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May 27, 2015

The timing of Boosie’s release from prison couldn’t have been more perfectly timed with where pop-as-rap is currently situated. (and by extension the South) runs , and entire generations of young rappers are excelling at doing what was, until this release, their best “Lil Boosie impersonations.” On Touch Down 2 Cause Hell, the rapper does just that, returning to “touch down” on his throne as one of the South’s founding rap fathers and kings of the style. In painting vivid portraits of urban realities over largely magnificent productions, the emcee has crafted an excellent release that also shows the street legend potentially taking his skills to another level of greatness.

There has been a four-year delay between for the Baton Rouge, Louisiana born rhymer. Much of that is due to his five-year prison stint in the Louisiana State Penitentiary. He was serving time on federal charges of first-degree murder, possession with intent to distribute narcotics (Schedule II-Codeine, Schedule I-Ecstasy and Schedule I-Marijuana), "conspiracy to commit possession with intent to distribute narcotics" and "conspiracy to introduce contraband into a penal institution." Though originally sentenced to eight years, his sentence was reduced to four and he was released in March 2014 (and is on probation until 2018).

While in prison, Boosie stated in a 2013 interview that he had “about 500 songs [completed] at the moment,” the emcee was feeling like he was “making the best music [he’d] ever made.” This would appear on the surface to be a lofty claim by a performer attempting to retain relevance while incarcerated. However, upon listening to Touch Down 2 Cause Hell’s three lead singles “On That Level,” “Like A Man” and “Retaliation,” there’s a sharpness in Boosie’s tone and flow that still remains, now aided by a veteran’s ability to see the game with size and scope, fitting his bars into places where other emcees dare-to-tread. There’s a commonplace statement that “prison ‘does things’ to a man.” In the case of , it gave him the ability to see through and past all of the politics and niceties of the music industry and society at-large, which affords him the chance to create a lyrically raw, thematically cohesive and overall excellent album.

The album’s two best lyrical performances come via Boosie partnering with frequent Louisiana- based emcee for “On That Level” and “Hip-Hop Hooray.” How an album that also includes collaborations with (“Drop To Music”) and (“She Don’t Love Me”) benefits more from Boosie standing with a man whose last pop hit was 2007’s “Independent” actually ties back to that title, and the idea that both Boosie and Webbie still hustle and struggle. Alongside literally every other word on that song lies the reason why the Boosie and Webbie collaboration works. It’s an honest album’s most honest and turnt-up material, and succeeds because it actually exceeds a well-worn expectation for Boosie’s sound and style.

Atlanta-based industry kings on the Track (who produced gritty, synth-driven banger “Retailiation”), (guests on “On Deck”), (appears on “Mercy On My Soul”) and (contributes bars to “Like A Man”) are all here, but honestly all of their work pales in comparison to the honest brilliance cast by Boosie Badazz on this album. J Cole and Keyshia Cole are even here as well for latest single “Black Heaven,” but Boosie’s ability to sound turnt up, heartbroken and ready to riot, even in the context of a ballad, is impressive and makes the usually heartfelt J. Cole appear milquetoast by comparison. Boosie name-drops literally every dead black person of note from the hood to the high-rise, here. Impressively, this will likely be the only track you’ll ever hear that name drops Trayvon Martin, Crips gang founder Stanley “Tookie” Williams and Michael Jackson — almost in the same breath — and the track is actually better for the occurrence. Standing out as a producer on the album is Louisiana-based Kenoe. Yes, he has ’s “Beez In The Trap” under his belt, but here he expands his sound from trap to a more soulful style. All five of his production credits on the 19-track album all err in a classic direction. Bluesy electric guitar leads on “Black Heaven,” TI-featuring lovelorn anthem “Spoil You,” and “Mercy On My Soul” offer a mature feel to Boosie’s ratchet questioning of his haters’ intentions and celebrations of living through his struggles to see another day. “Window of My Eyes” is all pop-as-trap’s love of minor-chord violins and rolling snares, with “Kicking Clouds’” ambient trance-style trap featuring a booming bassline that makes it one of the album’s best produced tracks.

Released from prison, Boosie turns over a new leaf on Touch Down 2 Cause Hell. An honest man now doing honest work, his mental clarity benefits his lyrical directness. The end result is an album that is as much a wild party as it is brutally honest. In achieving each of these goals without feeling too much like it’s placating Boosie’s lifelong fans or pop radio expectations, it excels in walking a fine line and being a tremendous listen.

http://www.hiphopdx.com/reviews/id.2472/title.boosie-badazz-touch-down-2-cause-hell

May 27th, 2015

Lil Boosie raps about what he knows: struggle. The emcee, also known as Boosie Badazz, has endured plenty of it—a childhood in poverty-stricken Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where the homicide rate is nearly three times that of Los Angeles; a grassroots hip-hop career that's seen him release over 1,000 songs, slowly gathering recognition as one of Southern rap's most beloved rappers; and a five-year prison stint at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola on account of drug possession followed by murder charges. Boosie was found not guilty of murder, but the trial saw his own lyrics and videos introduced as evidence against him. "The stuff I rap about is what I've seen, you know?" Boosie, who was released from prison in March of last year, says over the phone from Atlanta. "That's basically why I rap more about the struggle than the shine and . Because I've seen more struggle than anything. Even when I had plenty money it was still a struggle. That's where my struggle music comes from: from life stories and life situations."

To his fans, the 32-year-old Boosie is a hero. He's a real-life phoenix representing the power of transformative passion and persistence. His hard-edged music connects with listeners fed up with racial injustice, economic , and systemic subordination. "When I talk about [those subjects] I reach a lot of people that was in the situation I was in," he says. "When you touch those kind of people it's like you they family. It's like you grew up with them. The music is so deep... They worship you. You really touch their heart. You're saying something that happened in they family, that happened to them. And that touch people.

