Shawty Lo

Atlanta born-and-bred trap rapper Shawty Lo (born Carlos Walker) did not reach national prominence with his street-hustling raps, but by ushering in the "snap dance" craze with the Billboard-topping "Laffy Taffy" as part of his four-man crew, <a href="spotify:artist:4AllEJE7mVkhhyUV6DjqPz">D4L</a>, in 2005. He co-founded both the group and, acting as CEO, the <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22D4L+Records%22">D4L Records</a> label two years earlier with the intention of only working behind the scenes and never really contributing many verses to the group. <a href="spotify:artist:4AllEJE7mVkhhyUV6DjqPz">D4L</a>'s debut single, "Betcha Can't Do It Like Me," was a big local hit in Georgia in 2004 and hinted at the group's potential crossover success. Before Shawty Lo saw any of that success, he was convicted on drug charges and had to serve a one-year prison sentence. By the time he was let out in July 2005, the "Laffy Taffy" song, which would later reach number one on the pop charts and break several digital and ringtone sales records, had blown up. Moreover, <a href="spotify:artist:4AllEJE7mVkhhyUV6DjqPz">D4L</a> and their independent label earned a distribution deal with <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Atlantic%22">Atlantic</a> via <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Asylum+Records%22">Asylum Records</a>, which issued their Down for Life (2005) album debut nationwide. Gaining more confidence about his own rapping abilities, Shawty Lo took his solo feature on the Down for Life album, "I'm da Man," and released it locally as an independent single in 2006. After a pair of solo mixtapes with Atlanta's <a href="spotify:artist:45h71dCVZaNAqP3YwQH6ER">DJ Scream</a>, Shawty Lo obtained his own record deal with <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Asylum%22">Asylum</a> in summer 2007 and delivered his debut album, Units in the City, the following year. The LP was preceded by the hip-hop/R&B chart-climbing single "Dey Know." In the years that followed, he stayed busy with no less than ten mixtape releases and preparations for his official LP follow-up, which was titled Still Got Units. On September 21, 2016, Shawty Lo was killed in a hit-and-run accident outside an Atlanta club at the age of 40. ~ Cyril Cordor, Rovi