Before They Were Famous

Before becoming a part of the next wave of Afrobeat hitmakers, the artist known as Tems was born Temilade Openiyi on June 11th, 1995 in Lagos, Nigeria. With her father being British Nigerian, Tems and her family moved to London when she was still just a baby. Still, they’d return to Nigeria some four years later where her parents got divorced shortly thereafter. From that point forward, Tems was raised alongside her brother, Tunji, by their mother in the neighborhood in a tiny one-bedroom apartment. On Sunday everyone would attend the same local church and everyone in their community always seemed to know everyone else. With Lagos being such a big city and Tems having a quiet demeanor, she often felt alone in the midst of the sprawling capital and so she began writing poetry as a means to deal with her complicated emotions

Despite most of us having to spend 2020 under lock-and-key, Jamaican dancehall artist Skillibeng spent the majority of last year spreading his name all around the world thanks to some great tracks. Without a doubt, the last year has provided Skillibeng with a string of breakthrough moments, including the release of his single “Brik Pan Brik”, jumping on a remix of Pop Smoke’s “Dior”, and dropping his debut mixtape “The Prodigy” which featured an appearance from his mentor, Popcaan. Today, Skillibeng is arguably more popular than his former idol and he knows he needs to continue working hard to keep it that way. And my man ain’t kidding – that “Prodigy” mixtape I just mentioned, well, it features over 30 tracks because Skillibeng understands that you need to make hay while the sun shines -- a lesson he learned after nearly losing his life in an automobile accident a few years ago.

BEFORE CRIS CAWLEY would forge an impressive career for herself as the mastermind behind Game Changer Publishing. BEFORE CRIS CAWLEY would extend her brand by offering her clients a suite of professional programs designed to help them become their very best. BEFORE CRIS CAWLEY would have nearly 1K Subscribers on YouTube and 108K followers on Instagram at the time of this recording. One sure fire way to make an impact on the world is to write a best-selling book. Unfortunately, the process of getting that book published can be a dauting experience for darn near anyone, especially if you don’t happen to have the necessary connections in the industry. But that’s where entrepreneur Cris Cawley comes in. Over the past two decades, she’s devoted the bulk of her time to starting her own company known as Game Changer Publishing and along the way she’s helped a whole host of people accomplish the dream of publishing a successful selling book in 90 days or less. Not only that, but she’s also an award-winning coach and consultant who offers her clients guaranteed ways to succeed in growing their brands. But sometimes it can be hard to believe the hype when you don’t know anything about the person promising to change your life around for the better. So, today, we’re going to introduce you to Cris’s story and give you a taste of how she accomplished her remarkable achievements on our newest episode of Before They Were Famous!

Before almost single-handedly winning France the World Cup with a rare hat-trick in the Final match of the tournament, Kylian Mbappe was born on December 20th, 1998 in the city of Paris -- and as the athlete himself once suggested in a children’s book made about his life, from the very beginning, Kylian Mbappe was born into football. In a lot of ways, you could also say that Kylian was born in the right place at the right time. His local football club, AS Bondy, was where his Cameroon-born father, Wilfried, used to coach under-15s and would go on to train more than a dozen top professionals -- but it was his son that Wilfried always had the greatest designs for. Of course, it wasn’t just Kylian’s parents who wanted greatness for him – he wanted it for himself, and from a young age too. At just six years old he learned every line to France’s national anthem while explaining to his teachers at school that he was doing so in preparation for playing in the World Cup. At that same age, he’d also watch interviews of his many heroes, studying how a talent like Cristiano Ronaldo would handle the media and then pretend to hold his own press conferences by posing questions to himself in what would eventually become three languages – his native French, as well as English and Spanish -- the foreign languages he studied at a private Catholic school.

Another year, another list of celebs who passed away, 2022 saw its fair share of celebrity deaths with many of those we grew up with passing away of natural causes but also some young stars like Takeoff and PnB Rock who lost their lives at young age needlessly. As we have become accustomed to, its been another challenging year for the world of rap and hip hop but also for other stars to Gen Z like Aaron Carter, Coolio, and Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins. We are going to go through a ton of bios here today, off the top we have The Queen who was 96. A personal fav of mine, Ray Liotta from Goodfellas fame. One of the strangest deaths of the year was Anne Heche age 53. As well as Ivana Trump who is said to have fallen down her stairs. From the world of comedy, we have Bob Saget, Gilbert Godfried, and Louie Anderson are three comics who passed around the same time. We also have 4 actors who all portrayed Italian mobsters. Other big names like Meatloaf and the White Power Ranger Jason David Frank. Some stars we had time to cover over the past year, others we didn’t have time to produce a full biography video on like TV DJ Stephen ‘tWitch’ Boss who took his own life just before the holidays. In today's video, we will pay a quick tribute to all those we lost over the year 2022. If I missed anyone please let me know and feel free to leave your condolences in the comments below. Now, let’s get into this video.

