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Young Dro (born D' Juan Hart in Atlanta, Georgia on January 15, 1979) is an American rapper signed to T.I.'s label, Grand Hustle.
Born in Hawkinsville,Georgia Lil Miami projects. == Young Dro the second oldest of his mother’s five boys and somewhere amongst the middle seven of his father’s 21 children. Due to poverty, Dro had to live in a variety of housing complexes. He lived in Perry Homes, Herndon Homes, Bowen Homes, Bankhead, Summerhill,Carver Homes, and Adamsville.
At the age of 18, he was shot in the stomach and the back and required almost a year to recover. He ended up moving to Cleveland Heights, Ohio after his shooting incident. He spent his late teens and early 20s in and out of prison. He began rapping in the 9th grade with childhood friend Jamil Okonny (later Ceo of Jip Ent.). T.I. has been a long-time supporter of Dro but Dro was trying to stay close to Ant. "I had been trying to sign Dro since like '97, before I was even trying to get a deal for myself. Anyone with ears can hear he got talent."
It was during these many moves in his teen years that he befriended the now Grand Hustle/Atlantic recording artist T.I.;Neither of the two took music seriously at the time. Young Dro never considered a career in music until another one of his friends, Chris “Daddy Mack” Smith, scored platinum success as one half of early 90s duo Kriss Kross.
To make his dream a reality, he first met pioneering southern rapper Raheem the Dream in the late 90s, who at the time had Pastor Troy and D4L front man Fabo signed to his local label. By the end of 2001, Young Dro's independent single “Yes Sir” and regional hit album "I Got That Dro" became fairly successful.
Around the same time, T.I. was preparing for his debut album I'm Serious. While he was promoting the album during a radio interview, Young Dro called the station and asked to talk to the fellow rapper. “I was like, ‘That sounds like my homeboy,’” Dro recalls, “he was like, ‘You the one who sings “Yes Sir”? Man, meet me at the Bounce...We went up there and performed.”
That reuniting of two longtime friends evolved into Young Dro signing with Grand Hustle, T.I.'s record label and his major label debut, "Best Thang Smokin'", which went on to go gold. Among the tracks featured on the album, "Shoulder Lean" was chosen to be the lead single. Through the summer of 2006, the track gained momentum throughout the South, and then nationally, as it was well-received among the hip-hop community. It received a decent amount of airplay on BET, and managed to climb to #3 spot in the U.S. Rap chart. On the 27th July 2006, Young Dro reached the #1 spot on both the Billboard Urban Monitor chart as well as the R&B Urban Mainstream chart. Simultanouesly, the video hit #1 during the previous week's "106 & Park" countdown on BET, in addition to securing the top spot on MTV2 where it's currently in "ELITE 8". Amazingly on top of that, Warner Music Group announced that the ringtone for Dro's single 'Shoulder Lean' had sold over 500,000 units. Also it had the number 2 video on MTV 2006 Top Music Video Countdown. The album was also promoted by Semko The Realest & DJ Dro.
His greatest form of promotion has been SOHH.COM user Diggy_Dat_Niggy who was banned for starting a movement known as the Droalition. Many of his disciples have been filtered from typing out his name and it appears as ***** *** on the Sohh Forum.
Prior to Dro's "Best Thang Smokin'", he had worked with DJ Burn One of Atlanta, Georgia to produce the mixtape Future Legends Vol. 2, "I've Still Got That Dro", which was released in February of 2006. The album contained "over 18 exclusive new songs and freestyles, along with a collection of songs that could previously only be found on official Grand Hustle mixtapes, as well as a few tracks off his extremely rare first album "I Got That Dro"." Though many of the songs never made it on the air, the mixtape featured previews of "Shoulder Lean" and "Rubberband Banks". Also included were many original songs featuring artists such as T.I., Alfamega, Mike Jones, and Big Kuntry. Honorable mentions from the album were "I Ain't Lame", "Cartoon", "Dressed 2 Impress", "Blame it on the Dro", and "Ol Skool". He is also featured in the It's Okay (One Blood) remix. Featuring 20 other rap stars. He also is in the music video for Young Buck's song Get Buck. Most recently Dro is featured on Murphy Lee's Hatin' produced by Mannie Fresh.
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