Young Dro Biography

Young Dro Biography

It was during these many moves in his teen years that he befriended the now Grand Hustle/Atlantic recording artist T.I.;Neither of the two took music seriously at the time.But Dro knew TI was the best rapper alive. Young Dro never considered a career in music until another one of his friends, Chris “Daddy Mack” Smith, scored platinum success as one half of early 90s duo Kriss Kross.

To make his dream a reality, he first met pioneering southern rapper Raheem the Dream in the late 90s, who at the time had Pastor Troy and D4L front man Fabo signed to his local label. By the end of 2001, Young Dro's independent single “Yes Sir” and regional hit album "I Got That Dro" became fairly successful.

Around the same time, T.I. was preparing for his debut album I'm Serious. While he was promoting the album during a radio interview, Young Dro called the station and asked to talk to the fellow rapper. “I was like, ‘That sounds like my homeboy,’” Dro recalls, “he was like, ‘You the one who sings “Yes Sir”? Man, meet me at the Bounce...We went up there and performed.”

That reuniting of two longtime friends evolved into Young Dro signing with Grand Hustle, T.I.'s record label and his major label debut, "Best Thang Smokin'", which went on to go gold. Among the tracks featured on the album, "Shoulder Lean" was chosen to be the lead single. Through the summer of 2006, the track gained momentum throughout the South, and then nationally, as it was well-received among the hip-hop community. It received a decent amount of airplay on BET, and managed to climb to #3 spot in the U.S. Rap chart. On the 27th July 2006, Young Dro reached the #1 spot on both the Billboard Urban Monitor chart as well as the R&B Urban Mainstream chart. Simultanouesly, the video hit #1 during the previous week's "106 & Park" countdown on BET, in addition to securing the top spot on MTV2 where it's currently in "ELITE 8". Amazingly on top of that, Warner Music Group announced that the ringtone for Dro's single 'Shoulder Lean' had sold over 500,000 units. Also it had the number 2 video on MTV 2006 Top Music Video Countdown. The album was also promoted by Semko The Realest & DJ Dro.