Aubrey Drake Graham, the everyman of hip-hop, is a man who can dominate an entire year musically without even releasing his own album, it's happened before. However, this was not one of those years, at least with being prolific because Drake did still dominate but he did so by releasing a ton of new music including two new albums, one of which was an experimental house album, the other a collaboration with great 21 Savage.However, all of the new music and collaborations did not come without controversy or spicy headlines for the media tabloids to run with. Drake is also just one of the most popular celebrities on the planet, people constantly come up off his name so it isn’t surprising to see the things people do just to gain clout off the Canadian rapper's name. Drake also does some pretty extravagant things like getting a necklace made out of 42 wedding rings or throwing confetti championship celebrations for his friend’s pick-up basketball league. As he said himself, Drake is a presence that is almost its own character in movies, and the man has had quite the year so here are the 5 craziest Drake moments of 2022.

Genius, tyrannical, revolutionary, and dangerously egotistical, those are four descriptions that contrast in their own unique way, however, they are also 4 ways that one could describe the artist Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, and even then that's a very surface level way to put it. In the year 2022 Ye had probably one of the most unique years of his career from his creative endeavors to controversy and the wild statements he makes, now Ye really isn't a stranger to any of those things I mean you could make a list of the crazy things he's done every year but what this man has done in 2022 ladies and gentlemen is a different beast altogether. As I said Ye has always been controversial and polarising however this year we saw Ye shift from being someone who transcends, delivers nuance, and is divisive to someone who is just objectively wrong and some might even say harmful or dangerous. From disastrous album roll-outs to public disputes with his wife and Pete Davidson to embarking on a campaign of anti-Semitism that even made Alex Jones ayo bruh chill. Many dubs this as the year we lost Ye, obviously not in a literal sense the man is still here and well, but more in a cultural and social sense, Ye meant and did a lot for a lot of people so it was tough but many had to put their foot down and say they are done with Ye. So here are the 5 craziest things that Mr. West has done in the year 2022 right here on Before They Were Famous.

There were plenty of crazy moments in Hollywood and the world of Social Media. MrBeast passes PewDiePie, The return of Brenda Fraiser, Heidi Klum dressed as a worm for Halloween, Rihanna had a baby, Julia Fox & Kanye West, Ben Affleck back with J Lo & off the Jamesons, Pete Davidson dating everybody, every school teacher on earth quitting to get on Only Fans, Elon Musk taking over Twitter, The Try Guys cheating scandal, Harry Styles Spitting on Chris Pine, Billie Eilish Deep Fakes, Tom Brady splits from Giselle and half of Hollywood is exposed for Crypto scams. That’s just a short recap of some of the Hollywood headlines from this year and none of those made it into our list of the Top 5. For my full recap be sure to stay tuned. We also had a huge number of celebrity deaths which I will cover in a follow-up video titled 2023 In Memorium, few names on there include Bob Saget, Takeoff, of course, The Queen, Aaron Carter & more. That stuff is a little glummer so let’s get on with the show and talk about the biggest moments of 2022. Also, be sure to let me know who you think is the biggest star of the year in the comments down below – based on our analytics it’s Ice Spice quickly followed by Glorilla. Aright, enough intro. Let’s get into this video.

After turning himself into the biggest childhood actor of all time with the holiday classic “Home Alone”, Macaulay Culkin would see his acting career dry-up by the time he turned 14. And yet -- he still somehow managed to wind up a perfectly happy 42-year-old with a fiancée and baby, living the type of life few childhood stars ever get the chance to experience. Before all of that, Macaulay Culkin was born on August 26th, 1980 in New York City to his father, Christopher Culkin, a former child actor turned lackluster Broadway star, and his mother Patricia Brentrup. The two were never married but still produced a brood of seven children, including five sons and two daughters – all of whom lived in a cramped New York City apartment where the kids shared a series of bunk beds jammed into one room. Unfortunately, Macaulay never had much control over his own career and wound up at the mercy of his father in particular, who often chose his son’s roles for him. After early roles in television series like ‘The Equalizer” and the hit comedy film “Uncle Buck”, Macaulay’s big break came when he was just eight-years-old on the set of John Hughes’ masterpiece, “Home Alone”.

The actor, former child star and teen heartthrob that captivated a generation, Jonathan Taylor Thomas also known as JTT has had quite the career. Once a pop culture mainstay that you'd find a photo of on the inside of a teenage girl’s locker in the late 90s, now the man is something of an enigmatic presence that is able to go 8 years without anybody taking his photograph. But before his rise and fall from fame, JTT was born on September 8, 1981, in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. He grew up in a household with his parents, Stephen and Claudine, and his older brother, Joel. As you know JTT got his feet wet with acting from a very early age, having made appearances in various commercials, his first official gig came as a voice role for the titular character of Spot in the US version of 'The Adventures of Spot'. In 1990, he made his acting debut playing the role of Kevin Brady on the TV series 'The Bradys', which itself was a spin-off of the 1970s show 'The Brady Bunch'.