Born in Brooklyn's Brownsville section, Jinx da juvy a.k.a. Derek Carr, was raised in the aptly named Langston Hughes projects. He began to rap and write rhymes at age twelve when his family sought temporary housing in a homeless shelter. Seen through Jinx' adolescent eyes, these unstable beginnings reinforced his view of a warped and unfair world which he began to document in his rhymes. His tenure at high school was brief and he quickly dropped out to sell drugs and run the streets. Shot twice by the police gave Jinx more fodder for his music and he soon caught the ear of several record executives. Jinx turned them on their heads and soon the major labels were locked in a bidding frenzy to sign him. Founder and CEO of Def Jam Records, Russell Simmons won out, and signed Jinx at age fifteen. But after three years Jinx realized the label was in trouble and lost no sleep making the decision to bail the drama-ridden label in order to blaze the Independent trail. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.