Hopsin

Marcus Jamal Hopson (born July 18, 1985), known professionally as Hopsin, is an American rapper, songwriter, and record producer from Los Angeles, California.

He is known for his use of white colored eye contacts in his music videos and performances.

Marcus Hopson was born on July 18, 1985, in Los Angeles, and was raised in the largely Hispanic Panorama City neighborhood of Los Angeles.

He attended James Monroe High School, where he was placed into special education classes.

Hopsin has been an avid skateboarder since the age of twelve, and many of his music videos feature him skateboarding.

Hopsin began recording his debut project Emurge in 2002 and was eventually released locally in 2003, copies of the project are very sparse and hard to find, a bootleg version appeared online in 2008 and had many extra songs on it, however to this day the album has never been released officially.

He started rapping at sixteen years old, and took his hobby more seriously by 2003 which is the year the majority of the tracks from Hopsin's self-produced album Emurge were recorded.

In 2004, Hopsin and a group of friends were arrested for vandalizing James Monroe High School property.

It was supposed to be a school prank but later they were all charged and held on $20,000 bail.

Hopsin, who dropped out earlier that year, was sent to Los Angeles County Jail where he spent 8 days.

Upon his release, he began to pursue a career in music, purchased a microphone, and installed FL Studio (known as FruityLoops at the time) on his computer.

He credits Eminem as the rapper that initially got him interested in hip hop music.

Hopsin had initially signed with Ruthless Records in 2007 and even began recording his debut album as early as 2004.

He was originally hailed as one of the driving forces behind attempting to bring Ruthless Records back to previous glory.

Hopsin's lead single from his debut album "Pans in the Kitchen" was released on May 27, 2008.

The album was set to be self-produced by Hopsin and feature no collaborations with other artists.

He was first signed by Los Angeles-based record executive Jerry Heller to his label Ruthless Records, through which Hopson released his debut studio album, Gazing at the Moonlight (2009).

However his debut album, Gazing at the Moonlight was not released until October 27, 2009, with little to no promotion.

Shortly after the album's release, Hopsin sought his release from Ruthless Records due to lack of financial compensation, artist support, and promotion.

Shortly before the departure from Ruthless Records, Hopsin founded his own independent label, Funk Volume, with Damien Ritter.

SwizZz, Damien Ritter's younger brother and a former classmate of Hopsin at Monroe High, was the first artist to be signed to Funk Volume.

Shortly after launching Funk Volume, both Hopsin and SwizZz released a collaborative mixtape titled Haywire in June 2009 to promote the label.

Funk Volume originally wanted to sell it for retail sale, but were unable due to Hopsin still being contracted by Ruthless Records at the time.

On mixtape website DatPiff, it has been certified Gold for being downloaded over 100,000 times and it later made available for purchase for digital download via iTunes and Amazon.com.

That same year, he founded his own independent label, Funk Volume to release his second and third albums—Raw (2010) and Knock Madness (2013)—before signing with Warner Records to release his fourth, Pound Syndrome (2015).

The latter album peaked within the top 20 of the Billboard 200 and remains his most commercially successful release.

Hopsin released "Nocturnal Rainbows" as the first single off of his upcoming second album Raw on August 1, 2010.

On October 8, 2010, Hopsin released a music video for the song "Sag My Pants", the second single off Raw on YouTube.

The video became a YouTube success and currently has over 37 million views.

In the song Hopsin pokes fun and disses other rappers such as Lil Wayne, Drake, Soulja Boy, Lupe Fiasco, Rick Ross and Tomica Wright, the owner of Ruthless Records.

Hopsin's second album, Raw, was released on November 19, 2010.

In March 2011, Hopsin went on a two-month nationwide tour to promote Raw with the I Am RAW tour.

In July 2011, Hopsin released the fourth installment of his "Ill Mind of Hopsin" video series which later received over 21 million views on YouTube.

In it he disses Tyler, the Creator of the Los Angeles hip hop collective, Odd Future.

On October 31, 2011, Hopsin was featured in a mobile battle rap game, Battle Rap Stars by Jump Shot Media.

In January 2012, Hopsin landed a spot on MTV2's "Sucker Free Sunday" by appearing in Tech N9ne's music video for "Am I A Psycho?".

In February 2012 Hopsin appeared on the front cover of XXL as part of their annual "Top 10 Freshmen list" along with fellow rappers French Montana, MGK, Danny Brown, Roscoe Dash, Iggy Azalea, Macklemore, Don Trip, and Kid Ink.

His successor label, Undercover Prodigy was launched in a joint venture with 300 Entertainment in 2016, through which he released his fifth album, No Shame (2017) to lesser commercial success and mixed critical reception.

In addition to his own output, Funk Volume has signed and released projects for aesthetically-similar regional artists SwizZz and Dizzy Wright, as well as Southern rapper Jarren Benton before its dissolution in 2016.

In 2020, he joined the board of directors for media-based technology company Artist Republik.