Peter Gunz was born on January 6, 1969 in the Bronx. He is one half of the famous rap duo Lord Tariq and Peter Gunz who are mostly known for their hit hip hop single, “Déjà vu” which was an anthem for the state of New York. His recent fame has been due to his reality television appearances on the popular show called Love and Hip Hop.
Peter Gunz was born as Peter Pankey Sr. The American born and raised rapper, Peter Gunz was brought to the public spotlight with a debut album called ‘Make It Reign’ which was released by hip-hop duo he formed with his friend Lord Tariq. He also used the stage name Othello when he performed as a solo artist.
The old school hip hop rapper actively jumped into the rapping music domain in the 90’s. In 1995, he and Lord Tariq formed their fame duo duo followed by a singles release 3 years later a hit. The popular track, Déjà vu (Uptown Baby), was featured in their debut album, Make It Reign. The one hit wonder peaked on the billboard charts at number 9 and it finally went platinum in 1998. The duo didn't last long enough to release another album. As they parted ways in 1999, Peter continued to explore his music abilities by doing collaborations with the likes of top hip hop acts like Big Punisher, Fat Joe, Mariah Carey, Ice Cube and KRS-One.
In an interview with DJ Vlad, Peter Gunz spoke about the clearance issues he had to deal with to use the sample behind his number one hit song, Déjà vu, “You know at the time, we didn't put it out on a label. You got to remember what that song was. We would go to the tunnel in Brooklyn, we would be in the tunnel and all these different boroughs that was bigger than the Bronx yelling you know Queens bridge or Brooklyn and I started this chant. Well if it wasn't for the Bronx this rap, shit probably never would be going on, they could tell me where you from and my whole team would be like uptown nigga uptown nigga so when that became Tariq say yo we should use that shit, that you do that if it wasn't for the Bronx so we just did a song off of our Steely Dan sample and threw it out. You know the verses is 20 something bars, the hook is 16 bars. It's about New York and Bronx we didn't think nothing of it.”
Once the song started to get really popular, Peter and his partner decided that they needed to take care of the legal ramifications, “The record started growing legs so labels started reaching out so now when the labels reached out we had a bidding war. It was up to a million dollars. You know, I think Jimmy Iovine had a 1.7 million dollar deal on the table but he reneged last minute so we end up going to Sony for close to a million and now we got these deals on the table and now it's time to go clear the sample so when we go to clear the sample, they just want all the publishing and 115 thousand dollars in cash so we had to give them all the publishing and paid them 115 thousand in cash.”
Peter is known as a controversial person and figure in the hip hop industry. Cory Gunz, the 28 year-old-rapper is his first child. His children have given him two grandchildren, Madison and Mackenzie. He has another child Brandon, a teenage son and Kennedi Brooke who is also a teenager. Phoenix is one of his youngest children and she and Kennedi meet each other often since both of them live in New Orleans.
Another one of his children, Jamison is nicknamed ‘Juice’ and another child, Kaz goes by the name ‘Milk’! He has brothers who are eight and four respectively and from the same mother, Tara Wallace. Cori, the recent addition to the large family, just turned one is Amina Buddafly's child who is the most recent love interest of Peter’s. When Gunner Ethan born on February 13, 2016 to Tara Wallace, he became the ninth born in the Gunz family.
Gunz is was previously married to a woman named Amina Buddafly. The former bad boy from the Love & Hip Hop bad boy decided to get a divorce from her but he didn’t want the dirty details to be aired on their television show. He revealed that the two had already agreed to split from each other even way before they got the courts involved. They wanted to make sure that they were happy with their decision. Gunz didn’t expect their marriage to last even after they first few months together because he though their marriage was built on impulse instead of a strong fountain.
Gunz is a proud dad as he is expecting a tenth child from his wife. Peter loves being the role model of his son Cory who is trying to follow his footsteps in pursuing a music career. He is always ready to provide advice his daughters, who look up to him for relationship advice.
Gunz is a responsible man who owns up to mistakes of his. He fights against any hate which could go towards any of his family. Despite the different mothers for his children, he devotes equal measures of fatherly love and discipline. His life is unique and a lot of his children enjoy the lifestyle that they are provided. His time for music and reality shows reveals who he is as well as gives him a huge platform to expand his fan base. He is committed to staying relevant in the hip hop industry because it is his true passion.
When he drifted from music temporarily, he built his net worth to be about $500,000 with the additional money coming from his appearance in television shows.
| Net Worth 2020: | 500 thousand |
| Net Worth 2021: | 500 thousand |
