Born Jeffrey Johnson, Jr., Dash grew up in Atlanta’s Capitol Homes projects under the watchful eye of his mother and great-grandmother. The baby of the family (he has an older brother, two half-sisters and two step-brothers), Dash was an inquisitive and bright child who learned about Hip-Hop from his older brother Erik. "My brother used to make beats in the basement,” says Dash. “When he’d leave the house, I’d steal the beats off of his computer and record them on a karaoke machine.”