Lil' Romeo is a grown man now...and I'm shocked, lol! Master P's son, Lil' Romeo, has dropped the "lil'" part of his stage name as he tells AOL Black Voices. He calls Will Smith as one of his mentors...

"It's no wonder Romeo Miller (formerly Lil' Romeo) has dropped the "Lil" from his name: the 17-year-old son of hip-hop mogul/rapper Master P is almost grown. Intelligent, articulate and rather grounded, despite his and his father's success, I was surprisingly impressed when I recently sat down with Romeo for our interview at Elixir Tonic & Tea in West Hollywood.Before Hurricane Katrina, Romeo had been dividing his time between his native New Orleans and Hollywood, where he shoots his Nickelodeon series 'Romeo!' He was in Hollywood when Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast and the rapper/actor said watching the natural disaster was surreal."It's like real hard to think back to that time. When I first saw it on TV, I thought it was a joke 'cause it seemed like something that couldn't be real. We had family members down there and we called them and checked up on them and they was like, 'This is really happening.' While it was happening it was like it was a big dream," he shared.

Facing the reality of Katrina was even harder when Romeo returned to New Orleans to view the damage firsthand. "I mean how somewhere you live just get destroyed? We went back down there and just seeing it, it like really hit us. All our memories just gone. It's unreal. It'll hit me once in a while," he added.Many of Romeo's relatives moved to Los Angeles after being displaced by the hurricane. The entertainer decided the he would attend public school with them. "The one I am at right now is a big public school. The one I was at before, it was a private school and Denzel Washington's kids go there so they were used to [celebrities and all]. The one I'm at now they're not really used to seeing anybody like me over there," he explained.Romeo plays high school basketball and he and his pal, Demar Rozan, are ranked nationally for their hoop skills. "We're best friends, and we're number one and number two in the state of California and in the top 20 in the nation," said Romeo, who's been playing AAU basketball since he was nine years old.With plans of going to college and then to the NBA, Romeo aims to balance his career in professional sports and the entertainment business and ultimately become an all-around talent like Will Smith. "That's one of my role models. I know everything he's done," he said.

Next up for Romeo is the CD/DVD combo release 'God's Gift.' The innovative concept packages a straight-to-DVD movie and music release together for single purchase and is being released by UrbanWorks/Gut Entertainment."It's crazy; we wanted to do something different. The thing my dad do is, whenever he come out, he always reinvents himself. So I wanted to do something different. I did the DVD so that they could have a visual with the CD. We're giving ya'll the CD for free. It's just basically a DVD about this kid, kind of like me, just trying to get through life. It's just this kid going through everyday life, living in the hood in the streets of Cali, and he's just trying to make it to college," said Romeo.The CD 'God's Gift' is Romeo's fifth release, and the DVD component features appearances by Tony Cox, John Witherspoon, Lil' JJ, Silk The Shocker and, of course, his father. The dual disc offering hits stores this week."

{spotted at AOL Black Voices}
Let's go down memory lane back to when Romeo was known as Lil' Romeo...