Biography

Deric "D-Dot" Angelettie is an award-winning multi-platinum record producer, songwriter, artist, television and film producer and entrepreneur. He is known for producing and writing mega hits such as Diddy's "It's All About The Benjamins" and The Notorious B.I.G.'s "Hypnotize" and has sold over 50 million records. He is also celebrated for creating the iconic, hip-hop, "hater" character known as, Mad Rapper.

D-Dot was born and raised an only child in Brooklyn, New York, to an African-American father, Eric Angelettie and a Puerto Rican mother, Dr. Noemi Angelettie-Wallace. He graduated from Samuel J. Tilden High School in 1986 and then attended Howard University in Washington, D.C. from 1986 to 1989. He dropped out to pursue a rap career as part of the hip-hop group Two Kings In A Cipher.

While attending Howard University, Angelettie and his friend, Ron "Amen-Ra' Lawrence, formed the rap group Two Kings In A Cipher in 1988. In 1990, the duo signed a recording deal to Bahia/RCA Records. That same year, they debuted their first single, Movin On Em and in 1991 released their debut album, From Pyramids To Projects. The album received critical acclaim and the group was dropped from RCA in 1993.

After moving back to New York from Washington, D.C. in 1993, D-Dot joined up with another Howardite, Sean "Puffy" Combs and his Badboy Entertainment label. In a 5 year span, Angelettie went from intern, to director of merchandising and management, to booking shows for artists Craig Mack and The Notorious B.I.G., to managing R&B superstar Mary J. Blige from 1994 to 1996, to becoming the Captain of The Hitmen - Bad Boy's in-house production team, to becoming the head of Badboy's A&R department as Vice-President in 1996.

As a producer and songwriter, D-Dot gas produced, wrote and performed on songs for legendary artists such as Jay-Z, Mary J. Blige, OutKast, Eminem and 50 Cent to name a few. He produced and wrote mega hits such as Diddy's "It's All About The Benjamins" and The Notorious B.I.G.'s "Hypnotize" and has sold over 50 million records. Angelettie executive produced multi-platinum albums for acts like Puff Daddy, Mase, Faith Evans, The Lox, Da Band, Tracey Lee and Black Rob. Angelettie's credits also include songs for Lil' Kim, Nicki Minaj, Nas, SWV and more.

Angelettie created the character, Mad Rapper, who first appeared on The Notorious B.I.G.'s Life After Death LP in 1997 and released an album, Tell 'Em Why U Madd", on his Crazy Cat Catalogue record label distributed by Columbia Records in 2000. The album featured new artists like 50 Cent, Eminem and a young Kanye West ,who Angelettie managed and mentored from 1998-2000.

Angelettie has appeared on MTV's reality show Making the Band 2 (2002) and created and produced the show's music title track. Angelettie co-hosted the first of its kind television series Hip Hop Hold 'Em (2006) on UPN and was the Music Consultant for the Notorious (2009) movie on Fox/Serchlight Pictures in 2009. Angelettie was a Producer on the film Steps (2021), and Executive Producer of the hit documentary series Rules to This Sh!t (2019), distributed by Complex Media/ BET/Viacom Networks.

Angelettie owns and runs Connect The Dots Global, a management and strategy company with clients such as Eddie Harris, a screenwriter whose credits include House of Bodies (2016) (2014) and Steps (2021) (2015). Along with his Crazy Cat Catalogue record company and Connect The Dots Global, Angelettie has started Crazy Cat Cinemas, a television & film production company.
- IMDb mini biography by: LLB

He is of African-American and Puerto Rican descent.

Early in their careers, he and Sean 'Diddy' Combs operated a company called "A Black Man And A Puerto Rican Productions".