His dad was absent in his life so his mom raised him alone and she was from Magnolia. Her parents still live there and as a kid he would come to Magnolia for the summers when school in LA was out to get away from the hood. He is very fond of the times he spent here and wanted to open a rap-themed amusement park in Magnolia called Doggy Land but the town elders said no thanks. That came from a biography I saw once. We had this debate at work one time and scoured the inter webs to verify. Anybody from southwest Mississippi knows this though.