September 8, 1979 Calvin Johnson was born to Leah and Calvin Johnson Sr. With an older brother Tirrell, Calvin and his parents lived in Compton. When Calvin was seven, their family moved to Van Nuys California, to pursue better job opportunities. Soon after moving to Van Nuys, Leah and Calvin Sr. developed a drug habit, one which would lead them to abandon their children for months at a time. Because of Leah and Calvin Sr.s (big Calvin) drug habit, the family was evicted and forced to move to Ft. Worth Texas. The family temporarily lived in a motel until big Calvins father purchased their family a house. Around Christmas time little Calvins mother and father separated and big Calvin moved to Chicago, where he had a daughter named Alisha. Because of big Calvins absence; his family wasnt able to pay the bills, and they were forced to move into an apartment in Dallas Texas. The apartment that they moved into had no lights, little furniture, and little food. Leahs addiction became worse, and she started selling the families belongings to support her habit. One morning when Calvin and Tirrell were 9 and 11, they awoke to an empty house. They didnt see their mother for six months. Leahs mother, (Bigmama) found out that her grandchildren were living in a vacant apartment, and she sent for them to come home to Compton. Calvin and Tirrell lived there for a year until Leah showed up to take them. Leah lived in an apartment complex called the Jackson Projects in Rialto California. A month after Leah had taken Calvin and Tirrell from Compton, big Calvin came back to his family. Things seemed to be falling back into place, as far as them being a family again. Until about two months later when Leah found out that there were drugs being sold around the corner on Jackson street. Leah ended up in debt with a lot of the drug dealers in the area which led them to break into her house and beat up big Calvin looking for her. A month later in December, Leah showed up to be back with her family. At least thats what they thought. On Christmas day Calvin and Tirrells grandmother,(Bigmama) brought them Christmas gifts. The next day Leah had cleaned the apartment out, the only thing different this time was, big Calvin was still there. A week after Christmas, big Calvin and his kids moved back to Compton to live with Bigmama. Calvin was 11 and Tirrell was 13. Big Calvin stuck around long enough to get his life together. A year after moving back to Compton, he moved to Lynwood California where he met Laura. With Leah still missing in action, Bigmama battled with the courts to get custody of her grandchildren. Two years after big Calvin moved to Lynwood, Calvin and Tirrell were legally adopted by their grandmother. Calvin was 13 and Tirrell was 15. By this time Calvin and Tirrell were so accustomed to their corrupted lifestyle, it was hard to bring them back to reality and teach them right from wrong. Their grandmother did everything she could to keep them from having to go through anymore hardships. Tirrell and some of his friends formed a rap group called The Raggamuffins. With Calvin looking up to his brother the way he did, he fell in love with rap music as well. When Tirrell was 16 he turned to a life of gangbanging. And with Calvin looking up to his big brother the way he did, Calvin also fell into a life of gangbanging but never gave up his love of music. Their grandmother tried and tried to keep Calvin and Tirrell from this kind of lifestyle, but she eventually lost her grasp on Tirrell. She focused more on keeping Calvin from being exactly like his brother because she knew that everything Tirrell did, Calvin did. Calvin went to Poly High School while his brother was enrolled at Bellflower High School. Even though Calvin was a good student and a good athlete, he couldnt leave the streets behind, he fell deeper into a life of gangbanging. With conflicts that had arisen at Poly, Calvin was forced to check into Dominguez High School. He was 15. This made matters worse for Bigmamas fight to keep Calvin from following in his brothers footsteps because Dominguez was in their neighborhood and Calvin was around the gangbanging more than he was at Poly. With Tirrell now at Dominguez, Calvin had his mentor by his side again and there was no stopping the both of them. In 1997, Calvin graduated from Dominguez. This made things worse for Calvin because now that he was out of school, he didnt have anything else to do but gangbang and hustle. He developed a name for himself and was well known on the streets. All because he was trying to live up to Tirrells expectations. In 1999, Calvin was 19 years old and this is when he met Poppa Duke, Bokie Loc and Boss Hog. These are the people who actually taught Calvin how to read music and how to make songs. A year after learning all of this, Poppa Duke introduced Calvin to Young Gold. Thats when they formed the group Rated Real which consisted of Calvin, Young Gold and Poppa Duke. Six months after forming the group, all of them had children. This made it hard for them to do music. But Calvin and Young Gold made sacrifices to continue doing music, while Poppa Duke made excuses not to do music. In 2001 Poppa Duke was kicked out of the group and replaced with Calvins cousin LonDon. Over the next two years, the group went on to finish two albums. One of which was pressed up by Disc Maker. Rated Real started to develop their name and were beginning to get a lot of publicity. June 13, 2004, Tirrell was shot and died in the wee hours of the morning on June 14, he was 27. Calvin took his brothers death extremely hard. Calvin went through a lot of good and bad changes after Tirrells death. He met JayRed and they started to work really hard on their music, along with Young Gold and Lon Don. Directly following Tirrells death, Rated Real started doing the Mix Tapes. Over the next two years Rated Real started getting even more publicity causing certain people to act different. Over a few months time, Calvin began to see who was really serious about making music and he began to cut out people here and there so that there wouldnt be any head bumping in the long run. Hes done shows all over southern California. Places such as: The Dragonfly, Key Club, Press Box, Crystal Park Casino, Forbidden City, Club Bellagio ,etc. Eventhough Calvin was brought in a grimey environment he still accomplished a lot. He went back to school for Pharmacy tech, made good grades all threw High School, and worked numerous jobs. Between work and his kids he always made time to do his music. He made sacrifices as far as losing sleep to finish songs, filling in the blanks when noone would show up for studio sessions, and and struggling with producers trying to get beats for his group. June 20, 2006 two years after Tirrell was murdered , Calvin is on the road to being tremendously successful. He couldnt be happier.
