MC Hammer Named After Baseball Legend
It is here that you'll get to meet Stanley Kirk Burrell, the real life persona of the ‘90s rap star who made $33 million, had a $12 million mansion and secured lucrative endorsement deals with KFC, Taco Bell and Pepsi before filing for bankruptcy.
Hammertime will follow Hammer, who lives in Oakland, California with his wife of 23 years. He has six children.
Ironically, it wasn't Burrell's rapping skills that got him the name MC Hammer. Long before he picked up a mic, the then 13-year-old kid from Oakland received the nickname from baseball legend Reggie Jackson.
Burrell earned a gig as the batboy for the Oakland A's after catching the attention of the team owner Charlie Finley who spotted the ambitious baseball fanatic dancing in front of the stadium for tips to buy game tickets. Jackson dubbed Burrell Hammer because he thought he resembled Hank Aaron.
Though Hammer hoped to become a professional baseball player, he joined the Navy. While enlisted, he continued to hone his rap skills which dated back to his days in the Christian group the Holy Ghost Boys. After an honorable discharge from the Navy, MC Hammer began pursuing full time a career in hip hop.
In 1987, he released his first album Feel My Power and sold 60,000 copies independently. The following year, after signing a recording deal with Capitol Records, MC Hammer updated the album and released it as Let's Get It Started.
It was his next album, 1990's Please Hammer Don't Hurt ‘Em, that made MC Hammer a household name.
He remained in the news over the years, releasing several subsequent albums though none achieved the success of Please Hammer Don't Hurt ‘Em. He caught flack with the 1994 record The Funky Headhunter. Then signed to Suge Knight and Dr. Dre's Death Row Records, The Funky Headhunter depicted Hammer as a gangsta rapper, an image that wasn't digestible considering his pop stature, shiny stage costumes and bubblegum raps. He became a preacher in the late ‘90s and appeared on other reality shows The Surreal Life and I Married...MC Hammer.
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Nobody touches MC Hammer, not because he says so, but because no one wants to...
btw, i don't think he looks anything like Hank Aaron... but i do like Reggie Jackson! : )
All y'all hatin' on Hammer - dissin' Hammer -
lol
Keep it up!!!
i know mr.burrell personally and he is hekkah nice
so back off yall hatin people with no lives
and for those who said nice things thatnks yall is kewl
vanilla ice
all i ever heard about him was its hammer time lol