Slim Thug

Stayve Jerome Thomas, born in 1980 and known as Slim Thug, is a Houston rapper whose early reputation was built on other people's records before his own. Long before his name headed an album, he was performing freestyles at local high school parties at seventeen, and by the late 1990s he had joined the Swishahouse crew. He later split from that camp on amicable terms, founding his own independent label, Boss Hogg Outlawz, after finding that selling his own mixtapes paid well. A 2004 guest turn with Paul Wall on Mike Jones' "Still Tippin'" brought him to mainstream attention.

Signing with Interscope Geffen A&M and pairing with Pharrell Williams's Star Trak Entertainment led to his debut, Already Platinum, released in July 2005. It reached number two on the Billboard 200 and sold 130,000 copies in its first week, while his appearance on Beyoncé's "Check on It" that year topped the Billboard Hot 100. Boss of All Bosses followed in 2009, debuting at number 15 on the Billboard 200. He had left Star Trak and Interscope the previous year, and in 2020 released Thug Life.