Jay-Z’s Paternity Case Officially Dismissed After 10-Year Legal Battle

1. Born in New York City's Brooklyn, Shawn Corey Carter grew up in the notorious Marcy housing projects in the borough's Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood.

2. "It was a very intense and stressful situation," he recalled during a 2010 interview on NPR's Fresh Air. "There was playing in the Johnny-pump (an opened fire hydrant) and the ice-cream man coming around and all of these games that we'd play, and suddenly it would turn just violent and there would be shootings at 12 in the afternoon on any given day. It was a weird mix of emotions. One day, your best friend could be killed. The day before, you could be celebrating him getting a brand-new bike."

3. But he remembers some highlights. "My mom and pop had an extensive record collection," he shared of his earliest inspirations, "so Michael Jackson and Stevie Wonder and all of those sounds and souls of Motown filled the house."

4. He was 9 when he "started messing" around with music, he told British GQ in 2005. "I guess like all kids that got into hip-hop. And there was this guy who used to freestyle around the way. He used to rap about anything, You know, 'My clothes is damp / And I like that lamp / And I am the champ,' and I was like, that's f--king cool. So I started trying it. It was a gift. I guess in the beginning I really took it for granted, it came so easy."