Allstar JR

Prevalent themes in the music of this confident and prolific Detroit, Michigan rapper who emerged in the 2010s are crime, money, and street life. Despite his family's roots lying on the other side of the city, Jeremy Ford grew up with his mother and two younger brothers on Detroit's east side. When he was only six years old, his father began a ten-year sentence for drug trafficking. As he grew, he found father figures in basketball coaches and a middle school math teacher, but he ultimately fell into crime. At the age of 19, Ford was placed in prison for a year and a half on a charge of home invasion, only 18 months after his father was released. This incarceration not only interrupted his second semester at Michigan State University -- on an academic course to which he did not return -- but also got in the way of his first attempts at rapping. On his release, with friends continuing to encourage him to make music, Ford decided to go one step further and aimed to make it his career. Released under the Allstar JR name, his debut mixtape, May 2016's Get a Bag or Go Home, lent part of its title to his own label, Get a Bag. The following year, he drafted in local talents Fmb Dz and Sweeze Don to appear on his June single, "Dog." Within a few weeks of that release, those artists also made respective appearances on his EP, Blowin the Extras, and a second mixtape, Cases Pending. February 2018 brought the first of Allstar JR's Organized Crime projects, and later that year he collaborated with Dee McGhee and P3 on a joint single titled "Love 2 Do It." L.A.'s Lil Mex contributed to his next project, September's Big Daddy Shit, before the Keep Goin R EP appeared early following year. August 2019 brought a second Get a Bag or Go Home mixtape, subtitled Summer in the Spot, and in a productive next couple of years he clocked up appearances on no fewer than 21 singles. While riding high off the back of August 2021's Get a Bag or Go Home 3, Allstar JR took a shot to the head the following month in a near fatal incident. Treatment involved needing to have his jaw wired shut for a sustained period, which curtailed a frenetic recording schedule. However, "On the Flo," a joint single with Lil Kenwood, was already in the can and appeared in October, while "Guy Behind It," a track from August's mixtape, was well on the way to racking up one million streams. Allstar JR returned in March 2022, appropriately, with his own take on Kanye West's debut solo single, "Through the Wire." From there, he enjoyed an unstoppable year, releasing no fewer than 15 singles before its end. 2023 began with the Organized Crime 2 mixtape, before "Whats it Gonna Be" featuring RingBoy Pablo and Outofreach M appeared that May. ~ TiVo Staff, Rovi