Ludacris (born September 11, 1977, Champaign, Illinois, U.S.) is an American rapper and actor who exemplified the Dirty South school of hip-hop, an exuberant profanity-laden musical style popularized by artists in the southern United States. Ludacris’s magnetic larger-than-life rapping persona propelled him to stardom.
Though born in Illinois, Chris Bridges spent his formative years in Atlanta, where he later attended Georgia State University. During a stint as a radio disc jockey, he met noted hip-hop producer Timbaland, on whose single “Fat Rabbit” he made his rapping debut in 1998. Adopting the moniker Ludacris (a play on his given name and the word ludicrous), he recorded an independently released debut album, Incognegro (2000). Through word of mouth the album managed to enter the Billboard 200 chart, and Ludacris was soon signed to the record label Def Jam South, which repackaged Incognegro as Back for the First Time (2000). That major label debut ultimately reached number four in the Billboard 200.
Follow-up efforts such as Word of Mouf (2001) and Chicken-N-Beer (2003) solidified Ludacris’s status as a top-selling artist, reaching number three and number one, respectively, on the Billboard chart. Release Therapy (2006) also topped the chart and earned Ludacris a Grammy Award for best rap album. Later albums include Theater of the Mind (2008), Battle of the Sexes (2010), and Ludaversal (2015). Signature elements of Ludacris’s records include comical, sometimes chauvinistic, wordplay, larger-than-life imagery, a fascination with marijuana, and an elastic vocal delivery that alternates between laconic drawl and booming swagger.
As his musical reputation grew, Ludacris developed a secondary career as an actor, taking supporting roles in such films as the dramas Crash and Hustle & Flow (both 2005), six installments (2003, 2011, 2013, 2015, 2017, and 2021) of the Fast and the Furious action series, and the holiday comedies Fred Claus (2007) and New Year’s Eve (2011). In addition, he made frequent guest appearances on other artists’ records, including collaborations with Missy Elliott, OutKast, LL Cool J, Mariah Carey, and Carrie Underwood.