- Rapper singer and songwriter born Tramar Dillard in 1979, from Carol City Florida.
- Dillard’s brother-in-law worked as a background rapper for the rap group 2 Live Crew. When he was in the 9th grade, Dillard joined an amateur rap group called the GroundHoggz. They performed locally for 8 years. Realizing that he would need a stage name, he initially chose Ruckus Pimp, but soon after, he decided to take the name of his home state, break it in half, and go with Flo Rida.
- Rapper Fresh Kid Ice from 2 Live Crew liked Dillard’s work with the GroundHoggz, and Ice invited Flo to be a background rapper for a show in Hawaii. They became friends, and Flo continued to work with Ice. Interested in a music career, Flo was unable to find a label that was interested in him, so he went to college. Before completing a year of college, he returned home to Florida to continue to try to get into a music career. By 2000, he was making connections in the hip hop industry, supporting other artists, but was still unable to get a recording deal. Finally, in 2006, he signed with a hip hop record label.
- His first recording was a promotional single in 2007 called Birthday, featuring Rick Ross, designed to get radio stations familiar with Flo. That same year, he had a guest appearance in DJ Khaled’s Bitch, I’m From Dade County.
- His breakthrough came with his debut single – Low, released in October 2007. Co-written with T-Pain, who also co-produced and was the featured artist on the song, it reached #1 on the Hot 100 chart within 7 weeks of its release, and it remained at #1 for 10 consecutive weeks. It was the best selling digital download of all time until surpassed in 2010 by the Black Eyed Peas, and it was certified 9x platinum as a single. Currently, it is in the top 40 of the most downloaded songs of all time.
- With the success of Low, Flo’s debut album was released in 2008. Titled Mail on Sunday, it peaked at #4 on the Billboard Hot 100 album chart. In addition to Low, two other singles broke into the top 20 of the Hot 100 chart – Elevator and In the Ayer. This led to guest appearances by Flo Rida on numerous songs by other artists, including Lady Gaga, Madonna, DJ Khaled and Rick Ross.
- In 2009, his second studio album, R.O.O.T.S., was released. The first single was another smash hit – Right Round (featuring Kesha) stayed at #1 on the Hot 100 for 6 weeks, and it was certified 7x platinum as a single. Its world wide downloads of over 12 million make it one of the most downloaded songs in history. Also on the album, Sugar peaked at #5 on the Hot 100 chart.
- Flo Rida only released 2 studio albums during the 10s – Only One Flo (Part 1) in 2010 and Wild Ones in 2012. The first was only a modest success, with 1 single, Club Can’t Handle Me (featuring David Guetta) peaking at #9. Wild Ones was more successful, with Good Feeling, Wild Ones, Whistle and I Cry each reaching the top 10, and Whistle topping the chart. In 2015, a 7 track EP titled My House was released, with 2 more top 10 hits – G.D.F.R. and the title track. My House was the second best selling song of 2016 in the U.S.
- Suddenly – the new music stopped coming from Flo Rida. As huge as he was, other than 1 non-album single in 2019 and 2 in 2018, Flo Rida has been absent from the new music scene. He also has not been a featured artist since 2017. Judging from his many posts on Facebook and Twitter, he is performing at festivals and is enjoying his travels to different parts of the world, but he is not making new music. I suppose he is resting on the laurels of his past success – his net worth of over $30 million must help!
- All of Flo Rida’s videos show him having a great time, living a life of excess, lots of pretty girls, fast cars and expensive digs. Ahh…life seems to be good for him. Here’s his video for Wild Ones (featuring Sia).