Ruggedman

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Rugged Man redirects here. You may be looking for R.A. The Rugged Man.

Ruggedman
Ruggedman in a promotional picture.
Background information
Birth name	Michael Ugochukwu Stephens
Also known as	Mr. Controversial The Diss Master
Born	20 September
Origin	Abia, Nigeria
Genre(s)	African hip hop
Occupation(s)	Rapper
Instrument(s)	Rapping
Years active	2004–present
Label(s)	Rugged Records
Website	ruggemanonline.com

Michael Ugochukwu Stephens, known by his stage name Ruggedman born on September 20 (date and age of artist are withheld) in Ehem, Abia State is a Nigerian rapper.

A graduate of political science from Lagos State University, Ojo, he started loving music in 1989. He had his own songs done in 1991 and released a CD, which had two tracks. The two songs got massive air play, but in 2002, Ruggedman felt Nigerian rappers (such as Rasqie, Eedris Abdulkareem, Maintain and many others) lacked talent and he needed to do something about it. He was the most controversial musician at that time and that won him a lot of awards. One of his controversial tracks is Big Bros. This diss track was attacking the CEOs of Kennis Music Keke Ogungbe and [D1] Dayo Adeneye. He was also hit harder than anyone could have imagined when he said "the fact that you have (got) money doesn'nt mean you can toil with me". He did not attack rappers such as Modenine or 2-Shotz. He is from the Ibo tribe in Nigeria. His first true album was titled 'THY ALBUM COME' He was influenced by KRS-One, Dr. Dre, DMX, Eminem and many others. He released an album entitled Thy Album Come, and is now recording an album with Afro hip hop artist Faze .He's also been around the world including Dublin and Durban South Africa where He says he had the time of his life hanging out with his old time friend, Deji of Soundcity at the 2005 KORA Awards. He is still considered by a larger proportion of Nigerians to be the best rapper ever to emerge from West Africa.