Erick Sermon
American rapper and record producer

Erick Sermon (born November 25, 1968) is an American rapper and producer. He is best known as one-third—alongside Parrish Smith & DJ Scratch—of 1980s/1990s hip hop group EPMD and for his production work.
Early life
Erick Sermon was born on November 25, 1968, in Bay Shore on Long Island, New York.
Career
Sermon started professionally in 1986 as a producer and artist of the hip hop group EPMD. He began recording solo albums for Def Jam in 1993; in 1997, he rejoined EPMD. The following year, Sermon, Murray and Redman recorded a cover version of "Rapper's Delight" by the Sugarhill Gang. EPMD disbanded a second time in 1999.
In 2000, Sermon moved over to J Records, and released the album Music the following year. The album's first single, "Music", featured guest vocals from Marvin Gaye, which Sermon reportedly culled from unreleased recordings found in a small record shop in London. "Music" went on to become Sermon's highest-charting song, peaking at number 22 on the Billboard Hot 100 and number 2 on the R&B chart. Sermon's second album on J Records, React, was released in 2002. React's title track peaked at number 36 on the Billboard Hot 100, but the album sold poorly and Sermon was dropped from the label in 2003.
The public source identifies “Erick Sermon” as american rapper and record producer. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Erick, Sermon and American.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 8, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1347285. VIAF identifies the subject as 64198907. The Library of Congress control number is n97013420. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1968, 1986, 1993 and 1997.
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This entry incorporates text from “Erick Sermon” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.