Joell Ortiz

Brooklyn-born rapper Joell Ortiz, long one of the most critically acclaimed unsigned talents on the East Coast hip-hop scene, has gone a long way toward earning that reputation. A dedicated and accomplished student through his early years, and always a person to whom language came easily, Ortiz was an impressive rapper by his early teens. As he reached high school, family strife and his urban environment turned his attentions from his studies and rap career to street life and the drug trade. After a short time, however, Ortiz turned his attentions back to his life-giving pursu...