Early Life
Born Lamont Coleman in Harlem, New York on May 30, 1974, he was the third and youngest child of Gilda Terry (d. 2008) and Charles Davis. His father left the family while Coleman was a child. He has two siblings, Donald and Leroy Phinazee (d.), who were the children of Gilda Terry and Mr. Phinazee. Coleman received the nicknames "Little L" and "'mont 'mont" as a child. At the age of 12, Coleman became a big hip hop fan and started freestyling against his own neighborhood. He founded a group called Three the Hard Way in 1990, but was quickly broken up due to a lack of enthusiasm. It consisted of Coleman, a "Doc Reem", and a "Rodney". No studio albums were released, and after Rodney left, the group was called Two Hard Motherfuckers. Around this time, people started to call him "Big L". In the summer of 1990, Coleman met Lord Finesse at an autograph session in a record shop on 125th Street. After he did a freestyle, Finesse and Coleman exchanged numbers.
Coleman attended Julia Richman High School. While in high school, Coleman freestyle battled in his hometown; in his last interview, he stated, "in the beginning, all I ever saw me doing was battling everybody on the street corners, rhyming in the hallways, beating on the wall, rhyming to my friends. Every now and then, a house party, grab the mic, a block party, grab the mic." He graduated in 1992.
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