Nick Cannon was born in San Diego on October 8, 1980. When he was 12, he began riding busses to L.A., in order to perform stand-up comedy at venues like the Laugh Factory. Because liquor was served, he often had to wait in the kitchen before his set.

At 18, he moved to L.A. and was on the Nickelodeon TV show All That. By 2002, he had his own Nick Cannon Show. He wed singer Mariah Carey in 2008.

As of 2010, Cannon is a programming chairman at Nickelodeon, where he’s heading up a Josie and the Pussycats revival. He’s also developing a hip-hop puppet show for the Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim programming block.

In late 2010, his single “So Westcoast” featured Compton’s own DJ Quik, while he worked on a new double-album and a new mixtape featuring remixes done with Snoop Dogg, E-40, and Quik. He and Mariah Carey had twins in spring 2011. Later that year, he landed in an Aspen hospital after suffering what his wife described on Twitter as partial kidney failure.

The R&B/hip-hop guy group 4Count (formed by the America’s Got Talent host and signed to his NCredible Entertainment label) dropped a new single called “Snapback” on iTunes July 31, 2012.