He grew up in Brentwood Long Island, and began recording with Bad Boy Records in 1988. But it was Flava in Ya Ear – a collaboration with fellow Bad Boy artists Sean ” Puff Daddy” Coombs, Busta Rhymes, LL Cool J and Notorious BIG that became iconic. Writing in Rolling Stone, Amir “Questlove” Thompson pegs the remix of this song as 20 on his list of the 50 greatest hip-hop songs of all time.