Shwayze, Chiddy Bang, and Asher Roth

Born on 29 May, 1985, Shwayze has achieved enormous success in the music industry, making quite a name for himself.

Shwayze, Aaron Smith at the time, came from a poor background. He lived in a trailer park during adolescence and juggled several jobs. His introduction in to the music industry was unusual to say the least. He was discovered during a Whitestarr performance in a nightclub, when he jumped on to the stage and started freestyle rapping. The unexpected move landed him a deal with Suretone records, as Whitestarr frontman Cisco Adler was so impressed with him. Adler and Smith soon formed the duo Shwayze, meaning ‘not white’ (Smith identified himself in an interview as the only non-white kid in Malibu).

After recording several tracks together, the duo was signed to the label Geffen. Adler helped with the song writing, production and back-up vocals for Smith. The self-titled album, Shwayze, was released as the result of the collaboration and the first single off the album, ‘Buzzin’ became an instant hit. It was released on 19 August 2008 and was the start of Shwayze’s rise to success. His second single, ‘Corona and Lime’ peaked even higher on the Billboard Charts, topping the success of the first single.

Some of Shwayze’s musical influences include A Tribe Called Quest, Crazy Town and Atmosphere. Smith himself admitted that he grew up wishing to be like Snoop Dog. Shwayze’s musical style is unusual in that, despite sounding relatively mellow and pleasant, his lyrics revolve around the stereotypical rap content of women, drugs and heavy partying. Since his start, stint as a duo and decision to keep the name Shwayze as referring solely to himself rather than to both himself and Adler, Shwayze has released an impressive handful of studio albums and has come to be known as the quintessential Southern Californian rapper.

Originally Chiddy Bang consisted of another member; Noah Beresin also knows as Xaphoon Jones but he departed in 2013 so that he could focus his attention on producing.

Chiddy Bang began gaining attention after they received mass publicity on social media websites such as MySpace when their songs were featured on the popular music blog Pretty Much Amazing. This gained them a growing fan base of college kids and even led to them having a packed out show in Swarthmore College in April 2009.

In 2009 Chiddy Bang released their first ever mixtape titled "The Swelly Express" this hip hop music was well received by their fan base and contained 18 songs including skits. The song "Opposite Of Adults" contains a sample from "Kids" a song by MGMT. This song was incredibly successful and even managed to land itself a place on the charts; entering the top 10 on the US Billboard Heatseekers Songs and the top 20 within the UK official Singles chart.

In 2011 after the success of their song "Opposite of Adults" Parlophone/EMI gathered an interest in the duo and this resulted in them signing them with plans to release a full length album.

Chiddy Bang have worked alongside many artists including Tinie Tempah; in which they opened for the artist on his "Disc-overy tour".

After releasing their debut album "Breakfast" Chidera has announced that he would be working on the mixtape for Chiddy Bang titled "Baggage Claim".

Chidera currently holds the Guinness World Record for the Longest Freestyle Rap and the Longest Marathon Rapping record as he has rapped for 9 hours 15 minutes and 15 seconds.