Joyner Lucas is a Massachusetts born rapper, producer and an actor who became widely known in 2015 through his single titled „Ross Capicchioni“.
This single became a very popular single and it has drawn attention to Lucas and his music. Lucas has always been very inspired to create music for everyone and not just a certain group of people.
This is one of the many reasons why he was accepted really well into the public community. Everyone always feels welcomed.
He also came to limelight with his single „I’m Not Racist“ whose video went viral after getting into Youtube. The song has political and social connotations.
Early years
Joyner Lucas was really born by the name Gary Maurice Lucas, Jr. on August 17, 1988, in Worcester, the city named after the same city in England, but this one was settled in Massachusetts, United States. Little did his parents know that he was going to be such a popular person.
He started rapping when he was only 10 years old after getting interested in this genre. He liked to listen to the older boy in the neighborhood rapping so he soon began following his path. Joyner was always really interested in being creative. While others played outside, he decided to create some lyrics and poems. His teachers were surprised how good he was and those were the first signs of his validation.
He was a student at South High Community School in Worcester. He was expelled from it in 2007, but the reasons aren’t quite clear. It seems like he wasn’t interested in school and that he was trying to become successful in the world of music so he decided to put his focus on it and forget about the rest of the stuff that bothered him.
It was probably for the fact that he didn’t attend class and possibly had some issues with some of his teachers. Many speculate different things and therefore no one is really sure about the origin of this spell out.
Gary’s first stage name wasn’t Joyner Lucas like today – he called himself G-storm when he first began recording in a serious way and trying to make a career for himself.
Career development
It was in 2007 that he made the change from his rap name G-Storm into Future Joyner which he liked very much and stuck to it.
Many times later he did think of changing his name to something else just because of publicity and the fact that his audience was constantly changing, but he decided that it may not be a good idea and that he will stay true to his origins.
Joyner began working with a member of his family, his uncle whose stage name was Cyrus the Great. His uncle was also into hip hop and soon realized that his nephew has a lot of talent.
The two of them had a vision of becoming known superstars and they created a group. The group was named „Film Skool Rejekts”. This was an idea that both of them had and they wanted to become really famous at that time, but they had to end up in solo careers for the true fame to happen because no one was taking them seriously since they were just another little school band.
Their first mixtape was named „Workprint: The Greatest Mixtape Of All Time“ and it was released in 2007.
They continued working together butt Lucas always wanted to start his own career. He was very ambitious and had dreams of making memorable songs.
That is why he has released his very own debut mixtape named „Listen 2 Me“ and he has released it under his new stage name: Future Joyner. This mixtape was released for sales in 2011.
Afterward, he decided to lose a part of his name „Future Joyner” and become solely Joyner. He became known and started making performances in his home city and wider, getting gigs all over the country and touring through the state.
In the spring of 2015, he had new materials for release, so he released his next mixtape named „Along Came Joyner“. He always works on new songs and his issue is that he often doesn’t know where to put them and should he release a whole album for them or not. This is something that many artists struggle with.
This mixtape was a huge success which brought him wide critical acclaim and good reviews from the critics and other prominent hip hop artists. He was starting to get many offers from other artists and producers, but he decided to stay true to the people he was already working with or wait for a really big name to come up.
The best single on the mixtape became the one named „Ross Capicchioni“.
It contained 21 singles which are a really high number for a mixtape to have. This single „Ross Capicchioni” has become his signature single and brought him a very big amount of money.
He gained so much popularity that he was invited to join the 2015 BET Hip Hop Awards event, where only current stars get invited.
Lucas was also very good at remixing other singles from known artists, such as 21 Savage and Kendrick Lamar. He says that the best thing about his job is the fact that he can work with all of these starts and meet them and hear their stories. He often relates to them.
He made a remix of 21 Savage’s hit single „Bank Account“. The same thing was with „DNA“, a song made by Kendrick Lamar and „Gucci Gang“, an enormously popular single made by Lil Pump.
He did also a single „Panda“ for an artist with a stage name Designer and he did „Mask Off“ by Future. One of the last songs he made as a remix of BlocBoy JB’s hit „Look Alive“.
