by Marisa BrownGrowing up in Winston-Salem, NC, the boy who would become producer 9th Wonder, Pat Douthit, performed in the school band and also played the keyboard at home. Initially, while a student at North Carolina Central University, Douthit planned on saving his money for the producer's favorite tool, the MPC, but after a friend showed him that he could make the beats he wanted on a computer, he decided to use that instead. In 1998 he met classmates and future bandmates Phonte and Big Pooh, and with them soon formed Little Brother. Their first album, The Listening, was released in 2003, and 9th Wonder began to receive further attention after he remixed Nas' 2002 album, God's Son, naming it God's Stepson, as well as the track "Threat," which he produced on Jay-Z's seminal The Black Album. Work with Murs, Buckshot, Jean Grae, Destiny's Child, and Mary J. Blige followed, as well as another Little Brother record, 2005's Minstrel Show, the same year his proper solo debut, Dream Merchant, Vol. 1, came out. In 2007 9th Wonder left Little Brother, and spent his time not only producing tracks for the likes of Erykah Badu and Sean Price, but also teaching a class on hip-hop at NCCU and collaborating with Boot Camp Clik's Buckshot for an album called The Formula, which was released in the spring of 2008.