Lorenzo Jerald Patterson (born June 14, 1969 in Compton, California) better know by his stage name MC Ren is a rapper and hip-hop producer.
Biography
Born and raised in Compton, California, he joined up with the gangsta rap group N.W.A. while finishing his senior year at Dominguez High School. He contributed vocals on the Straight Outta Compton (1988) album and soon found himself a much more valuable member of the group after Ice Cube departed in 1989.
N.W.A. became the first gangsta rap group to gain mainstream success. However, as their album Efil4zaggin, backwards for Niggaz 4 Life, reached the #1 spot on Billboard in 1991, financial conflict between Dr. Dre and Ruthless Records led to the group disbanding. Group member Eazy-E was accused of skimming money along with the group's manager. Dr. Dre left to help form Death Row Records. MC Ren subsequently released his debut album with the help of Eazy-E in 1992, entitled Kizz My Black Azz. Surprisingly enough, with little commercial promotion, the album went platinum, best known for its hit single "Final Frontier." MC Ren's next album, Life Sentence, was scrapped while converting to the Nation of Islam (which he has since left[1]) with guidance from his DJ, DJ Train. Shock of the Hour (1993) was released the next year. It also features the single "Mayday on the Frontline" which appeared in the film CB4.
MC Ren soon found hard times when DJ Train died in a house fire before the release of the ill-fated The Villain in Black (1996); that album also sold relatively well for a brief period. Before leaving Ruthless Records, Ren released Ruthless for Life (1998) which proved a worthy comeback, that also sold briefly. He appeared on the posse cut "Some L.A. Niggaz" from Dr. Dre's 2001, but only spoke the intro and did not actually rap on the track.
In 2000 he rapped a verse on the Hello-track featering Dr. Dre & Ice Cube on Ice Cube's War & Peace Vol. 2 (The Peace Disc)-album. He joined the Up In Smoke Tour that same year just to rap this verse on this track.
As of 2002, Ren was working on another album. His lyrical abilities have been displayed with many guest appearances with artists from Ice Cube, Kurupt, Snoop Dogg, Paris, The D.O.C., Cypress Hill and many others. He is highly touted by his peers, such as Nas, who mentions Ren in his song "Hip Hop Is Dead" ("So who is in your top ten? Is it MC Shan, is it MC Ren?")
In addition, MC Ren released the straight-to-DVD movie entitled 'Lost in the Game', released in 2004.
His most recent work has appeared on some more politically-oriented projects such as with Public Enemy, specifically Paris' album Hard Truth Soldiers V.1 as well as on Public Enemy's album Rebirth of a Nation (2006). Paris did state, however, in a recent interview with Rapstation.com that "MC Ren is retired and won't be doing a full-length album as far as I know. I get at him for verses, that's about it."
New information has come to light from dubcnn.com on November 1, 2006 that MC Ren will be recording again with RBX and Big Rocc to form the group "Concrete Criminals". MC Ren appeared on the VH1 Hip-Hop honors talking about Eazy-E in the tribute to Eazy-E.
Toj so saka neka cita...MC Ren bese eden od clenovite na NWA pa mislam deka vredi da se otvori tema za nego... pozz
peace out!