Lil' Jon & The East Side Boyz

Jonathan Smith (born 1970, in Atlanta, Georgia), better known by his stage name Lil Jon, is an American hip hop performer and record producer. He is best known as a pioneer of the sub-genre of hip hop known as "crunk", a c

Jonathan Smith (born 1970, in Atlanta, Georgia), better known by his stage name Lil Jon, is an American hip hop performer and record producer. He is best known as a pioneer of the sub-genre of hip hop known as "crunk", a combination of elements of Southern hip hop and bass music. His group, Lil Jon & the East Side Boyz, is one of the subgenre's most notable acts. He is one of only a few rappers who have been able to obtain street cred without the usual street, ghetto, or "hard-knock" life that many rappers have (or claim to have). According to an article on Lil Jon in XXL magazine, he often threw parties in his parents' six-story mansion.

Lil Jon graduated in 1988 from Atlanta's Douglass High School. He was working as a club D.J. when Jermaine Dupri discovered him and invited him to work as an A&R man for So So Def. Lil Jon also hosted a radio show on V103. He started doing remixes for artists Usher, Too Short, Xscape, and Total. He worked for So So Def between 1993 and 2000.