Moses Mortimer Barrett III was born on July 22, 1973 in Greenville, North Carolina. After spending five years in prison for armed robbery, Barrett moved to New York City where he became friendly with rappers Busta Rhymes and Black Rob. While rapping in a restroom of a cabaret, he got found by an A&R director at Jive Records. After signing a record deal with Jive Records, Petey Pablo started working on his debut album. His first single, “Raise Up” got tons of airplay on urban radio as well as the music video was consistently played on MTV. The track, that was produced by hip-hop super-producer Timbaland, reached No. 25 on the Billboard Hot 100.