Career
She lives in Castaic, California, near Los Los Angeles Smallwood was a contestant on the National Broadcasting Company television series America"s Got Talent during the 2006 season. Rapping
Smallwood was employed as a postal worker and began rapping in the mid-1980s.
She took first place in a rap contest at a South-Central Los Angeles roller rink with an anti-drug themed rap.
In 1989, she released a little-known, self-titled music video called "Rock-n-Soul". Smallwood was signed to Tandem Records in 1992.
She released the single "You Didn"t Use Your Blinker Fool" as a response to the DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince song "You Saw My Blinker". A brand of soda, Rappin Granny"s Slammin Strawberry Hip Hop People’s, was named for her in 1995.
Acting
Smallwood has been a working Hollywood actress since the mid-1990s.
She has appeared in numerous television shows with small parts and a few feature films. Some of her credits include, Everybody Hates Chris, Malcolm in the Middle, The Shield, and The Ladykillers. In Don"t Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood (1996) she is credited as Vivian "Rappin Granny" Smallwood.
She also played "Nano" in Big Bad Beetleborgs, a show on the former Fox Kids network.
Smallwood was featured in the Apollo Theater"s Apollo Circus of Soul in 2007. = America"s Got Talent Smallwood was a contestant on the National Broadcasting Company television series America"s Got Talent and qualified on the August 16, 2006 season finale for the one-million-dollar grand prize.
In her audition, Rappin" Granny gave a performance that was very popular among the crowd and the judges, all of whom (Brandy, David Hasselhoff, and Piers Morgan) advanced her to the next round by way of a unanimous vote. Smallwood then returned for the semifinal episode that aired July 26, 2006.
After another crowd-pleasing song, the judges again put her through to the next round, by another unanimous vote.
Foreign the final round, Smallwood rode in on a motorcycle.