If you know one thing about South Florida rapper/producer Lex One it probably has to do with his penchant for donning wizard costumes and rapping to high energy electro beats. If you know two things it's probably that this dude never stops hustling for a second -- that and the wizard thing. But prior to his international success with wand-wielding, dance-rap outfit Wizard Sleeve, Lex One was sleeping in a snuggie, sustaining solely off Utz Party Mix and running from law enforcement.
Not wanting to fully elaborate on the events that transpired next, Lex keeps it brief: "Then all that bad karma from before I left hit me. When I finally got to NY I had nothing, no money, no anything. Just a dirty room full of mice and roaches, a snuggie and a gallon of Utz Party Mix." For a guy who once put up his sneaker collection as collateral for a sizable loan to release a record, you could see why this would be somewhat of a culture shock. Miserable, depressed and unemployed, Lex did what any good musician would do -- he catalyzed his misfortunes into a personal musical renaissance spending the following two weeks, day and night, cranking out 35 new songs with life-long friend and collaborator Verbal Kush.
Lex explains the motivations behind the name as more than just a mantra for getting rich: "If you think about it everything in life starts and revolves around getting paper. You're born you get a birth certificate, you finish school you get a diploma, you make a resume to get a job and make paper, you get married you get a paper, you get divorced or buy a house more paper. You even get a paper when you die and then they give all your paper to the next person."
5. Oprah Winfrey - I don't know much about Oprah but I'm pretty
sure she's not Jewish although there's gotta be a conspiracy website out
there somewhere that claims otherwise so well let it ride.
4. Whoopi Goldberg - An obligatory inclusion but a good one despite her posing as a nun in Sister Act and Sister Act 2.
3. Sammy Davis Jr. - Now we're talking. perhaps the greatest black Jewish performer of all time. Pure class.
2. Drake - Personally, this guy would not make it onto my list of favorite anything, but to each his own.