Maino

Brooklyn native Maino, born Jermaine Coleman, built a loyal following on New York’s mixtape circuit after growing up in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section under parents battling drug addiction. Without steady family direction, he gravitated toward street activity and small-scale offenses that led to his imprisonment in the early 1990s. While incarcerated he began writing rhymes to combat the monotony and solitude. Roughly a decade later, in 2003, he walked free and immediately launched his own imprint, Hustle Hard. His first New York radio exposure arrived via Hot 97’s DJ Kay Slay, which opened the door to repeated mixtape placements over the next several years. Cuts such as “Rumors” and “Take It Like a Man,” taken from his own projects, drew interest from major labels including Universal, which signed him in 2005. The arrangement dissolved, however, and his scheduled debut album, Death Before Dishonor, was ultimately scrapped. Atlantic then acquired Maino and Hustle Hard in 2007, allowing him to drop the street single “My Life Is Like a Movie” that same year. “Hi Hater” followed in 2008, setting the stage for his major-label debut If Tomorrow Comes… and its platinum-certified single “All the Above,” both issued in 2009. The Unstoppable EP surfaced in 2010, while the album The Day After Tomorrow and its lead track “Let It Fly” arrived the following year.