Veteran rapper Ludacris forked out his own money to finance his debut album, which he released independently, and it appeared that decision opened big doors for him in his career.
The 47-year-old, born Christopher Brian Bridges, released his independent debut album, Incognegro, in August 1999. Without support from a major labor label, the Chicken-n-Beer rapper ultimately spent $20,000 of his personal finances on the album.
“Just not knowing how the world would receive it and taking the biggest risk by just putting music out there,” Ludacris told PEOPLE about what was going through his mind when making Incognegro.
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“The fear of failure is something you have to overcome in order to accomplish great things. And I think that that was a crossroads of my life going into the success that it did because I told myself I wasn’t going to be afraid of the outcome,” he added. “Those are the type of risks that have the reward that I’ve been able to live off of the fruits of the label.”
Ludacris’ efforts yielded positive results, and Def Jam eventually came knocking. The 47-year-old then signed a deal with the multinational record label in 2000, paving the way for them to make some changes to Incognegro and re-releasing the album in October 2000. The re-released album was renamed, Back for the First Time.
“I put [Incognegro] out independently and then it got 50,000 sold, where Def Jam signed me. I took two records off and added three other records. So what people may not know is that it was an independent album way before it got the success,” he revealed.
Ludacris said what unfolded during the period of his career made him value the essence of “just trusting the process.”
