Marcus Jamal Hopson (born July 18, 1985), better known by his stage name Hopsin, is an American rapper and record producer from Los Angeles, California. In 2007, he was signed to Ruthless Records, and has since founded his own record label, Funk Volume, in 2009. Hopsin has released two studio albums, Gazing At the Moonlight through Ruthless Records and Raw along with the mixtape Haywire (with SwizZz) through Funk Volume. He is due to release a collaboration extended play with Travis Barker and his third studio album Knock Madness in 2013. He is well known for his use of white colored eye contacts in music videos, performances, and interviews.
Marcus Hopson was born on July 18, 1985 in Los Angeles, and was raised in the Panorama City neighborhood of Los Angeles. He attended James Monroe High School, where he was placed into special educational classes. Hopsin has been an avid skateboarder since the age of twelve, as many of his music videos feature him skateboarding. He started rapping at sixteen years old, and took his hobby more seriously by 2003 which is the year the majority of the tracks from Hopsin's self-produced album Emurge were recorded. He dropped out of high school during his senior year in 2004 to pursue a career in music, purchased a microphone, and installed Fruity Loops onto his hard drive. While starting his music career, Hopsin decided to sport colored eye contacts while performing in his music videos. He stated that he used the contacts to give himself a memorable appearance and differentiate himself from other African American rappers with the cliché appearance. He credits Eminem as the rapper that initially got him interested into hip hop music
Hopsin had initially signed with Ruthless Records in 2007. He was originally hailed as one of driving forces behind attempting to bring Ruthless Records back to previous glory. Hopsin's debut single "Pans In the Kitchen" was released on May 27, 2008. The album was set to be self-produced by Hopsin and feature no collaborations with other artists] However his debut album, Gazing at the Moonlight was not released until October 27, 2009, with little to no promotion. Shortly after the album's release, Hopsin sought his release from Ruthless Records due to lack of financial compensation, artist support, and promotion. Shortly before the departure from Ruthless Records, Hopsin founded his own independent label, Funk Volume, with Damien Ritter. SwizZz, who is Damien Ritter's younger brother and a former classmate of Hopsin at Monroe High, was the first artist to be signed to Funk Volume. Shortly after launching Funk Volume, both Hopsin and SwizZz released a collaborative mixtape titled Haywire in June 2009 to promote the label Funk Volume originally wanted to sell it for retail sale, but were unable to due to Hopsin still being contracted by Ruthless Records at the time. On mixtape website DatPiff, it has been certified Gold for being downloaded over 100,000 times and it later made available f
Hopsin released "Nocturnal Rainbows" as the first promtional single off of his upcoming second album Raw on August 1, 2010. On October 8, 2010, Hopsin released a music video for the song "Sag My Pants", the first official single off Raw on YouTube. The video became a YouTube success and currently has over 24 million views. In the song Hopsin pokes fun and disses other rappers such as Lil Wayne, Drake, Soulja Boy, Lupe Fiasco, Rick Ross and Tomica Wright, the owner of Ruthless Records. Hopsin's second album, Raw, was released on November 19, 2010. In March 2011, Hopsin went a two-month nationwide tour to promote Raw with the I Am RAW tour.
In July 2011, Hopsin released the fourth installment of his "Ill Mind of Hopsin" video series which later received over 21 million views on YouTube. In it he disses Tyler, the Creator of the Los Angeles hip hop collective, Odd Future. On October 31, 2011, Hopsin was featured in a mobile battle rap game, Battle Rap Stars by Jump Shot Media.or purchase for digital download via iTunes and Amazon.com.
In January 2012, Hopsin landed a spot on MTV2's "Sucker Free Sunday" by appearing in Tech N9ne's music video for "Am I A Psycho?". In February 2012 Hopsin appeared on the front cover of XXL as part of their annual "Top 10 Freshmen list" along with fellow rappers French Montana, MGK, Danny Brown, Roscoe Dash, Iggy Azalea, Macklemore, Don Trip, and Kid Ink. In July 2012, Hopsin released the fifth installment of his "Ill Mind of Hopsin" video series which hit YouTube with huge success. It had received over 1 million views in less than 24 hours and currently has over 28 million views.[19][20][21] In "Ill Mind of Hopsin 5" Hopsin expresses his frustration with jaded youth and disenchantment towards other rappers who are unrelatable. It had also charted at number 17 on Billboard's Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Digital songs chart. In October 2012, Hopsin made an appearance on a BET Cypher during the 2012 BET Hip Hop Awards alongside SchoolBoy Q, Mac Miller and Mystikal.[23][24]