In 2016 Lucas had a dream come true: he has signed a contract with a very known record label named Atlantic Records.
In the summer of 2017, his record label released his fourth mixtape. This project was his first commercial debut and before releasing it, he had preceded the mixtape with several of his best singles.
The mixtape was named „508-507-2209“ and was produced by several producers such as Boi-1da and Coleman. This mixtape debuted as No.7 on the US Heatseekers chart the next month.
In November 2017, Joyner’s new single was released onto his Youtube channel. It was titled „I’m Not Racist” and it went viral very fast. It’s always a bunch of controversies surrounding these topics and people only do it for clout, so many suspected that Lucas did the same thing, although he claims that he did not.
The reason for it to become viral was in its controversy. The soul of the song is a discussion about race problems in the US (and wider) and realism, both by a black and white man. It questioned a lot of social issues and tried to point out the artificial differences made by the society which take black and white race apart.
This song was also eligible by digital download and was categorized under Trip-hop and political hip hop. The songwriters were Gary Lucas, David Kraft, and Tim Wieke. It was produced by The Beed Plug and The Cratez.
The video for this song has become so popular that it garnered over 100 million views until today which is a very huge number for a YouTube video.
The song is also interested because it has a lot of lyrics and just a little sound in the background.
The video was directed by Proulx brothers and contained many controversial scenes.
For example, the white man in the video wears a cap „Make America Great Again“ which was very distinctive in Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.
He gave his opinion about black people after which black men with dreadlocks gave his opinion about white people and they understood each other at the end of the video and even hugged.
Lucas wanted to send the message about how racism is destroying the society just because people don’t want to show empathy and are poisoned with politics which distances them from one another.
In February 2018 Lucas has released his new single named „Stranger Things“ which was made in collaboration with Chris Brown, an extremely popular American rapper. Their project together was named „Angels & Demons“.
In spring 2018 Lucas has released a new single with a story behind it. It was named „Frozen“ and it was telling the story about the high percentage of driving recklessness in the streets. He tries to make his songs meaningful and educational.
In May the same year a mixtape titled „ I Don’t Die“ was released.
One month later he was about to start his „I’m Kinda a Big Deal” tour which was set for running in Europe and Australia when he was caught with severe laryngitis which caused great hoarseness and he was not able to perform due to his illness.
Lucas was especially happy for being invited to guest appear on Eminem’s album „Kamikaze“ because he respected him a lot as a rapper and producer.
The single made in collaboration with Eminem was very popular and went to No.6 on the Billboard Hot 100 charts. This was the first time ever that Lucas entered the Top 10 list.
His new song named „I Love“ was released at the end of 2018 and it is the leading single of „ADHD”, his debut studio album he is working on.
He was nominated for the Grammy Award twice: once for his song „I’m Not Racist“ in the category of Best Music Video and the second time for „Lucky You“ as the Best Rap Song.
As for his personal life, Joyner is very private about it. It is known that he has two siblings. His first three mixtapes were a release by a small record label named „Dead Silence“.
In 2018 he decided that he doesn’t want to be contracted by any record label so she decided to become independent and release his own work.
Personal life
In 2015 he has been in a short relationship with Angela Yee She worked in a radio station and they met through their work. It is unknown when they broke up.
Although Hoyner is not married to anyone yet he has a son. He speaks about him in a lot of his songs and posts some great photos of him on his social media but he is trying to keep him secured from the public eye.
As for his race, he is of African-American ancestry because of his father, but his mother’s roots are in Europe.
As for some interesting things from his private life we can mention that his aunt always gave him $1 when he was a kid to see him perform and sing „Woo Hah“ by Busta Rhymes because she liked the song very much.
When he was a kid he went through a difficult situation after his mum divorced from his father. His step-father raised him afterward and has a big role in his life.
When asked who influenced him the must he stated that it was The Notorious B.I.G. and Nas.
He is a Christian by religion. He currently lives in L.A.
Quick summary
Full name: Gary Maurice Lucas, Jr.
Date of birth: August 17, 1988
Birthplace: Worcester, Massachusetts, United States
Age: 31
Profession: rapper, songwriter, record producer
Height: 183 cm
Weight: 82 kg
Net Worth: $4 million