Eve

Philadelphia’s Eve Jihan Jeffers got her first break in the record business the way many rappers go platinum — she walked right through the front door. The story goes something like this: Some of her friends (who now serve as her managers) hooked up with producer extraordinaire Dr. Dre and arranged an impromptu audition for Eve — well, kinda,...they never told him that she was coming.

"Out of nowhere they put the tape on and I stood up and started rapping and he was looking at me like, ’Why is this girl rapping?’," recalls Eve. Liking what he saw after only a few bars, the executive cut the audition short and promised to bring Eve to California to work with the good Dr. — Eve was not impressed.