Queensbridge Houses is the largest public housing development in North America. It is located in Long Island City in Queens, and opened in 1939. The 3,142-unit complex is owned by the New York City Housing Authority. The complex is located in Community Board 1. Although the Queensbridge Houses accommodate approximately 6,907 people it is technically two separate complexes (North and South Houses) consisting of roughly 3,450 each.

It is an initial location of KEYWIFI, a scheme for sharing wireless Internet access.

Long Island City is located in the western part of the New York City borough of Queens, with Newtown Creek and East River waterfronts.It is the largest housing project in North America.The Queensbridge Housing Projects, the largest of Queens' twenty-two developments, is located between Vernon Boulevard (which runs along the East River) and 21st Street, immediately south of Ravenswood power plant. Queensbridge gets its name from the Queensboro (59th Street) Bridge, which is just south of the complex. The development is separated into two complexes, the North Houses on 40th Avenue and the South Houses on 41st Avenue.

MC Shan (born as Shawn Moltke September 6, 1965) is an American rapper from Queens, NYC. He is perhaps best known for collaborating with Snow in "Informer", an international number one hit single.

Born and raised in the Queensbridge Projects located in Long Island City a section in Queens, New York City, Shan is the cousin of old school hip hop producer Marley Marl. In 1985, Shan started in MCA Records with his first & only major single Feed The World. Despite the success, he was dismissed from MCA because "the rhymes you wrote was wack", according to KRS-One from his song South Bronx. Not long after, Shan moved to Cold Chillin' Records due to his relationship with Marl, and joined Marl's Juice Crew All-Stars. After a few singles were released, MC Shan's debut album Down By Law came out in 1987.

Shan also found himself to be a key player in the noted hip hop rivalry the Bridge Wars between the Juice Crew and Boogie Down Productions. The feud was started when Shan and Marl released a song called "The Bridge" as a B-side to "Beat Biter," itself an answer record directed at L.L. Cool J. KRS-One responded with "South Bronx," and the Juice Crew replied with "Kill That Noise." Slate magazine described it as follows: "In 1986, it was a beef that launched the star of KRS-One, when his withering attacks on MC Shan effectively ended his rival's career." Boogie Down Productions then released "The Bridge is Over," widely celebrated among hip hop fans as the paramount diss track.^{[citation needed]} Years later, MC Shan remade "The Bridge" into "Da Bridge 2001," and strongly denied the bridge "was over", saying:

Marvin Bernard (born on March 31, 1978), better known by his stage name Tony Yayo, is a rapper and member of the hip hop group G-Unit. Tony Yayo was brought up in South Jamaica, Queens, New York and is longtime friends with 50 Cent and Lloyd Banks. He is signed to 50 Cent's record label G-Unit Records and recently signed a deal with EMI which will release his second untitled album. He is CEO to the label G-Unit Philly.

G-Unit boss 50 Cent was granted his own record label, "G-Unit Records" by Interscope after releasing his debut album Get Rich or Die Tryin'. Soon after the group had established their own record label, G-Unit Records, G-Unit released their first official group album Beg for Mercy in November 2003, which went on to be certified 2x Platinum in the United States. The album was released whilst Tony Yayo was in prison serving time, but Yayo still featured on the album. The second G-Unit album T.O.S: Terminate on Sight was released in July, 2008 and went on to sell 102,000 copies in the first week, and later going Gold shipping nearly 700,000 copies.^{[citation needed]}