Boosie, who signed a three-year recording deal with while still in prison and has his much-anticipated sixth studio album Touch Down 2 Cause Hell out this week, has been the soundtrack to demonstrations against police abuse in cities across the country. Protesters in of Ferguson, Missouri, could be heard Boosie's 2009 track "Fuck the Police" (a title almost identical to the '80s NWA anthem) off his fantastic mixtape Superbad: The Return of Mr. .

Ask Boosie how he feels about being called the "people's rapper" by his friend in a recent Playboy profile, and he says it's a natural result of channeling his own hardships into the music. "Basically that's me seeing what's going on in the world and not liking it and speaking about it. That's just Boosie." That doesn't mean he limits himself to any one kind of subject matter, however: "Shit, my uncle could steal from me and I'mma go in [the recording booth] and talk about it," he says. "That's just me being real with it."

Born Torrence Hatch to a mother who was a public-school teacher and a father who was a construction worker and street hustler, Boosie first gained notoriety in the music industry in 2000 as a member of the Baton Rouge rap crew Concentration Camp. Soon after, at 18, he released his solo debut, Youngest of da Camp. On the heels of its success, Boosie signed with respected local Trill Entertainment, an outfit helmed by Baton Rouge entrepreneurs Turk and Mel, who were affiliated with UGK's . In the following years, the prolific, nasal-voiced Boosie released a barrage of genre- bending, critically-acclaimed tracks and projects. In the process he even popularized the now-ubiquitous term "ratchet."

While in prison, from 2010 to 2014, Boosie's mainstream popularity skyrocketed. As he was locked up, a "Free Boosie" movement exploded. Thousands celebrated his release last year ("I was hearing about the Boosie movement... but me seeing it with my own eyes was a whole other thing"). And now major hip-hop stars from Rick Ross to Jeezy and Chris Brown are appearing on his new album.

That didn't make his prison sentence any easier. During his time at Angola, Boosie was hardly concerned with his music career. "That never worried me," he says. "I was just trying to get out. I'd have a dollar on not coming home before I had a dollar on my music. I knew one thing, though: They ain't have nothing on me on all these cases they were throwing on me. They ain't have nothing on me. I was just hoping my past ain't get me convicted. Videos of me showing guns all the time and the young things I was doing, I was just hoping that ain't convict me.

"When they got to using my lyrics, I was just thinking, 'This ain't fair.' I thought we had a freedom-of-speech law. Damn, said he 'shot a man down in Folsom Prison just to watch him die' and he ain't get in trouble. Bob Marley said he 'shot the sheriff.' He ain't get indicted."

Boosie is the first to insist his time spent in prison was not in vain. "Jail just made me wiser," he says. "It made me smarter. It made me wake up to a lot of stuff. And also it made me a better businessman. I had to learn the music business. It just made me a better person as far as ."

It's been argued that Boosie's imprisonment was the direct effect of Louisiana having an overly harsh imprisonment policy, and more specifically, a stringent drug policy. The state's habitual-offender law, which doles out a mandatory prison sentence of "natural life" without parole to those convicted of three felonies (the category for many drug offenses), has been widely criticized. It's a system Boosie describes as promoting "Jim Crow laws." "We got real penitentiary laws that's crazy," he says. To that end, Boosie left his native Louisiana, the state where he's worshiped as a local hero by his followers and, in his eyes, demonized by his detractors as "public enemy number one." Atlanta is his new home, for now anyway. "It's basically 'cause of what I went through in Louisiana," he says of his retreat to . "That's why I left. That's no place you want to live. Period. There's too much going on. It's just like middle school and high school: You've got to graduate. I had to get up out there. I had to come to a place where music is the main thing, you know?"

Now finding himself a free man, and arguably at the height of his popularity, all while revealing his biggest album to date, Boosie can't help but feel grateful despite the obstacles he's overcome. "Can't nothing really piss me off right now," he says with a laugh. "I feel so good, man. I've been waiting on this album to drop. I had to go through a lot of stuff. This is a real project. It's a deep album. I wanted people to feel my pain."

http://www.esquire.com/entertainment/music/interviews/a35245/lil-boosie-profile/

April 29, 2015 Lil Boosie On Inspiration Behind “Touchdown 2 Cause Hell,” Calling For Biopic Help, & Being Happy

It’s been a little over a year since Boosie Badazz was released early from what was initially a four- year sentence that turned into a 12-year sentence when the Baton Rouge rapper pleaded guilty to attempting to smuggle drugs into prison.

Thankfully, those dark days are long gone, and Boosie’s back and better than ever.

The Louisiana rapper’s gearing up to release his long-awaited sixth studio album Touchdown 2 Cause Hell. Happy to be experiencing the joys of freedom, Boosie stopped by GlobalGrind’s offices to discuss the inspiration behind his forthcoming new album and channeling anger through his new music.

He also discussed his past indiscretions, making a better life for his children, and Louisiana’s predatory criminal justice system.

Besides the music, Boosie has been writing a script for a biopic he’s planning to release about his tumultuous life. According to Boosie, he reached out to the businessman/rapper 50 Cent to ask for help on how to pitch his biopic to studio investors.

Touchdown 2 Cause Hell drops May 26 and features guest appearances by Chris Brown, Jeezy, Rich Homie Quan, Rick Ross, T.I., and Keyshia Cole. Watch our exclusive interview with Boosie in the player above.

http://globalgrind.com/2015/04/29/lil-boosie-talks-touchdown-2-cause-hell-inspiration-50-cent-biopic- jail/

April 23, 2015 Boosie Badazz: 'I Just Want People to Respect Me As A Legend'

The Baton Rouge rapper talks expectations for Touchdown 2 Cause Hell, competition, and working with Young Thug.

