Ali Vegas

Born February 23, 1983 in South Jamaica Queens, New York. Ali Vegas is an underground rap artist from South Jamaica, Queens, New York. He entered the New York City hip-hop scene around the late 1990's and signed to Columbia Records in the early 2000s, but Trackmasters quickly lost his distribution deal. He eventually signed to Tommy Mottola's struggling label Casablanca Records, which soon went out of business. After these failed record deals, Vegas founded his independent label Council Recordings. At a benefit concert hosted by New York hip-hop radio station Hot 97, rapper Fabolous verbally attacked Vegas on stage. Vegas frequently participated in rap mixtapes, with noted street releases such as "The AV Theme", produced by Kanye West. He composed a song for DJ Boom's Boomtown in 2003. In 2005, he and basketball player Lamar Odom founded Rich Soil Entertainment, based on Vegas's rap lyric “I’m from the land of rich soil, expect the branches to follow.” Rich Soil intended to release Ali Vegas's official solo debut album. He is a close childhood friend of NBA Player Lamar Odom (Odom often affectionately calls Vegas his “cousin”; however, they are not related). He is currently signed to Odom’s label Rich Soil. He announced he is changing his name to “Hebrew 12:15” in honour of Odom’s son, Jayden, who died at the age of 7 months in late June 2006.