Smitty

Varick D. Smith, better known as Smitty, is an American rapper and hip-hop ghostwriter from Little Haiti, a neighborhood in Miami, Florida.

Biography

While growing up in Little Haiti, Varick came home one day to see a friend fatally shot due to involvement in a drug conflict. The incident made him more aware of his future. In 1997 he decided to enroll at Florida A&M University to major in journalism. However, his aspiration to become a full-fledged artist led him to switch coasts after only two and half years of school. He would eventually, through a friend, get the opportunity to start in the hip-hop industry by flying out to meet with legendary producer Dr. Dre while he was filming The Wash. After many hours waiting around on set, Varick finally got the chance to rap in front of Dr. Dre. Dr. Dre was impressed and Varick was asked to work on a few tracks for The Wash soundtrack. He is also a good basketball player.

In addition to working on the soundtrack, Varick wrote two Billboard Hot 100 chart-toppers, "Shake Ya Tailfeather" by P. Diddy, Nelly & Murphy Lee for which he won a Grammy for Best Performance at the 2004 awards and "Bump, Bump, Bump" by B2K. He also has collaborated with fellow hip-hop artists such as Trick Daddy, Scarface, Kanye West, T.I., and BMG.

Smitty (comic strip)

Smitty was a popular newspaper comic strip created in the early 1920s by Walter Berndt. Syndicated nationally by the Chicago Tribune New York News Syndicate, it ran from November 29, 1922 to 1973 and brought Berndt a Reuben Award in 1969.

Characters and story

The strip featured young office boy Smitty, his six-year-old brother Herby, his girlfriend Ginny and his dog Scraps. Other characters were Smitty's boss, Mr. Bailey, and the Indian guide, Little Moose. Berndt based the strip on his own experience as an office boy, recalling, "I learned the tricks, shenangians and schemes of an office boy and became expert at them." Berndt saw his creation as featuring "flashbacks of things you did as a young fellow." As the strip progressed, the teenage Smitty aged to young adulthood (approximately 13 to 23) and eventually got married. From 1938 through 1960, Berndt also produced the comic strip Herby as a topper to Smitty.

Origins of Smitty

Berndt's first strip, That's Different, drawn for the Bell Syndicate, lasted less than a year. In 1922, he created Smitty, which he continued until 1973. Yet it did not begin without a struggle, as cartoonist Mike Lynch described in a 2005 lecture:

Smitty (disambiguation)

Smitty may refer to:

People:

Other uses:

See also