On April 22nd, Boosie Badazz revealed the tracklist to his upcoming sixth studio album Touchdown 2 Cause Hell. Boosie has been working hard to recapture the spotlight of his formidable years, even when his hardcore fans supported him every step of the way.The follow-up to two official mixtapes— 2014’s Life After Deathrow and his Bad Azz Music Syndicate mixtape Every Ghetto, Every City Vol. 1—is one of the many anticipated albums in 2015. Nearly five years since his last LP Incarcerated, Boosie is ready to tell his comeback story to the whole world.

While the album officially drops on May 26th, the Trill Fam leader invited a selected group of journalists, bloggers, and industry insiders last night for a listening session at Atlantic Records. He revealed a five- part documentary series on his musical journey after prison coming out on WorldStarHipHop next week, where he previewed the first episode to an excited audience. Then, he went through selected songs in random order, explaining the meaning behind them and what the listener will experience.

Our favorites:

“Windows of My Eyes” – A song he wrote in prison. It’s what you see in his eyes. “Mr. Miyagi” – Boosie’s music also serves as a learning tool. “My music, you learn from it,” he said. “You a real fan, you learn from what I’m telling you. I’m a teacher.” The hook—which has Boosie screaming “Mr. Miyagai with this real shit!” over bombastic production—is a hard record with immense energy.

“ Hooray” – He’s not a fan of the rap game’s antics today. And he’s calling it out.

“Black Heaven” feat. Keyshia Cole – This song was inspired by ‘Pac’s “Thug Mansion.” It lists many of the powerful black figures and musicians who have passed away. Boosie sings that they are looking down at us in heaven.

“I’m Sorry” – It’s a confessional song that finds him apologizing to his mother. He admits that its the best song that reflects his time after prison.

Touchdown 2 Cause Hell sounds like vintage Boosie: unapologetically gangster music with no fear. We spoke to Boosie about how his album stacks up against the competition, his reasons for pushing the release date to next month, and how recording with Young Thug got him on his bonus track “On Deck.”

BET.com: What do you want fans to get out of this album? Boosie Badazz: I just want people to respect me as an legend off this album. I want people who might just got on me when they heard ‘Free Boosie’ to go buy this album and see why people were saying ‘Free Boosie.’ I want people to listen to the whole album and really comment on what you think is a good album. I just want people to buy it. I want people to buy it, and the music is gonna do everything for me. I guaranteed you won’t have to fast-forward any song.

How do you feel it will line up with other competition? I feel like it’ll line up with other competition in its own category because my music is not like those other people. They wouldn’t be looking at it [like competition]. They be like, ‘I’m on that Boosie. Period.’ They wouldn’t be looking at it as competition because it’s not talking about the same thing.

Do you feel anyone is in your lane right now? Nah, I feel like nobody in my lane because sh** because I’m still booked four-five days a week. When people in your way, you not booked like that. If promoters steady packing venues, I’ma stay booked. I leave tomorrow for eight shows in a row, eight nights in a row. Eight shows, four afterparties. That’s a blessing, man.

The album got pushed from July to September. Then December to May of this year. Was it your decision to push it back? Nah, I been have my album turned in. The music is the easy part. The business is the hard part. When you are dealing with producers, trying to track them down. Other people might say, ‘Oh, it was a swap.’ And when you back and the lawyers saying this and that. Business plays a lot of part in this. The music is the easy part. Now, I see as me being the first time in this position how the business is crazy.

You promised Touchdown 2 Cause Hell was going to be the best double-disc album since ‘Pac’s All Eyez On Me. Are we ever going to get the second part? I got a surprise for you. iTunes got five extra songs. Five-six extra songs. So really, you gotta buy both of them because it is a double-disc. I had to give them something extra. I gave you the 17-18, plus the extra six. Damn, 23. Nobody is doing that.

You recorded a song recently with Young Thug called “Can’t Tell” off . What do you think of Thug? That’s my boy. Young Thug making hits! You know I gotta [have] one with Young Thug. He a street dude. I’m with anybody trying to blow. That was just me being in Atlanta passing by the studio. Him and T.I. in the studio. ‘Ni**a, let me get on that track! That motherf**ker riding!’ That’s how it is in Atlanta. It’s a big music scene. I was happy I got on it. He’s on my album too.

May 28th, 2015 Review: Boosie Badazz Flaunts His Growing Pains On ‘Touchdown 2 Cause Hell’

Lil’ Boosie is the voice of the streets. Hailing from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Boosie has brought mainstream hip-hop to the ‘hood with more explicit bars and a lot less thugs-in-their-feelings. For instance, Boosie’s tracks “I Feel Ya” and “I’m Wit Ya” from his Life After Deathrow mixtape, are like motion pictures that wax the black youth experience. And if you’ve witnessed or been part of an argument about Boosie’s mic skills, then you’ve heard a version of the statement, “Boosie is one of the realest in the rap game.”

Since his 2000 debut, Youngest of da Camp, Boosie has consistently set the streets aflame by delivering tales of pain, hustle and triumphs of an underdog. On Tuesday (May 26), the Trill Entertainment artist released his sixth studio album, Touchdown 2 Cause Hell, with the same, signature fiery realness his other projects have carried. However, there’s a small change in Boosie’s realness—it’s matured. As it should have after serving a five-year prison bid in Louisiana’s infamous Angola State Penitentiary. On this LP, Boosie transforms from a braggadocious, codeine-sipping gangster to a humble, Mary Jane- loving man.

