Anderson .Paak has been nominated for a hip-hop Grammy award.
.Paak is a California rapper of black and Korean American descent who also produces beats and sings R&B. He recently signed with Aftermath, Dr. Dre’s record label.
.Paak’s music reflects a childhood steeped in turmoil: He openly speaks about his father going to prison for drug possession and beating his mother, and then later seeing his mother and step-dad also sent to prison.
“That kinda threw a wrench in everything,” .Paak told the Los Angeles Times before his debut at Coachella. “It was a domino effect. I don’t know how jaded you could be at 18, but I didn’t really trust that you could make it in music at that point.”
According to LA Weekly, .Paak’s musical career began when he started creating beats as a teenager. Eventually, he enrolled at the Musicians Institute in Hollywood, but eventually wound up homeless with his wife and infant son.
He then burst into Los Angeles’ hip-hop scene, releasing two albums under the pseudonym “Breeze Lovejoy” before officially debuting under his own name, though with a twist: He puts a period before his last name, making him known professionally as “Anderson .Paak.”
“I mean, I spent six, seven years making music and nobody cared,” .Paak, who released three more records — “Venice,” “Malibu” and “Yes Lawd!” — two of which made it onto the US Billboard 200, told the L.A. Times. “And now some of those same people care, and they are going to have to put the dot. It says a lot to me when people don’t do it.“
His most famous song, which initially built him an underground following, was “Drugs,” off of the “Venice” album. .Paak will now join a star-studded cast of nominees, including Beyoncé, Drake, Rihanna, Chance the Rapper and Kanye West.
