Born Ferdinand Lewis Alcindor on April 16, 1947, in New York City, and standing 7 feet, 2 inches tall, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was one of the best players in basketball history. Abdul-Jabbar joined the LA Lakers in 1975, playing with Magic Johnson.

 Biography

Basketball player. Born Ferninand Lewis Alcindor on April 16, 1947, in New York, New York. Standing an amazing 7 foot, 2 inches tall, Abdul-Jabbar was one of the best players in basketball history. He started at basketball starting at an early age. Playing for Power Memorial Academy, he was chosen as an All-American player three times during high school. His talents on the court led to a scholarship at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)

Playing for UCLA from 1965 to 1969, Abdul-Jabbar became one of the country’s top college players. He helped his team to win three national championships from 1967 to 1969 and was named the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Tournament’s Most Outstanding Player for those years.

In 1969, Abdul-Jabbar turned pro, joining the National Basketball Association’s (NBA) Milwaukee Bucks. His career started out strong, scoring more than 2,000 points in his first season with the team. He was named Rookie of the Year in 1970. The next year he led his team to victory in the 1971 NBA championships. Also that year, he changed his name to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, which means “noble, powerful servant,” as a part of his conversion to the Islamic faith.

Abdul-Jabbar moved to the Los Angeles Lakers in 1975, and continued to dominate the game. He helped the team win six NBA championships and was named the league’s MVP six times. He was known for his signature jump shot known as the “skyhook.” While with the Lakers, Abdul-Jabbar broke Wilt Chamberlain‘s scoring record. He also was named the Sports Illustrated Sportsman of the Year in 1985. His success on the court led to some acting opportunities. Abdul-Jabbar appeared in several films, including the 1979 martial arts film Game of Death and 1980 comedy Airplane!

When Abdul-Jabbar retired in 1989, he was the NBA’s all-time leading scorer with 38,387 points and became the first NBA player to play for 20 seasons. During his impressive career, he played more than 1,500 games.

Since his retirement, Abdul-Jabbar hasn’t strayed too far from the game he loves, working for the New York Knicks and the Los Angeles Lakers. He even spent a year as a coach on the White Mountain Apache reservation in Arizona—an experience that he recorded in the 2000 book, A Season on the Reservation. He has written several other books, including 2007′s On the Shoulder of Giants about the Harlem Renaissance. Abdul-Jabbar has also worked as a public speaker and spokesperson for several products.

A father of five, Abdul-Jabbar has four children from his first marriage to Habiba Abdul-Jabbar and a son from another relationship.

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Born in a Muslim family on February 17, 1982, Wasalu Muhammad Jaco aka Lupe Fiasco was the fifth child out of nine siblings. His father is an engineer as well as an apt drummer while his mother is a gourmet chef. Little Fiasco was raised in Westside of Chicago and pursued his education at Illinois’ Thornton Township High School. Rapping had gone into his head while he was still very young, but gangsta rap was popular during the time that he was intimidated by the profane lyrics produced by the rappers at that time. Thus he gave up rapping as a career choice.

However, when he heard Nas‘ 1996 album, “It Was Written“, Fiasco was dumbstruck and instantly attracted to the art of rapping. At 19 years old he had formed a rapping group called Da Pak that were signed by Epic Records and released a single. Unfortunately, the group split up just after they were about to begin but fortunately for Fiasco who chose to go solo after that.

He immediately signed to Arista Records but when chairman and CEO Anthony “L.A.” Reid stepped down from the position, he too had to quit from the label. Refusing to stop …

in the track, Fiasco recorded a number of mixtapes and began uploading them on-line. Soon enough he was a quite popular Internet artist that his work was heard by renown rapper Jay-Z.

His appearance in Mike Shinoda’s mixtape “Fort Minor: We Major” landed in the hand of Jay-Z who later on offered Fiasco to join his Roc-A-Fella label. Since Fiasco had already started mixing, releasing singles and gained money from it, he had enough preparation to start his own record label. Thus he turned down the offer from Jay-Z to start 1st and 15th Entertainment which is an imprint of Atlantic Records.

Through his own label, Fiasco released his debut studio album called “Food and Liquor“. The album became a major success, gaining as much as four nominations at the 2007 Grammy Awards. Fiasco, by then was acknowledged as one of the rappers who was closely associated to A-listers in Hip-Hop community such as Kanye West, Pharrell Williams and Jill Scott. Together with the first two musicians he formed a supergroup called Child Rebel Soldiers who spawned many mixtapes.

He released an album called “The Cool” that proved to be another hit for him through two strong singles called “Dumb. It Down” and “Superstar”. The latter in particular has been a chart climber since it was released in December 2007. It peaked at number 10 on Billboard Hot 100. In the end of 2007, just after only releasing two studio albums, the rapper came with a shocking news that he was about to end his career in music.

“I’m just wearing down,” he said. “I’m never doing mixtapes again, not even Internet ones. My whole energy for making hip-hop music is slowing down. I’ve been doing it for seven years. I still don’t think I’m famous. I’ll do what I have to do to promote my next album, but I’m not enthused about doing seven albums. I’ll do my three, and then I am going to keep moving to the next phase of life and maybe grow trees.”

The world was hoping that by the success Lupe could reverse his decision to quit the music industry. However in January 2008, the rapper made another announcement of his retirement from the business and announced his other venture, literature. “There are other ways besides putting out an album that allow me to channel my creative energy and I’m writing a book about  a window washer. I will have more than enough to keep me busy,” the rapper said.

With the announcement also came the confirmation that his third studio album “LupEND” that was due 2008 will be the latest release from him. He said, ” ‘LupEND’ – that’s going to be my last album’s title. When you play a video game, you can only put in three letters for your name and when the game’s over, those three letters and ‘END’ pop up.”

But he changed the plan. The album did not come out in 2008 and was not titled “LupEND” either. A lot of delays from Atlantic Records about the release of his third album had prompted his fans to release a petition that brought tears to his eyes. The first single from “Lasers” was released in the fourth quarter of 2010 titled “The Show Goes On”. It debuted at number 57 on Hot 100 and continued to climb to number 39 up until the album’s released on March 8, 2011

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