From PEOPLE Magazine
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Now Cannon is expanding his fan base, thanks to his performance as a college-marching-band percussionist in the hit coming-of-age drama Drumline. "I was a celebrity to everyone under 11," says Cannon, who spent six weeks learning to play drums for the part. "Now people my own age are paying me compliments." Such as pal and mentor Will Smith: "Nick has a self-deprecating quality that makes him very attractive to women, and the kind of guy every dude wants to hang out with," says Smith. "In a nutshell, my dawg Nick is the future!"
In his youth, Cannon divided his time between San Diego—where he lived with his grandmother Marie, 61, and his accountant mother, Beth Gardner, 40—and Charlotte, N.C., where dad James, 40, was a televangelist. At age 11, Cannon got his first break doing stand-up comedy on his father's local cable-access program. "He told me to write up something and said, 'If it's good, I'll put it on my show,'" Cannon says. "I guess he was impressed."
A gig as a warm-up comedian for Nickelodeon's studio audiences in Los Angeles eventually led to his own show, a growing hit for the kid network. Also a part-time rapper, Cannon spends his downtime honing his PlayStation 2 skills in his five-bedroom San Diego home and ponders the one thing that, for the moment, eludes him. "I don't have a girlfriend," he says, "but I'm accepting all applications."
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