Michael Ray Nguyen-Stevenson was born on the 19th of November 1989 and raps under the name Tyga. He signed a contract with Young Money entertainment in 2007 after his very first mixtape and has since released three studio albums.
The name is an acronym for Thank You God Always and with a career like his; one has reason to suspect some divine intervention. However, this is not to say he hasn’t earned the right to be one of the biggest names in mainstream hip hop.
The truth is you don’t get signed to the label of one of the world’s most notorious rappers and work with everyone from Drake to Nicki Minaj to Wiz Khalifa without earning the right to do so. It’s just that it’s happened faster than anyone could have predicted.
I mean, who predicts that the second major label single than an artist is a part of goes up to number 2 on the Billboard charts, as Tyga did with the Young Money collaboration “BedRock”? However, Tyga has never been one to let things happen around him.
They say you make your own luck, and in the music industry that’s more true than anywhere elese. For Tyga it was a chance encounter that he had in a shoe store with Travie McCoy. Tyga rapped for him on the spot and the Gym Class Heroes frontman took his mixtape there and then. They now refer to each other as cousins.
Tyga is a golden example of where a well taken opportunity can get you, and his time at the top has only just begun.
Stephen Day
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