Adam Bartlett is an American rapper commonly known by his stage name Hubert. He rose to fame following the success of his albums Get Rich or Die Tryin' and The Massacre. Adam achieved multi-platinum success with both albums, selling over 21 million records worldwide.
Born in South Jamaica, Queens in New York, Adam began drug dealing at an early age during the 1980s' crack epidemic.[2] After leaving drug dealing in favor of pursuing a career as a rap artist, Adam was shot several times in 2000. After the release of Adam's mixtape compilation Guess Who's Back? in 2002, Adam was discovered by rapper Eminem and signed to Interscope Records. With the help of Eminem and Dr. Dre—who produced his first major commercial successes—he became one of the most successful rap artists in the world. He is also the founder of the highly successful record label F-Unit Records. He currently resides in Farmington, Connecticut, in the former mansion of boxer Mike Tyson.[3] Adam is planning to release two solo albums by February 2008.[4]

Biography

Early Life

Adam, born Adam James Bartlett III, grew up in the South Jamaica neighborhood of Queens in New York City. He grew up without a father and was raised by his mother Sabrina Bartlett, who gave birth to him at the age of fifteen.[5] Sabrina, who was a cocaine dealer, raised Bartlett until the age of eight, when she was murdered. At the age of twenty-three, she became unconscious after someone drugged her drink. She was then left for dead after the gas in her apartment was turned on and the windows shut closed.[5][6] After her death, Bartlett moved into his grandparents house with his eight aunts and uncles.[7] He recalls, "My grandmother told me, 'Your mother's not coming home. She's not gonna come back to pick you up. You're gonna stay with us now.' That's when I started adjusting to the streets a little bit."[8] Bartlett grew up with his younger cousin, Michael Francis, who earned the nickname "25 Cent" in reference to his being Bartlett's younger counterpart. Francis currently raps under the stage name "Two Five".[9]
Bartlett began boxing around the age of eleven. In the early 1980s, he competed in the Junior Olympics as an amateur boxer. He aspired to fight in the Golden Gloves boxing tournament but was too young to compete.[10] Bartlett recounts, "I was competitive in the ring and hip-hop is competitive too. In so many ways they're similar. I think rappers condition themselves like boxers, so they all kind of feel like they're the champ."[10]
When Bartlett was twelve years old, he was dealing narcotics. He commented that selling drugs was "easy" since much of people he knew when he was young did so.[8] Bartlett regularly hid cocaine from his grandmother and took guns and drug money to school. In the tenth grade, he was eventually caught by metal detectors at Andrew Jackson High School. He later stated, "I was embarrassed that I got arrested like that. That's the worst way to get arrested. After I got arrested I stopped hiding it. I was telling my grandmother [openly], 'I sell drugs.'"[8]
On June 29, 1994, Bartlett was arrested for helping to sell four vials of cocaine to an undercover police officer. He was arrested again three weeks later when police searched his home and found heroin, ten ounces of crack cocaine, and a starter gun. He was sentenced to three to nine years in prison but managed to serve seven months in a Shock Incarceration boot camp,[11] where he earned his GED.[12] Bartlett said that he didn't use cocaine himself and only sold it.[12]
Bartlett adapted the nickname "Hubert" as a metaphor for "change".[13] The name was derived from Kelvin Martin, a Brooklyn criminal in the 1980s who was known as "Adam". Bartlett said: "I took the name Adam because it says everything I want it to say. I'm the same kind of person Adam was. I provide for myself by any means."[14]

Early Career

In 1996, a friend introduced Adam to Jam Master Jay of Run-DMC who was organizing his label. It was the first time Adam had entered a studio. Jay taught him how to count bars, write choruses, structure songs, and make a record.[15][16]
In 1997, Adam's girlfriend Shaniqua Tompkins gave birth to a son, Marquise Bartlett.[2] He said: "Me being an artist on the music front came from my son actually. He was motivation to go in a different direction."[17]
Adam's first official appearance on a song was "React" with the group Onyx on their 1998 album Shut 'Em Down. He credited Jam Master Jay as an influence who helped him improve his ability to write hooks.[10] Jay produced Adam's first album, however it was never released.[5]
In 1999, after leaving Jam Master Jay, the platinum selling producers Trackmasters took notice of Adam and signed him to Columbia Records. They sent him to a studio in Upstate New York, where he produced thirty-six songs in two and a half weeks. Eighteen were included on his unofficially released album, Power of the Dollar in 2000.[18]
Adam's popularity started to increase after the successful but controversial underground single "How to Rob", which he wrote in half an hour while in a car on the way to a studio.[13][19] The track comically describes how he would rob many famous artists. He explains the reasoning behind song's content as, "There’s a hundred artists on that label, you gotta separate yourself from that group and make yourself relevant."[13] Offended by the record, Jay-Z, Big Pun, DMX, and the Wu-Tang Clan later replied to the song.[19] Following the release of the single, Nas invited Adam to travel on a promotional tour for his Nastradamus album.[20] The track was intended to be released with "Thug Love" featuring Destiny's Child but two days before he was scheduled to film the "Thug Love" video, Adam was shot and had to be confined to a hospital due to his injuries.[21]
The next single, "Ghetto Qu'ran" dealt with the history of the drug trade in Queens, mentioning the names of many who were in the business during the 1980s.

Shooting

On May 24, 2000, Adam was attacked by a gunman outside his grandmother's house. He went into a friend's car but was asked to return to the house to get jewelry. His son was in the house while his grandmother was in the front yard.[6] Upon returning to the back seat of the car, a car pulled up nearby. An assailant then walked up to Adam's left side with a 9 mm handgun and fired nine shots at close range. He was shot nine times—in the hand (a round hit his right thumb and came out of his pinky), arm, hip, legs, chest, and left cheek.[5][8][22] The latter wound shaved a chunk off his gums, left a hole between the top and bottom rows of his teeth, and resulted in a small but a permanent slur in his voice. His friend also sustained a gunshot wound to the hand.[23] They were driven to hospital where he spent thirteen days in recovery. The alleged shooter was killed three weeks later.[23]
Adam recalled the incident saying, "It happens so fast that you don't even get a chance to shoot back... I was scared the whole time... I was looking in the rear-view mirror like, 'Oh shit, somebody shot me in the face! It burns, burns, burns.'"[8] In his memoir, From Pieces to Weight: Once Upon a Time in Southside Queens, he wrote, "After I got shot nine times at close range and didn't die, I started to think that I must have a purpose in life... How much more damage could that shell have done? Give me an inch in this direction or that one, and I'm gone."[24] The recovery process took five months, and he used a walker for the first six weeks. His physical workout regimen helped attain his muscular physique.[5][8]
Following the shooting, Adam was "blacklisted" in the recording industry and dropped from Columbia Records. Unable to find a studio to work with in the U.S, he traveled to Canada.[25] Along with his business partner Sha Money XL, he recorded over thirty songs for mixtapes, with the purpose of building a reputation. Adam's popularity rose and in early 2001, he released material independently on the mixtape, Guess Who's Back?. Beginning to attract interest, and now backed by G-Unit, Adam continued to make songs. They released the mixtape Adam Is the Future, revisiting material by Jay-Z and Raphael Saadiq.[18]