Before the rapper born Torrence Hatch dives into his newfound sense of balance, the former McKinley High School basketball star aggressively unloads rounds of fire to remind everyone of his struggle and the street morals he stands by, as heard on Touchdown 2 Cause Hell’s hard-hitting opener, “Intro – Get’em Boosie.” The excitement of Track 1 is almost reminiscent of the promising freestyle he spit after being released from prison almost a year ago. On both flows, fans witness a youthful Badazz and his renewed hunger for rap glory.

After bodying the intro, Boosie waxes his coming-of-age story. The 5-foot-6, brolic MC has always been proficient in delivering sharp, telescopic views of everyday #thuglife. He drops that same biting flow on “Window Of My Eyes,” and the Jeezy and Akelee-assisted “Mercy On My Soul.” On the former, Badazz delves into the throbbing torment of serving a prison sentence over a dark thunderstorm backdrop produced by Kenoe, with zero signs of boasting. “Mercy On My Soul” reeks of woe and anguish— listeners will definitely feel Boosie’s pain. He and Jeezy then shed their egos and send a prayer up to their maker while seeking forgiveness.

The middle sequence of TD2CH finds Boosie taking shots at radio and club singles alongside big-name features like Chris Brown (“She Don’t Love Me”), T.I. (“Spoil You”), and the hater-proof record “All I Know” with crooner PJ. Each of the aforementioned gets an A for their contributions while Boosie strictly sticks to the G Code. Boosie then brings the nostalgia by linking with partner-in-rhyme, Webbie, for “On That Level” and “Hip Hop Hooray,” recreating that early 2000s feel with the same sweet ratchet music the duo delivered with Webbie & Lil Boosie: Pimp C Presents Ghetto Stories and Gangsta Musik, respectively. The grown man biz on TD2CH continues with the potent “How She Got Her Name,” a gripping story about women—he calls his subjects Dirty Diana —who become lost in the allure of the street lifestyle.

Fittingly, Badazz ends the album with the tear-jerking—and probably one of his most emotional songs to date next to 2009’s “Pain”—with the selfless cut “I’m Sorry,” where he apologizes for his prison bid to his kids, brothers, mother and fans. Criticisms are few for a rapper trying to do right. Some of Boosie’s day-one fans may comment that his music isn’t as immature or raw as it once was. However, Touchdown 2 Cause Hell shows that even the baddest spitters are destined for growth. Even ‘Pac once said: “I guess change is good for any of us.”

Head over to iTunes to cop Boosie’s Touchdown 2 Cause Hell and stream the album below.

May 26, 2015 Review : 'Touch Down 2 Cause Hell' by Boosie Badazz goes deep

In just three years, Boosie Badazz has gone from facing the death penalty at Louisiana's notorious Angola State Penitentiary (he was found not guilty on murder charges) to releasing a major-label LP with Young Thug, T.I. and Rick Ross. In the interim, his music became an ad hoc soundtrack to the protests on the bloody streets of Ferguson, Mo., and he's ascended to the current vanguard of weird Southern rap with tales of post-prison life that add essential new layers to today's music of police protest. "Touch Down 2 Cause Hell," Boosie's sixth album and his first formal full-length since his release, could have emerged only from these circumstances. Boosie was a prolific recording artist even while locked up, but "Touch Down" feels especially considered — he clearly spent his time inside thinking deeply about what this comeback album should mean. Singles "Like a Man" and "Retaliation" nail the gothic and narcotic sounds ruling southern rap today, but Boosie's lyrics have the harrowing air of a man who saw death slinking close.

More unexpectedly, he shines on the gentler material as well. "Black Heaven," in particular, imagines an afterlife in which Michael Jackson and Marvin Gaye team up to make posthumous classics. Boosie might not be at their caliber yet, but for this moment in American life and hip-hop, he's as visceral a voice as we're going to get.

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/la-et-ms-boosie-review-20150526- story.html [email protected]

Boosie Badazz "

Touch Down 2 Cause Hell"

Atlantic

Three stars out of four

May 26, 2015 Boosie BadAzz – “Mercy On My Soul” (Feat. Jeezy)

By Tom Breihan @tombreihan / May 22, 2015 - 3:06 pm

Next week, the combustible Baton Rouge rapper Boosie BadAzz releases his absolutely furious new album Touch Down 2 Cause Hell, his first in years because of a prison term that interrupted his career for a long time. We’ve posted tracks like “Like A Man” and “Hands Up,” but “Mercy On My Soul” may be the clearest indicator yet that this album’s release is a reason to be thankful. On the track, Boosie and Jeezy, another Southern rap king who recently tweaked his rap name, spew angrily and defiantly about hard-life struggles over screaming guitars and wailing choirs. It’s a stirring piece of work, and you can hear it below.

May 26, 2015 Badazz Rides Again: A Reborn Boosie and the Fading Generation of Major- Label Southern Rap

In the fall of 2009, Baton Rouge rapper Lil Boosie (a.k.a. Torrence Hatch) entered Dixon Correctional Institute, where he was to serve a two-year sentence for drug possession. Last March, nearly five years later, he emerged from Angola, one of the most infamous maximum security facilities in the country, finally free after a series of legal entanglements. During his time at Dixon and Angola, he was tried for first-degree murder — before he was acquitted of that charge, his sentence was extended by eight years for attempting to smuggle drugs into prison.1 On his post-release single “Crazy,” he grimly explained: “If you were facing that needle, you would get loaded, too.”

