Today, May 21, is the birthday of Harlem rapper Max B! The Wavy One is now 40 years old.

Born and raised in New York, Max was close friends with members of the Harlem crew Dipset and was briefly signed to Jim Jones's ByrdGang Records until 2008 when Max and Jones began what would become a long-running feud.

After his time on ByrdGang Records, Biggaveli was incarcerated in 2009 and began serving a 75-year prison sentence for charges of conspiracy to armed robbery, kidnapping, aggravated assault, and murder. Despite being locked up, Max B released his debut solo album, Vigilante Season, in March 2011 under Boston-based record label Amalgam Digital.

Though he's generally quiet serving out his sentence these days, Max B still keeps his finger on the pulse of what's going down in hip-hop. In 2015, he spoke with Revolt TV on the shooting death of Queens rapper Chinx Drugz, calling the event a "senseless tragedy" and last spring, was at the center of a small time beef between Kanye West and Wiz Khalifa because Khalifa man thought it was disrespectful for 'Ye to call his album Waves because Max B is the one true wavy one.

Later on in 2016, Max B got a bit of good news when he had his original charges related to his current incarceration dropped and he entered into a plea deal. After reportedly accepting a manslaughter charge, Bigavel's friend French Montana revealed that the rapper could be out of prison as early as 2018 (at best) and as far down the line as 2022 (at worst). Needless to say, that's much better than the 68 or so years remaining in Max B's prison sentence.

Close to nine years after he entered prison, plenty of rappers young and old still yell "Free Max B" in their rhymes to this day. Check out XXL's list of the 20 Best Max B songs here.

Happy Birthday, Max B!

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