Tohri Harper, St. Louis, Missouri, USA. A trend followed by many up-and-coming rappers in the early twenty-first century
was to build a buzz with a bunch of cameo appearances on recordings by more established artists, before branching out on their
own. This is exactly what rapper Murphy Lee did, recording as part of the
St. Lunatics hip-hop
troupe and guesting on releases by the crew's main protagonist,
Nelly. Lee earned a nickname
early on as "Skool Boy", owing to his penchant for spending extra hours at his school, either catching up on his studies or
playing basketball.
His focus eventually shifted from sports to music, as he and several friends began turning heads as the rap crew, St. Lunatics.
Before any recordings were issued from the St. Lunatics, Lee guested on Nelly's "Batter Up", from Country
Grammar, as well as a remix of "Roc The Mic', on which Lee traded rhymes with both Nelly and Beanie
Sigel. St. Lunatics then issued their debut, Free City, while Lee also guested again on a
Nelly recording, 2002"s mega hit Nellyville. With an impressive commercial record thus far, Lee
signed his own solo contract with Universal, that resulted in the release of Murphy's Law
in September 2003. Once more, another Lee-related release scaled the charts, reaching the US Top 10. The album included the
chart-topping US hit "Shake Ya Tailfeather". Originally included on the soundtrack to the movie Bad Boys
II, the track featured Lee, Nelly and P. Diddy (aka Sean "Puffy" Combs). That ablum also
included the chart-topping US hit Wat Da Hook Gon be.
