Origins
Born February 7, 1966 in Georgetown, SC

Albums
Chris Rock - Born Suspect
Chris Rock - Bigger & Blacker
Chris Rock - Never Scared

Also Featured On...
Ice Cube - War & Peace Vol. 2 (The Peace Disc)
Ludacris - Theater Of The Mind
Method Man - Tical 2000: Judgement Day
Ol' Dirty Bastard - Nigga Please
Ol' Dirty Bastard - Dog Food
Ol' Dirty Bastard - In Loving Memory Of Russell Jones
Prince Paul - Politics Of The Business (Advance)
Space Jam

Bio From AllMovie.Com
Though he was born in South Carolina, Chris Rock grew up in Brooklyn, New York. Rock discovered comedy early in life, and was performing in the New York standup comedy circuit by his late teens. It wasn't until a performance at the New York Comedy Strip that Rock's dream became tangible. That night, a then 18-year-old, Rock was introduced to veteran comedian Eddie Murphy, who was impressed enough to cast him in 1987's Beverly Hills Cop II. While it was no breakout performance, the role and newfound connection with Eddie Murphy helped Rock land a couple of small supporting roles, and eventually a spot on NBC's long-running Saturday Night Live.

Rock stayed with SNL for the better part of three years, and periodically guest-starred in fellow comedian Keenan Ivory Wayans' In Living Color. In 1991, he took a break from comedy in favor of a more dramatic role — indeed, Rock's performance as a surprisingly innocent crack addict-cum-informant in Mario Van Peebles' New Jack City attracted no small amount of favorable attention. Perhaps the role in New Jack City is indicative of Rock's driving force (i.e., the politics of modern society and issues within African-American communities throughout the United States). Though his delivery is certainly of a comedic nature, many of his favorite topics are quite serious, and it was Rock's ability to confront these issues so accurately that launched his career during the late '90s. While his 1993 screenwriting debut received only lukewarm reviews, Rock became a household name after his scathing HBO comedy special Bring the Pain (1996), earning him two Emmy awards and a significantly larger fan base. The same year, he received a third Emmy for his work as a writer and correspondent for Comedy Central's Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher. Before long, Rock received a fourth Emmy as well as the NAACP Image Award for his work on HBO's The Chris Rock Show, which aired throughout 1998 and 1999.

Rock's film career would continue to grow throughout the late '90s, and the young comic won particular notice for his role as a hot-headed law enforcement agent in 1998's Lethal Weapon 4 opposite Danny Glover and Mel Gibson, and later for Kevin Smith's Dogma(1999), in which he played a rather bitter apostle of Jesus. He also published a book titled Rock This! with much success. Though Dogma received mixed reviews, 1999 was no lukewarm year for Rock — HBO came through once again, and Chris hit it big with Bigger & Blacker, his second televised comedy special, which took on topics ranging from gun-control to Bill Clinton and proper parenting techniques. In 2000, he played a fantasy hitman alongside Renée Zellweger in Nurse Betty.

In 2001, Rock put his screenwriting abilities to the test in Down To Earth, a remake of 1941's Here Comes Mr. Jordan, and again in Pootie Tang, a feature spin-off of one of the characters from The Chris Rock Show. Though Pootie Tang fared much better as a three-minute sketch, the film's razor-sharp pop cultural references begat a spot alongside I'm Gonna Git You Sucka and Hollywood Shuffle. In 2001, Rock lent his vocal chords to Steven Spielberg's A.I.: Artificial Intelligence and Osmosis Jones, and rejoined Kevin Smith for a tiny role in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. In 2002, Rock was one of several comedians featured in Christian Charles' documentary Comedian, and in the same year starred opposite Oscar-winner Anthony Hopkins as a CIA spy in Bad Company. Rock directed and starred in 2003's Head of State as an unlikely presidential candidate for the Democratic party.

Head of State divided critics; most felt nonplussed, or espoused mixed feelings, such as The Los Angeles Times's Manohla Dargis, who mused, " Rock can't set up a decent-looking shot, and… doesn't care about niceties such as character development… but…nonetheless wrings biting humor from serious issues with the… ferocity [of]… Richard Pryor and Lenny Bruce." After Head, Rock's big screen activity diminished just a bit; he voiced Marty the Zebra in the CG-animated, family-oriented features Madagascar (2005) and Madagascar 2 (2008), but his most frequent turn during this period arrived in the form of a new semiautobiographical sitcom on UPN, Everybody Hates Chris, that debuted in September 2005. As written and produced by Rock, it cast Tyler James Williams as a younger version of the comedian, during the early '80s, who lives in the steel-tough area of Bedford-Stuyvesant and is bused, each day, to a school full of Italian Americans. As narrated by Rock, this sweet, gentle, nostalgic and witty program caught everyone off guard and drew outstanding ratings during late 2005 "TV Sweeps"; New York Times correspondent Alessandra Stanley was certainly not alone when she praised it as "charming" and compared it favorably to The Cosby Show - high praise, indeed.

In 2007, Rock returned to cinemas, posing a quadruple threat (writer/producer/ director/star) with the adults-only sex comedy I Think I Love My Wife. In that picture (a remake of Eric Rohmer's Chloe in the Afternoon!) Rock plays Richard Cooper, a suburban investment banker saddled with a wife and two kids, who finds it increasingly difficult to avoid delving into a rich world of sexual fantasies, and then to avoid an imminent affair with a gorgeous "old friend" (Kerry Washington) seeking career advice. I Think I Love My Wife took its stateside bow in mid-March 2007, to reviews as mixed as anything in Rock's prior career; most critics either loved or hated it; a few responded ambivalently. - Sandra Brennan

Official Site: Chris Rock