Hopsin

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About

Hopsin (stage name of Marcus Jamal Hopson) is an American rapper known for his white contact lenses and lyrics, which some fans and detractors describe as "corny."

History

Hopsin released his first mixtape Emurge in 2003, although copies were few and no official versions of it has been released online by Hopsin himself. He was signed to Ruthless Records on 2007^[1] and released his first lead single "Pans In the Kitchen" on May 27th, 2008.^[2] The single was included in his debut album Gazing at the Moonlight, released October 27th, 2009.^[3]

Shortly after his debut's release, he departed from Ruthless Records due to the lack of any album promotions and artist support.^[4] He later founded his own independent label Funk Volume and posted the music video for the song "Sag My Pants" (shown below, left) on October 8th, 2010, garnering more than 47 million views in seven years.

On July 18th, 2012, he uploaded the 5th installment of his "Ill Mind of Hopsin" series (shown below, right), wherein he vents about various topics in his mind. It is his most popular video in his channel, hitting over 88 million views in five and a half years.

He released his third album Knock Madness on November 24th, 2013,^[6] receiving positive reviews from critics.^[7] On January 7th, 2016, he announced on his Facebook ^[13] page that his label Funk Volume is "officially dead", due to business issues with co-founder Damien Ritter (shown below). Two months after this, he released "The Ill Mind of Hopsin 8" as a diss track to Damien.

Since Funk Volume's disbandment, Hopsin started a new independent label called Undercover Prodigy. He released his first lead single, "No Shame" on September 21st, 2017 for the album The Purge. The album was later released on November 24, 2017.^[9]

Online Presence

Launched on March 31st, 2012, Hopsin has garnered more than 2.9 million likes on his Facebook page^[10] in nearly six years. His Twitter account was started on March 9th, 2009 and has more than 566,000 followers on Twitter ^[11] as of January 2017. Despite this, he has been negatively received in many online communities for his corny lyrics, extreme similarities to Eminem, selfishness, and overall negative attitude towards others. His highest album score on user-aggregated review site Rate Your Music is 2.28 (out of 5,) with his lowest being 1.14 (out of 5).^[12]

Anthony Fantano has given two of his albums a 3/10, and one of them a "light to decent" 4/10, stating that he is highly skilled in technique and production, but has "no [musical] taste" and is very self-narcissistic.

"Did the Man Who Invented College Go to College?"

"Did the Man Who Invented College Go to College?" is a line from Hopsin's song "Fly", which was intended to challenge the idea that college is the only way to become successful, and implied that the person who conceptualized colleges didn't need it to attain success. This is Hopsin's most popular line for its corniness and lack of research.

Happy Ending

"Happy Ending" is a song about Hopsin getting sexual pleasure from a masseuse in an Asian massage parlor. The original music video was taken down from YouTube for nudity and sex, and was poorly received for its badly written lyrics and racist stereotypes towards Asians.