Tony Yayo

There’s probably never really a good time to go to prison, but when Tony Yayo - or Marvin Bernard, to give him his boring old birth name that doesn’t involve a slang term for cocaine - was incarcerated for the entirety of 2003 due to gun possession offences, he probably couldn’t have timed it much worse. That was the same year that G-Unit, the group that he’d spent years laying the groundwork with, reaped the rewards of their hard work by breaking through into the mainstream with the stone cold classic ‘Stunt 101’. partly thanks to the emergence of 50 Cent as a rap star; accordingly, Yayo made only two appearances on the group’s debut record, Beg for Mercy, released in November of that year. In the years since his May 2004 release, Yayo has released his debut record, Thoughts of a Predicate Felon, and enjoyed chart success with the smash single ‘So Seductive’; he also played a much more prominent part on his group’s second album, T.O.S.: Terminate on Sight, in 2008, with his parts receiving critical acclaim. With G-Unit reforming earlier this year, Yayo is back in the fold and his solo career is back on ice; look out for UK dates from the group soon.