Jermaine Dupri is one of the most premiere hip hop producers of our time. Throughout his career, he has been able to work with well-known musical artists like Usher, Mariah Carey, and Jay-Z. (Many producers can only fdream of being able to work with these kinds of people.) Dupri was a very prominent figure in music starting in the mid-2000’s, but you don’t really hear about him as much as you used to. What exactly has been going on with Jermaine Dupri? Is Jermaine Dupri still making music? In this article, I plan on answering those questions, among a few others. I’ll talk about what Jermaine Dupri did in order to become famous to begin with, and I’ll also provide his fans with a brief update as to what he has been doing more recently.
Jermaine Dupri’s Early Life and Career
Jermaine Dupri was born in September of 1972 in Ashevile, North Carolina. He was surrounded by music at a fairly early age. You see, Dupri’s father was Michael Maudlin, a well-known executive for Columbia Records. Maudlin wasn’t just a record label executive, either. He was also a talent manager, operating out of Atlanta. Through his dad’s work, Jermaine was able to get his start in entertainment at a very early age. When Jermaine was only ten years old, he was able to dance on stage with Diana Ross during one of her shows. This may not seem like much, but it was definitely the first step toward a much greater career for Dupri. By the time he was just twelve, he was dancing for Whodini, the hip-hop group.
Starting in the late 1990’s, Jermaine would continue to collaborate with high-profile artists. He helped Usher produce a couple of songs off of his 1997 album My Way, which ended up becoming a successful album for the artist. Another one of Dupri’s biggest successes came just a year later, when he helped Destiny’s Child to produce their debut album. I don’t think that anything can really be said about the success and popularity of Destiny’s Child and what the release of this album would mean to the artists in the group. Following all of this time that he had spent helping to get other artists off of the ground, Jermaine Dupri began to focus on developing his own career in music. It’s not entirely uncommon for popular producers to go on to become successful solo acts, so this isn’t too unorthodox of a move on his part.
Jermaine Dupri During the Early to Mid 2000’s
Around this time, Dupri released “The Party Continues”, the lead single of of his upcoming studio album. This album, called Jermaine Dupri Presents Life In 1472: The Original Soundtrack was released in 1998. While he was working on his debut album, Jermaine met Lil Bow Wow. Lil Bow Wow was signed to So So Def Recordings in 2002, and he would go on to become a major star. Bow Wow and Dupri would collaborate a few times through both of their careers. Around this time, Jermaine collaborated with Mariah Carey yet again, this time on her album Charmbracelet. In 2004, Jermaine and Usher worked together again on his album Confessions. Dupri worked directly on songs like “Burn” and “Confessions Part II”, both of which would go on to become majorly popular singles.
In the years following this collaboration with Jay-Z, Jermaine would continue to work with a wide variety of different successful artists. In 2008, he worked with Mariah Carey on her album E=MC². During that same year, he collaborated with Janet Jackson and Usher on his albums Discipline and Here I Stand, respectively. He had another big year in 2010 when he collaborated with those very same artists on Raymond vs. Raymond and Merry Christmas II You. After 2010, though, Jermaine Dupri’s output as a producer significantly decreased. He wasn’t working in music nearly as often as he used to. Does that mean that Jermaine ended up retiring from music altogether? What has Dupri been doing in music more recently?
What’s Jermaine Dupri Doing Now in 2018 – Recent Updates
You may be surprised to hear that Jermaine Dupri has actually branched out his career into television. Starting in 2016, Jermaine has been working with Queen Latifah to create the Lifetime reality television series The Rap Game. On the show, aspiring rappers are followed as they work to become successful in the music industry. The Rap Game has been quite successful, spawning three individual seasons. Its third season is airing right now, and it premiered in January of 2017. It’s really common for music moguls to become popular in entertainment, and it’s no exception in this case. A lot of people appreciate Jermaine Dupri’s work, and even more people appreciate this different facet of his work.