Rapper and media personality Heather B., born Heather Gardner in Jersey City, New Jersey on November 13, 1971, got her big break when she was cast in the first season of MTV’s reality series The Real World in 1992. At the time she had ties to Boogie Down Productions, but her debut album came in 1996 with Takin’ Mine. The leadoff single, “All Glocks Down”, sought to bring attention to and stop gun violence. Her TV and rap cred led to her acting in the movie Dead Presidents. The 1998 single “Do You” was her most successful single on the pop chart, landing in the bottom half of the Hot 100. Her sophomore album, 2002’s Eternal Affairs features guest appearances by such notables as Nature, Horse, and DJ Premier. In the early 2010s there were indications that she and DJ Premier completed a new album titled Open Bar, but it was never released. Heather B. became the co-host of the satellite radio show Sway In the Morning in 2012, and she would go on to appear as herself on the Netflix series Luke Cage, as well as the 2018 remake of Death Wish.
