by Andy KellmanBased in Mobile, AL, rapper Rich Boy (born Maurice Richards) didn't enter the music industry until after he enrolled as a mechanical engineering major at Tuskegee University. Before then, he did music in his spare time, but eventually dropped out of school and released some independent material that caught fire locally. Producer Polow (Ludacris, Jamie Foxx, Fergie) was impressed enough to have the MC flown into his base in Atlanta, where the two worked on furthering the progress. Rich Boy landed a contract with Interscope and began working on his first album. In the meantime, he appeared on one of Ludacris' Disturbing tha Peace compilations and dropped in on a handful of mixtapes -- including DJ Ideal and Jermaine Dupri's Da Bottom, Vol. 5. With DJ Drama, he released the Bring It to the Block mixtape in late 2006. His official, self-titled debut was released during March 2007.