Biography
South Carolina native Infinity tha Ghetto Child emerged from hip-hop’s Dirty South tradition as one of its many hardcore rappers. Although his rhymes stop short of conventional gangsta rap, they seethe with descriptions of ghetto hardship and the violence of inner-city criminal life. His vocal approach favors a jagged, abrasive edge rather than any understated calm, pairing that raw delivery with sobering subject matter in pointed contrast to the relaxed style West Coast gangsta rapper Snoop Doggy Dogg employs on similarly weighty themes.
Born Antwon Buie in Charleston in 1980, Infinity grew up inside the city’s notorious Johnson Street Housing Projects, where poverty, black-on-black crime, joblessness, and drugs surrounded him daily. His mother battled crack cocaine addiction, and his father was absent. During his teenage years in the 1990s he began a relationship with another crack addict from the neighborhood; she gave birth to his son, yet the Department of Human Services removed the child to foster care because of her addiction. Courts later awarded Infinity full custody, while the mother entered rehabilitation and, his publicist reported, was recovering by 2001.
Despite the dysfunction of Charleston’s most blighted district, Infinity aggressively chased a recording career. In the late 1990s he recorded and independently released several singles and EPs, among them the regional hit “Carolina Love,” which moved more than 20,000 units across the South. Around 1997 he began collaborating with South Carolina hip-hop producer D.J. Bless—not to be confused with the alternative rocker of the same name—resulting in another regional success, “Throw Ya Fingaz Up.”
Early in the 2000s that body of work attracted MCA, which signed the Charleston rapper. His first full-length release, Pain, arrived in March 2002 on Never So Deep/MCA; D.J. Bless handled production, and the hard-hitting “In tha Ghetto” served as the lead single.
Born Antwon Buie in Charleston in 1980, Infinity grew up inside the city’s notorious Johnson Street Housing Projects, where poverty, black-on-black crime, joblessness, and drugs surrounded him daily. His mother battled crack cocaine addiction, and his father was absent. During his teenage years in the 1990s he began a relationship with another crack addict from the neighborhood; she gave birth to his son, yet the Department of Human Services removed the child to foster care because of her addiction. Courts later awarded Infinity full custody, while the mother entered rehabilitation and, his publicist reported, was recovering by 2001.
Despite the dysfunction of Charleston’s most blighted district, Infinity aggressively chased a recording career. In the late 1990s he recorded and independently released several singles and EPs, among them the regional hit “Carolina Love,” which moved more than 20,000 units across the South. Around 1997 he began collaborating with South Carolina hip-hop producer D.J. Bless—not to be confused with the alternative rocker of the same name—resulting in another regional success, “Throw Ya Fingaz Up.”
Early in the 2000s that body of work attracted MCA, which signed the Charleston rapper. His first full-length release, Pain, arrived in March 2002 on Never So Deep/MCA; D.J. Bless handled production, and the hard-hitting “In tha Ghetto” served as the lead single.
Albums
