Happy Birthday, Jean Grae!

Today, Nov. 26, is the 42nd birthday of Brooklyn's own Jean Grae.

Born in Cape Town, South Africa but raised in Brooklyn, Jean rose to prominence in the underground hip-hop scene in the late '90s and early '00s by working with some of the best lyricists of that time including MCs like Talib Kweli, Pharoahe Monch and Styles P.

Jean, whose real name is Tsidi Ibrahim, first went by the stage moniker What? What? and bounced around numerous labels and crews including Natural Resource and O.B.S. Inspired by the X-Men character of the same name, the lady MC changed her name from What? What? to Jean Grae in 1998. Jean dropped her debut solo album Attack of the Attacking Things under Third Earth Music in 2002 to much critical acclaim.

Aside from flexing her acting muscles on a few TV series like CBS' 2 Broke Girls, Grae has dropped six studio albums to date including the unofficial 9th Wonder collab album Jeanius, which was released on Talib Kweli's Blacksmith imprint in 2008 to much critical acclaim. In 2014, XXL named the "Hater's Anthem" MC among the "20 Best Female Rappers of All Time," mentioning that she can "rap circles around at least 80 percent of the game."

Most recently, Jean Grae married producer and rapper Quelle Chris following an eight month engagement. The newlyweds dropped a joint album together in March of 2018 titled, Everything's Fine.

Happy Birthday, Jean Grae!

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