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Jonathan Mortimer Smith is the birth name of Lil Jon who is better known as the King of Crunk. Born in 1971 in Atlanta Georgia, Lil Jon is a hip hop artist and also a producer. He is actually the pioneer for a recent hip hop type of genre called Crunk which is a blend of bounce music, bass music and southern hip hop. He has been active since 1996 and plays different instruments, keyboards, synthesizers, Roland TR-808 and the Drum Machine. His group is named Lil Jon & the East Side Boyz, and the group includes Big Sam the Trinidad hip hop musician now based in New York. A 1989 graduate from Atlanta's Douglass High School, his singing career started with doing remixes for various artists including Matty-K, Jamaal, Too $hort, Kim Murdah, Xscape, and Total till 2000. Lil Jon came back with the album "Put Yo Hood Up." It featured Ludacris, Too $hort, and Chyna Whyte and became a big hit in clubs all over the USA. In 2002 the group released the single "I Don't Give a F--k" and "King of Crunk" - the former soon became a dance floor filler. "Get Low" was another single that became a greater hit and reached the top 5 in global charts in 2003. It also led in the Internet download charts. Lil Jon's breakthrough came in 2004 with his single Yeah! that featured Ludacris and immediately attained the position no. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. Atlanta Ciara launched her debut album "Goodies" that reached No1 on the Billboard 100, with the help of Lil Jon. In 2005 he collaborated with the Atlanta crunk rap group to bring out "Salt Shaker." While the album "Kings of Crunk" was released in 2002, Crunk Juice was released in 2004, and Crunk Rock is expected to be released in October 2007. Lil Jon has also been featured as a character in Tony Hawk's videogame "American Wasteland."

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