To commemorate the rapper’s release last spring, fans were treated to a streamed press conference, features in major music publications, a round of stadium shows, and news of a new contract with Atlantic. The reception befit the homecoming of a beloved hip-hop institution. But before his incarceration, Boosie was still considered persona non grata by some — just one of a cadre of pedestrian, “ringtone rap” wonders clogging the airwaves during what many considered hip-hop’s direst period (circa 2006-08), and with a particularly grating voice to boot. One blogger griped: “For years, hip hop has been screaming FREE BOOSIE, like he’s the Mandela of Black Twitter. And no one has successfully explained why we should be so excited for the return of a C-list rapper.” Some were simply confused. Others protested the red-carpet treatment of a convicted criminal, or questioned the intentions of the social media outpouring.

Part of understanding the approbatory uproar requires appreciating the impact Boosie has had in the South, even before his commercial breakthrough. The idea of Boosie being the Tupac of the South has been thrown around. His label home, Trill Entertainment — cofounded by UGK’s Pimp C — moved thousands of units while it was still an indie, and Boosie packed out “chitlin’ circuit” tours. He became a local hero for his collaborative albums with labelmate and frequent coconspirator Webbie — 2003’s Ghetto Stories and 2004’s Gangsta Musik — and before that, he had been a child star in Baton Rouge, rapping alongside former No Limit member in his minor supergroup Concentration Camp. A 2008 Fader cover story captured his hometown celebrity in the wake of his biggest hit, a of labelmate ’s “Wipe Me Down” that was served to radio with Boosie as the headline artist. The story finds Boosie playing to an audience of almost 10,000 at Southern University and having his car pursued by local “kids pedal[ing] their Huffys” after him.

Ray Tamarra/Getty Images Foxx and Lil Boosie in 2007. But unlike earlier once-independent, multiplatinum-selling Southern rap dynasties like Cash Money and , Trill Ent. never peaked on the national scale. If nothing else, the group’s rise was ill-timed. By the time it broke through to the Hot 100 — first with Webbie and ’s raunch-fest “,” then Boosie and ’s snap hit “Zoom” and the ubiquitous “Wipe Me Down” — rap album sales had officially begun to wane; the days of 400 Degreez–level sales had dissipated. Boosie’s first major-label-backed full-length, 2006’s Bad Azz, sold only modestly, barely cracking the top 20 on the and falling short of a gold plaque. “Fuck the Internet — fuckin’ all our CD sales up, takin’ all our money,” Boosie told Vibe in 2008. “I sell a million records on the street. I should have come out in 1998 before everybody was burning CDs. Only thing I do on the Internet is buy Jordans.”

Mediocre sales in a market saturated by country-fried Southern MCs meant being relegated to a national footnote. Trap rappers like Jeezy and T.I., club-friendly snap artists from D4L to , and even outliers like (who had top-10-selling in 2007, 2008, and 2009) dominated the charts. As Kelefa Sanneh put it in the Times in 2006, Boosie had a “big chance to become a little star,” but it didn’t seem like he could go further than that.

Some street-rap devotees and bloggers, however, came to appreciate Boosie as a more pivotal figure after tuning into another layer of his musical output: mixtapes. By 2009, Boosie and Atlanta’s were the biggest stars of the mixtape movement in the South,2 releasing an unparsable number of sprawling, .zip-file-syndicated collections, many of which were more well-rounded representations of their artistry than their major-label releases. Boosie’s tapes were full of vivid anecdotal tangents, mournful blues-inflected hooks, and ear-catching experiments in production style. His producers of choice (including Mouse, B-Real, and BJ) mixed the military snare freakouts of Mannie Fresh or Beats by the Pound, the handclapped “hey” back-chants of Shreveport-born “ratchet music,” and countrified and gospel sensibilities of Pimp C’s instrumentals for UGK. The DJ Drama–hosted Streetz Iz Mine and Bad Azz Mixtape, Vol. 2 from 2006 were standouts, and by the time of 2008’s Da Beginning and 2008’s Superbad: The Return of Mr. Wipe Me Down, the better part of Boosie’s releases were being praised and premiered by a cross section of underground-rap-friendly outlets.3

But the writers who covered Boosie with reverence were championing him, not reflecting a dominant attitude. Whatever else is true, Boosie was still not the superstar he wanted to be when he went to jail. He was an ancillary figure — praised and beloved, but only in small doses. His 2009 follow-up album, Superbad: The Return of Boosie Bad Azz4 had received mixed reviews despite strong sales figures. The proliferation of social media — particularly the rise of the #FreeBoosie movement — gave an important voice to his fan base in his absence. However, after nearly five years since releasing an album, the artist now known as Boosie Badazz reenters the music scene with a conflicted legacy, not as privileged royalty.

In the lexicon of Southern rap music, Boosie’s work is something of an outlier: not key to any historical through line in the genre or part of a major “scene.” His style shows the influence of a panoply of Southern voices — direct predecessors like Nola stylists and Soulja Slim and the groove-riding, unshowy UGK — without being reminiscent of anyone in particular. It takes spending time with his work to grasp the unique quality of his writing and delivery, and no one release serves as a perfect primer, though Superbad: The Return of Mr. Wipe Me Down comes closest. Unlike Gucci, Boosie has few signature, replicable tics as a rapper: Other MCs are usually compared to him when they exhibit a shrill tone and boast about street bona fides. Whereas Gucci’s tightly stylized flows and sense of humor have been adapted by an incalculable number of MCs (especially Atlanta talents like and iLoveMakonnen), it’s hard to detect Boosie’s direct influence. And that’s largely because Boosie’s power comes from within; his influence isn’t superficial or even necessarily sonic, but internal. The subject matter is often vividly detailed (“Crack rock is the perk, old people peepin’ out the window like turtles”; “High school, four-deep in a Monte Carlo / Dusted and disgusted, tryin’ make it to tomorrow”). The sharpness of the given image or the intensity of the emotion determines his register (low, muttered, hissed, bellowed, shrieked) and whether he pulls away from or locks in with the beat. These mechanisms often become nearly invisible, sublimated to the greater purpose: to create the most direct line of communication possible between himself and his audience. One will stop and marvel at a specific maneuver only when Boosie sneers a particularly forceful or chilling line (“Got them yellow eyes like my daddy’s eyes / With a look upon my face that say homicide”). Perhaps Boosie’s greatest legacy is encouraging street rappers to use their individual reality as a starting point for a style, without beelining directly for either well-worn gangsta flows or horse-and-pony “lyricism” for its own sake.

