MC Hammer

Although he is seen as the forefather and innovator of popular rap and dance, due to his over-exposure at the peak of his career in the late 1980s, MC Hammer is also considered to have sold out and become a mainstream rapper. Hammer initially wanted to be a baseball player and was employed by the Oakland As when he was only 11 years old. Failing to make the grade as a pro, he joined the Navy for three years whereupon he set up a recording label with the financial help of a few athlete friends. He released his first album, Feel My Power in 1987 which spawned the massive dance hit Let's Get It Started. Record companies came a-knocking but it wasn't until he was offered a multi-album deal by Capitol Records that Hammer's career took off. His album went platinum several times but it was his second album, Let's Get It Started, that caused controversy amongst the rap scene; Hammer was thought to be more concerned with dance and image than lyrics. Third album, Please Hammer, Don't Hurt 'Em (1990) topped the Billboard charts - due in most part to the dance single U Can't Touch This - and Hammer's videos began to appear on MTV and VH1. He continued to release singles and albums but because of his tendency to sample others, change his style to suit a developing genre and his sanitised lyrics the rap scene began to see him as mainstream. Having earned over $30 million, Hammer was bankrupt by 1996. However, he continues to run a record label and produce and was voted the seventh greatest dancer of all time, as well as the seventeenth most popular rapper.