Christopher Bridges (born September 11, 1977), better known by his stage name Ludacris, is a three-time Grammy Award-winning American rapper and actor.
Ludacris was born Christopher Bridges in Champaign, Illinois. He lived in Oak Park, Illinois and attended Oak Park and River Forest High School. During his high school years his family later moved to College Park, a suburb of Atlanta, Georgia. He attended Banneker High School there and then studied Music Management at Georgia State University.
He worked as a radio presenter under the pseudonym DJ Chris Lova Lova at Atlanta hip-hop station 107.9WHTA. Producer-rapper Timbaland made an offer for Ludacris to work with him at the radio station. Ludacris performed on the track "Phat Rabbit" as Ludacris on Timbaland's 1998 album Tim's Bio.
Ludacris was featured on the cover of Beyond Race magazine for the publication's summer 2008 issue. After the success of The Red Light District, Ludacris then used his opportunity to start his own foundation. The Ludacris Foundation, started by Ludacris and Chaka Zulu, is an organization that helps young middle and high school students motivate themselves in creative arts.
In April 2008, Ludacris was to have launched his latest business venture, Straits Atlanta, bringing Singaporean cuisine to the artist’s hometown. The restaurant is the fourth of its kind: Ludacris’ partner in the venture, Chef Chris Yeo, owns three other restaurants in the Straits brand in San Francisco, San Jose and Burlingame, California. Straits Atlanta will further incorporate Georgian ingredients into the menu. The upscale $2.7 million dollar restaurant will open in Midtown Atlanta, in a building purchased by Ludacris nearly one year ago. Ludacris has also invested almost $1,000,000 into renovating the building. Two more restaurants are in the works.
Ludacris is also the co-host of a show with rocker Tommy Lee for Planet Green entitled "Battleground Earth". The show premiered on August 3, 2008 and aired through September 2008. The show airs Sundays at 10 PM ET on Planet Green and Thursdays at 8 PM ET on TLC.
The song "Politics (Obama Is Here)" from Ludacris' mixtape The Preview has caused controversy due to lyrics in the song criticizing Reverend Jesse Jackson (”Now Jesse talkin’ slick and apologizin’ for what?/ If you said it then you meant it”), McCain (”McCain don’t belong in any chair unless he’s paralyzed”), President Bush (”Yeah I said it, ‘cuz Bush is mentally handicapped/ Ball up all of his speeches and throw ‘em just like candy wraps/ ‘Cuz what you talkin’ I hear nothin’ even relevant/ And you the worst of all 43 presidents”) and insulting Hillary Clinton (”Hillary hated on you, so that bitch is irrelevant..”).
On August 27, 2002, Bill O'Reilly called for all Americans to boycott Pepsi products, due to O'Reilly's opinion that Ludacris' lyrics glamorize a "life of guns, violence, drugs and disrespect of women".
On August 28, 2002, O'Reilly reported that Pepsi had fired Luda. O'Reilly later denied his call for a boycott when challenged on his show, claiming that he merely said he wasn't going to drink any Pepsi products.
Furthering the Pepsi controversy, in response to the signing of the Osbourne family, popular hip-hop music mogul Russell Simmons organized a boycott against the company. Simmons demanded an apology from Pepsi to Ludacris and a 5 million dollar donation to one of his charities. Eventually Simmons and Pepsi settled on an agreement to stop the boycott, right before it was to officially begin. While Pepsi did not formally apologize to Ludacris, they did agree to donate millions of dollars over several years to Russell Simmons Hip-Hop Summit Action Network.