The Wildest Alter Egos in Hip-Hop

The use of alter egos in rap can be traced back to the 1980s — and, over the decades since, has helped rappers tap into new flows and fresh creative ideas. An alter ego serves as a way for an artist to change up their style without sacrificing the core of who they are. The best alter egos have emerged as their own identities, often causing fans to study and relate to them — sometimes even more than the artist who created them.

In the case of rappers like MF DOOM, the alter ego became the main event, taking over the rapper and embodying a full-blown personality of its own. DOOM served as the “supervillain” secret identity of rapper Daniel Dumile but became the centerpiece of his artistry as cult-like fans flocked to his music. For rappers like $uicideboy$, alter egos can sometimes spiral out of hand. Within the $uicideboy$ universe, there are Yung Plague, 7th Ward Dragon, Lil Oozing, Princess Mononoke the Frozen Shogun, Northside Shorty, Charles Lee Ray, and many, many more characters. Most of these identities were born via fan lore on Reddit rather than by the $uicideboy$ themselves.

“There was a pattern to it, but at some point, we sort of lost control of it,” the Boyz admitted to Billboard back in 2022.

Over the years, alter egos have dropped entire albums of their own and have even been symbolically “killed off.” But which alter egos have been truly unbelievable? Here’s a list of rap’s wildest alter egos and how they molded the rappers who built them in their image.