Boosie’s post-prison work has taken his hyperrealistic ethos to a new extreme. His late 2014 mixtape, Life After Deathrow, and March’s Bad Azz Music Syndicate collection, Every Ghetto, Every City Vol. 1, are Sturm und Drang-y , featuring some of his most affecting verses to date. As if shaped by years of rhyming without beats to sink into, Boosie’s rapping is looser and more expressionistic than ever before, usually delivered in breathy, hyper-emotive tones. He raps from the diaphragm and the back of the throat, not sneeringly through the nose. His voice bores right down the middle of these tracks, elbowing everything else out of the way.

Lyrically, his appeal is also different: The songs often consist of focused narratives, not half- anecdotes stuck in between boasts, challenges, and d-boy shoptalk. Gone are the featherweight party anthems. Boosie creates scenes across full verses with a discipline he had only hinted at previously. Take the imagery of his trial from the Every Ghetto, Every City Vol. 1 ballad “Mama”: “She had her Bible with her / Her cigarettes and her lighter, she fighting with me / She told my lawyer that she would get on the stand / And tell the jury that I ain’t that kind of man.” Songs like “Gone Bad (American Horror Story)” and “I’m Wit Ya” sketch characters from whole cloth: young women looking for love in the wrong places; single mothers raising a family in abject poverty.

His delayed Atlantic debut, Touch Down 2 Cause Hell, out next week, is steeped in the same noir atmosphere as the mixtapes, and it feels only slightly more market-directed. The more radio- friendly beats, instead of providing unwelcome disruptions, lift the fog at opportune moments:The sunny, electric-piano-driven “All I Know” is Boosie’s equivalent of ’s “Amen” or Scarface’s “My Block,”; “Black Heaven” is a concept ballad which imagines cultural heroes from Rosa Parks to DJ Screw looking down from the great beyond. Mostly, though, Boosie wrestles with brutal offerings from trap producers. , who made a splash with his work on last year’s Rich Gang tape and T.I.’s “,” contributes the album’s first single, “Retaliation,” which is anchored by a machine-gun kick pattern and a ghostly, Bone Thugs–esque chorus.

This sort of darker and more atmospheric production — now a default in contemporary street rap — suits Boosie. The lethargic BPMs and spare instrumentation leave him room to expand his delivery and pacing. On Touch Down 2 Cause Hell’s most powerful moments, he juggles speaking, half-singing, and crooning with an unpredictable ferocity. “Windows of My Eyes” is a commanding opening salvo: Boosie purrs low commentary, as if muttering to himself, after snarling with death-rattle fury (“But I ain’t listen / and no this ain’t livin’ / Tryin’ to kiss your kids through a fucking glass window / no con-tact”). The song channels a prisoner’s internal monologue — demoralizing thoughts pour in one after another, as a palindromic, water-torturous piano riff doubles back on itself again and again. Once, Boosie’s music was infused with an almost manic urgency. It was about keeping moving to stay alive; doubting himself for more than a moment meant losing everything. But on Touch Down 2 Cause Hell, Boosie carefully reflects upon and recasts this action, rapping with a deliberate, 10-ton intensity. He wrestles with ghosts, traces his lifelines, and even walks a mile in another lost soul’s shoes. The lumbering, sometimes throat-excoriating approach is not particularly conducive to contemporary, DJ Mustard–style ratchet music (see the waterlogged Webbie-featuring “On That Level”), and in the context of industrial-grade trap like “Mr. Miyagi” or the Young Thug collaboration “On Deck,” it can prove grating. But the album’s best creeping anthems (“Like a Man,” “Hands Up,” Deathrow–recycled “No Juice”) provide evidence of a revitalized artist with a unique sensibility and an excess of ideas.

Today, the shifts in hip-hop that were just beginning when Boosie went to prison are old news. A new paradigm has been established. Major labels are so far beyond letting hip-hop acts develop their artistry and clout on the payroll that few rap albums are even green-lit for release. Though Southern rap’s rhythmic and aesthetic influence on is more prevalent than ever, viral success (see also: “memeability”), a remix, or backup from are essentially the only ways street rap acts can crack the mainstream. Otherwise, crossing over requires some crapshoot combination of pop sensibility (Iggy Azalea, Drake) and on-message branding (Macklemore, J. Cole). Boosie’s more successful peers — Jeezy, Rick Ross, and, to a lesser extent, T.I. — bring in diminishing returns and seem in danger of simply dropping off the map completely.

As a recent BuzzFeed study indicated, it’s teens and college kids who continue to determine trends in hip-hop — and most of today’s youth don’t know Boosie. For that reason and others, Touch Down 2 Cause Hell’s sales — or even streaming stats — are hard to predict, and they likely won’t overwhelm. Though Life After Deathrow has been downloaded thousands of times on major mixtape sites, it did not attract significant media attention. Every Ghetto, Every City Vol. 1 was virtually ignored by the mainstream.

“Event” albums that pack hits and surprise releases with the promise of innovation are the main viable commodity in the music sales business. In our haste to canonize, though, it’s easy to overlook artists in the margins — consistent, committed, complex voices. Boosie has followed a historically precedented course throughout his career — particularly in his relentless regional dominance — but he’s always stood out to those willing to listen. His post-prison output is an impressive and often deeply moving collection of work. He remains one of the most powerful voices in Southern rap, an artist for those patient enough to wait for disarming moments. Touch Down 2 Cause Hell is a flawed comeback statement — but it’s just a piece of his puzzle. Rap changes, but artists like Boosie march on unbound.

