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Afroman

Joseph ‘Afroman’ Foreman began writing songs and handing them out to his friends on cassette while in the eighth grade. At 25 years old, he released his first album, 1999’s Sell Your Dope. Soon after, he moved from LA to Mississippi with the mission to ‘get away from competition and sell to actual people’, releasing his sophomore album Because I Got High in 2000 on T-Bones Records. Its title track, written hastily after a friend showed up and interrupted him on an ambitious day and insisted they instead get high, was the last song he had recorded for the album. Soon after, Afroman left the music business.

At the same time, the file-sharing software Napster – heavily used at the time to share and distribute music for free – was at its peak of popularity, and the album’s title track became popular with its users. Universal Records caught wind and signed Afroman to a six album deal and released it as a single on July 6, 2001.

“Because I Got High” immediately became one of the most-requested songs across the nation, growing even larger after syndicated morning radio show host Howard Stern began airing it regularly, helping to make it ‘the most requested song on the radio in the country’. Further boosting its popularity was its inclusion in the film (and soundtrack to) Jay And Silent Bob Strike Back and MTV’s eventual agreement to air a modified, less-controversial music video for the song. It peaked at #13 in the US, and topped the charts in ten countries overseas. Its album The Good Times reached #10 in the US.