Jadakiss American Rapper Born 1975 in Yonkers

Early life

Jason Terrance Phillips, who performs as Jadakiss, was born on 27 May 1975 in Yonkers, New York. He was drawn to hip-hop as a child. Around the age of twelve his parents asked him to earn his own money, and he began freestyling for cash on the street after watching others do it. Through that scene he met Sheek Louch and Styles P, the two friends with whom he later formed the group the Lox. His stage name began as a spoonerism or mispronunciation of his own name; he first used the name J. Ski.

Career

As a teenager Phillips entered a freestyle contest in Florida, where the owners of Ruff Ryders noticed him. With Styles P and Louch he formed a group first called the Warlox. The trio met the singer Mary J. Blige, who passed their demo to Puff Daddy, and they signed to his label Bad Boy Records, where the name was shortened to the Lox. Their first appearance on record was on the 1994 Main Source track "Set It Off". They then wrote and performed on songs by other Bad Boy artists, among them Puff Daddy, Mase, Mariah Carey and Mary J. Blige. Their first hit was "We'll Always Love Big Poppa", a tribute to The Notorious B.I.G. released after his 1997 death as the B-side to "I'll Be Missing You". It earned multi-platinum certification in the United States.

The Lox released their debut album, Money, Power & Respect, in 1998. It peaked at number three on the Billboard 200 and number one on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart, and it was certified platinum. The group was dissatisfied with the polished production at Bad Boy and moved to Ruff Ryders, which issued their second album, We Are the Streets, in 2000. It reached number five on the Billboard 200.

Jadakiss started his solo career in 2001 with Kiss tha Game Goodbye on Ruff Ryders and Interscope. It was certified gold and sold more than 200,000 copies in its first week, although critics received it coolly, a view he later acknowledged as fair. His second album, Kiss of Death (2004), entered the Billboard 200 at number one. Its single "Why?", with Anthony Hamilton and produced by Havoc of Mobb Deep, peaked at number 11 on the Billboard Hot 100 and remains his highest-charting song; "U Make Me Wanna", with Mariah Carey, reached number 21. In late 2007 he signed with Roc-A-Fella Records, and his third album, The Last Kiss, followed in 2009 with the singles "By My Side", "Can't Stop Me", "Death Wish" and "Who's Real". He left Roc-A-Fella in 2010, released the mixtape Consignment in 2012, and put out his fourth album, Top 5 Dead or Alive, on 20 November 2015 after repeated delays. It debuted at number four on the Billboard 200.

The Lox reunited on Roc Nation for Filthy America... It's Beautiful in 2016, their first album in sixteen years, which peaked at number 42. In 2017 Jadakiss released the collaborative album Friday on Elm Street with Fabolous, and his fifth solo album, Ignatius, appeared on 6 March 2020. In June 2020 he defeated Fabolous in a Verzuz battle, and in 2021 he returned with the Lox against the Diplomats at Madison Square Garden. After the second victory he was nicknamed "Mr. Verzuz", the first artist to win two of those battles, and streams of Lox music rose by 215 percent. On screen he appeared in Ride or Die (2003) and Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes (2006).

Public roles

Jadakiss and his friend Jay Jackson founded SoRaspy, an online media company that serves as an umbrella for a publication, a record label, an apparel line and a YouTube channel. In summer 2014 he and Styles P opened a juice bar in Yonkers called Juices For Life, which later added two branches in the Bronx and one in Brooklyn. In October 2022 he launched Kiss Café, a coffee company run with his father and son. His phrase "we outside" was quoted by New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani at his inauguration on 1 January 2026.

Recognition

Reviewers praised the Lox's first two albums and their reunion records, and critics gave positive notices to Kiss of Death, Top 5 Dead or Alive, Friday on Elm Street and Ignatius. Some time after the 2021 battle, at the Rock The Bells festival at Forest Hills Stadium in Queens, he gave Styles P and Sheek Louch championship rings for the Lox. His account on Instagram had about 3.7 million followers as of October 2026.