Winston Cook-Wilson (@ratsonly) is a writer and musician living in . His writing has also appeared at Pitchfork, Wondering Sound, and in the Village Voice.

http://grantland.com/hollywood-prospectus/badazz-rides-again-a-reborn-boosie-and-the- fading-generation-of-major-label-southern-rap/

April 25, 2015 Well Rounded: Complex News + Boosie Badazz on the 'Kylie Jenner Challenge,' Britt McHenry, and #WakaForPresident

The Internet moves at a blistering pace, leaving stories that deserve further investigation to be buried by other headlines and eventually forgotten. Well today, we're slowing the news cycle down a bit by breaking down the week's biggest stories with our own Complex News anchors Emily Oberg, Jinx, and Sean Evans.

And, while it's our first episode, it's also a big one because we've invited special guest Boosie Badazz to weigh in on everything from the Kylie Jenner Challenge to Waka Flocka Flame running for president. Naturally, Boosie also touched on his new album Touchdown 2 2 Cause Hell, which drops May 26. Check it out.

http://www.complex.com/music/2015/04/well-rounded-complex-new-boosie-badazz-kylie-jenner-challenge-britt- mchenry-waka-flocka-flame-for-president

May 4, 2015

EXCUSE ME, IT’S MR. BOOSIE NOW: SOUTHERN RAP HERO BOOSIE BADAZZ SEARCHES FOR HIS PLACE IN HISTORY

Illustration by Anna Khachiyan When Boosie Badazz shows up at his record label headquarters, you would think the fucking mayor arrived. In a red Polo windbreaker, jeans, and crisp white kicks, Boosie comes walking in as waves of cries of “Hi Boosie!” fill the otherwise dim halls of Atlantic Records’ midtown office. No sooner does he sit at a conference room table than a plate of food arrives and he’s shoveling in rice with the same enthusiasm with which he’s been feeding the streets with his music since Y2K. “How’s that food, Boosie?” someone yells from a cubicle. “It’s goooood,” he says, flashing his gold-capped incisors with diamond studs. Boosie is the dude corporations ogle at: an artist whose product oozes with street authenticity yet who seems to have finally shaken off the liability of keeping one foot in the trap. Also, he’s a nice guy.

Boosie Badazz is the South’s unsung hero. Raised in Baton Rouge and groomed in the streets, he’s the quintessential regional rap figurehead. His rhymes tell stories seemingly ripped from lurid newspaper headlines, detailing trap happenings over basslines that make perfect strip club soundtracks. Boosie began his career in the late 90s as part of the group Concentration Camp, trained by his cousin, former No Limit soldier Young Bleed. By 2001, he inked a deal with Trill Entertainment, led by the legendary Pimp C, and he has been Trill ever since. For most people above the Mason-Dixon Line, it’s hard to fully understand Boosie. You may rock with a song or two, like “Zoom” or “Wipe Me Down,” his biggest hits. You may know some of his Trill Family affiliates, like that loose cannon named Webbie. But his impact goes way deeper than that. Call him what you want—Boosie, Lil Boosie, Boosie Badazz—but the man born Torrence Hatch has been regarded as the Tupac of the South for over a decade.

As Boosie sits in a seat across from MTV’s Sway at his Touchdown 2 Cause Hell listening session, a trailer for his mini-documentary flashes on screen, showing Boosie in 2009 as a skinny young man wielding guns and acting up. Present-day Boosie shakes his head at 2009 Boosie: That was the year that marked a hiccup in his criminal record, almost costing him his life. It was the same year Boosie dropped his fourth album Superbad: The Return Of Boosie Bad Azz. The album debuted at number seven on the Billboard charts and yielded the turnt cut “” with Webbie and Jeezy. A week after his album’s release, Boosie pled guilty to marijuana possession, a third offense that led to two years in prison. What happened after that became a domino effect of court cases, jail time, and more brushes with the law while fighting it. While awaiting his sentence, he violated probation, leading to a doubling of the initial sentence. About a year later, Boosie was indicted for the first-degree murder of a man named Terry Boyd. A year after that, in 2011, he was sentenced to eight years in prison on more drug charges.

While concurrently fighting first-degree murder and drug charges (the former he pled not-guilty, the latter guilty), Boosie sat imprisoned on death row awaiting D-Day. His fan base swelled, kicking off a “Free Boosie” campaign that built up his legendary status. At the same time, Boosie actually inched closer to freedom: His lawyers cut his jail time by suggesting he was set up by a drug ring, coaxed by his severe addiction to codeine. As for the murder charges, he beat those in 2012, left solitary confinement, and spent his last year in population preparing his first moves of freedom. I had the pleasure of speaking with Boosie a year ago, within weeks of him leaving prison. He was anxious and still a little traumatized. His prison experience was animalistic, marked with harsh treatment, oftentimes stemming from corrupt and jealous prison guards. “Prison is no place for a human,” he would reiterate to me. He was dead set on packing in his five-year absence from the world within twelve months.

We caught up almost a year to that date, and he’s a whole new man. He’s tired—a combination of working every day since he left jail and being a father to seven kids who travel with him everywhere. He’s angry—from heightened police brutality to watching young artists like fuck up before they truly touch fame. He’s focused—complete with a roster of artists, a clothing line, a book, a potential tobacco deal, and a documentary in tow, not to mention a new album.

