Joshua Bermudez, a.k.a. Hollywood Pompeii was born in Coney Island, Brooklyn, NY. He got into rap after his mother brought The Fugees “The Score” album, it opened his eyes to rap, and that’s when he fell in love with rap. At the age of 12, Pompeii was so into music and was determined to be a rapper that he wrote a letter to Diddy and Mase and mailed it to Bad Boy’s New York office, hoping to get noticed by them. He was inspired by Mase, who at the time was the #1 rapper in NYC. Realizing he needed a name, he decided to name himself Pompeii, and his cousin gave him the name Hollywood because he always acted Hollywood, so Hollywood Pompeii became his name.