary and influential debut, Man on the Moon: The End of Day, in 2009, and Man on the Moon II: The Legend of Mr. Rager.
Sadly, the early 2010s wouldn’t be so kind to Cudi as he would deal with many mental issues like depression and addiction throughout the decade. He would also have a very public falling out with West and an equally public beef with fellow rapper Drake.
However, Cudi has since made a comeback with his 2020 album, Man on the Moon III: The Chosen completing his Man on the Moon trilogy. His most recent work, a movie called Entergalactic has also been heavily praised.
5. Yeat
Noah Olivier Smith, also known as Yeat, is an American rapper and producer. He comes from a multicultural background including Mexican.
He was born on February 26, 2000, to a Romanian mother and half Mexican half White father in Irvine, California. Though born in California, the rapper was raised in Portland, Oregon.
Though he grew up in Portland, he moved to New York City to pursue his musical career in 2015 but has since moved to Los Angeles where he currently lives. However, the rapper also has ties to Atlanta based on influence as the singer derives his vocal style from Atlanta legends like Future and Young Thug.
The rapper also visits Atlanta regularly and has been claimed by many fans as one of their own, which even Google seems to agree on. However, as Yeat’s fame grows, he has started something of a movement in rap, with many citing him, alongside fellow Atlanta legend, Playboi Carti, as the leader in a new style of rap called Rage.
Though he initially gained success on TikTok due to his song, Money So Big and Money Twerk both going viral. Yeat has become one of the few rappers to be able to capitalize on that TikTok fame and catapult himself into international fame.
His huge leap in success can be seen in his chart placements. His debut album, Up 2 Me, debuted at number 183 on the Billboard 200 on January 22, 2022.
Just a month later, the rapper released his second album, 2 Alive, on February 18, 2022, and it debuted at number 6. Yeat went from number 183 to number 6 in just a month.