Lloyd Banks

Lloyd Banks is an American rapper whose two-decade career has produced multiple defining 2000s American hip-hop-music roles — particularly his founding membership in 50 Cent's G-Unit hip-hop collective and his 2004 first commercial album The Hunger for More. He was born Christopher Charles Lloyd on April 30, 1982, in Kingston, Jamaica, Queens, New York City, into an African-American Jamaican-Puerto-Rican-American working-class family. His father Charles Lloyd was a Jamaican-immigrant Queens-area worker, and his mother was a Puerto-Rican-immigrant homemaker.

His teenage career across the late-1990s — across his early-1990s formation of the Queens-area hip-hop collective with his Jamaica, Queens childhood friends 50 Cent (Curtis Jackson) and Tony Yayo (Marvin Bernard) — launched his late-1990s American underground hip-hop public profile. His 2002 founding-membership in 50 Cent's G-Unit hip-hop collective (alongside fellow Queens-area rappers 50 Cent and Tony Yayo) launched his early-2000s American hip-hop public profile.

His 2003 first commercial G-Unit album Beg for Mercy — released by Interscope Records — sold over four million American copies and produced his American hip-hop public profile. His June 29, 2004 first solo commercial album The Hunger for More — released by Interscope Records — sold over 433,000 American copies in its first week (the most by any debut hip-hop album in 2004) and produced the singles "On Fire" (his first solo single) and "Karma."

His subsequent 2006 second commercial album Rotten Apple sold over 600,000 American copies in its first week and produced the singles "Hands Up" and "Cake." The 2010 third commercial album H.F.M. 2 (The Hunger for More 2) produced his single "Beamer, Benz, or Bentley" (which peaked at number 92 on the Billboard Hot 100). His subsequent 2010s and 2020s career has produced multiple American mixtape-and-commercial-album releases — particularly his 2021 sixth commercial album The Course of the Inevitable, his 2022 seventh commercial album The Course of the Inevitable 2, and his 2023 eighth commercial album The Course of the Inevitable 3. He has been with American homemaker Mocha Shontia since 2010, and the couple has multiple children.

His name Lloyd derives from the Welsh llwyd meaning "grey" or "sacred." Lloyd has been a popular American boys' name across the early-to-mid 20th century.