Today, July 15, is the birthday of New York rapper and actor Mack Wilds. The artist is now 29 years of age.

Bred in Staten Island, NY, Tristan Wilds, known as Mack Wilds, knew stardom at an early age as he used to hang with the Wu-Tang Clan when they would receive haircuts at his father's local barbershop. Mack then went on to score his first major acting role in 2005 on The N series Miracle's Boys before nabbing his first major reoccurring role in 2006 on the HBO series, The Wire.  In 2013, Mack shook things up making a full transition from acting to music, releasing his debut LP New York: A Love Story. The album was propelled by the single, "Own It" and went on to receive a Grammy Nomination in 2014, gifting the actor-turned singer with his first musical nomination of that caliber.

Wilds has worked with Sevyn Streeter, Consequence, Pusha T, Ludacris and more. In 2015, Wilds starred in Adele's "Hello" video and returned to TV in the VH1 movie The Breaks. Wilds chopped it up with XXL recently to talk about new music and turning The Breaks into a TV series.

"When VH1 actually brought [the show] to the table and said it could actually be a series when they started seeing the first dailies," said Mack. "That’s what we started to aim for when it came to putting the rest of it together. It was just dope to see that we have an opportunity to do something. We couldn’t lose a moment of it so we did everything that we could to make sure VH1 has all the ammunition to see that we need to come back."

Retaining his love of music, Wilds dropped off his second official LP, AfterHours, in 2017.

Happy Birthday, Mack Wilds!

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