That album, Touchdown 2 Cause Hell is his sixth, and, after years of feverish anticipation it’s finally here. As he sits in his listening session hearing the project he crafted mostly during that final year stretch in jail, Boosie is proud. He pieced the album together with tape recorders from the commissary plus burner phones and notebooks. The first words he utters on the project’s intro are “Minor setback for a major comeback.” The album is timeless: Literally, it sounds like it was frozen in time, neither dated nor futuristic. It’s simply Boosie. From pointing out corrupt politics to acknowledging the lack of support while he was behind bars, to fatherhood and even speaking about his diabetes, Boosie created a musical memoir. Could this be the album that places Boosie on all parts of the map? Possibly. His celebrity fortunately-slash-unfortunately stretched further while he was away.

But he’s out now, vehemently says that he’s never going back, and above all he’s happy. When you’ve got a second chance at life, you damn well better be.

Noisey: Last month marked a year since you've been out of prison. What's this last year been like?

Boosie Badazz: It's been beautiful. Just me coming home was beautiful, but it's been successful also. Like, I haven't took off a weekend from doing shows since I've been home. So I've been blessed with a nice deal, a clothing line, my life story is written—that's going to be a big thing after this album. I couldn't ask for a better year.

You and I spoke actually within a week of you getting out, and I remember you discussing how you had to pack in everything you missed as soon as you got out. Are you still grinding like that? Yeah, I basically pushed myself with that mentality of, “Damn, I missed a lot.” I probably do need to get my ass some rest, but I still got that hard grind like I feel like I missed so much. And that takes me to better places in life, grinding so hard. I just gotta mix that in with my health and taking better care of myself because everybody needs sleep, you know?

Has it taken its toll on you? Sometimes I do. I can't don't. Sometimes I do, but I got a basketball team of kids that gotta get fed, so that plays a part in it also.

How many kids do you have? Seven.

So you do have a basketball team! What's the oldest and the youngest? The youngest is five, and the oldest is 13.

How do you as a father make sure your kids know not to live out what they hear in music? I've made my kids strong-willed and strong-minded where they know music from reality. They're not going to listen to nobody. That's how I feel with my music, that's all with raising kids. They were raised around music their whole life, you know? So, the way I raised them, music artists won't affect the way they carry themselves. That comes with parenting also.

Have you found it hard to be an artist and a parent? It's a lot. You know, lately I've just been taking them with me. Like when they come with me, “We're going on a trip! We're going everywhere!”

All seven of them? Yup! That brings a lot of fun it also. A lot of whoopings too, but that brings a lot of fun in it. I'm not going to get to a point where I say, “It's either this or this.” If I gotta spend time with them, I'm going to bring them with me.

So you're basically cutting your turn up time considerably by bringing your children... Right, right! My only turn up time really is on stage. I'm a daddy and I'm a businessman also. If I'm not getting paid, I'm not going nowhere. It's business! I could see if it's a giveaway to help some people out, but as far as clubs—nah. This is business. It feels like not a lot of artists understand that. I do.

So you said something about your clothing line. Jewel House!

In a few months, how much money did you make from that? Several million, right? Yeah, it was like retail four million dollars.

That's a lot. [Laughs.] I'm co-owner, though. I don't own the whole thing. I'm co-owner, but that shows you—Boosie is a brand. Not even with the hellafied designs that everybody else has, we're talking T-shirts, jackets, and caps. So sometimes, now you see it's not really the clothes, it's the person. So we're going to take this Jewel House thing as far as we think it can go.

You’re living in Atlanta now. How has that been since leaving Baton Rouge? I like it, because it's different from Louisiana. I'm not the only one riding around in foreign cars. I'm not a target, you know? I feel like I'm going into a city where people don't have a grudge against me, as far as law enforcement. We don't have a history, and they respect superstars out there. And it's a music capital, so that's where I need to be. Everybody is rocking with everybody making music, and that's a place I need to be.

You left for Atlanta like a month after getting out of prison. Did you feel like when you got out, the FEDS were watching you? I'm a target, you know? I'm Boosie. I'm Boosie Badazz in Louisiana. I beat murder charges, I beat all kinds of charges and was convicted on charges also, and I'm a highly touted rapper to make it out that environment. So with the past, I had to go. I wanted to start fresh.

How did it feel this year to watch so much happening with the police and Black men? Well I've been making songs about what the police were doing. I just feel like they got technology now and they can get this stuff on camera. People been dying at the hands of people who I feel like wake up on the wrong side of the bed. It probably don't be that person in them to do that stuff, but they wake up on the wrong side of the bed—that's what I be thinking—and they take it out at work. But I been talking about this, I guess people just finally seeing it. It's just certain communities fight for what's right, and certain communities look over it. And once it gets national attention, then that's when everybody goes crazy with it. But that's not nothing new.

No matter what in your music, you've always managed to insert it somewhere. Do you feel like artists have that obligation to at least speak on it? Especially black artists, I mean if they didn't have a record deal—or even if they did have a record deal, to your point—they're the biggest targets. I feel like most rappers are not going to speak on it. Some speak on it, but some speak on it because they care, some speak on it because they're just riding a wave. I'm one of those people who speak on it because I care about people being mistreated. I care about the people saying they're protecting us not protecting us. That's a big zero. When we go to jail, we do hard time. I don't care who you is, when you do something like that, I feel like people gotta start going to jail for it, man. If they start getting 40 or 50 years, maybe they'll wake up like, “I better taser him this time.”

When they commit crimes—even if they do get charged with something—they just lose their badge. They don't lose their life, they don't lose anything else. They don't go to jail. It's not fair. It's not fair at all.

So all together, your prison experience was a pretty terrible one, right? Yeah, man. I was on death row! I was fighting a death row case, so they put me on death row for three and a half years. And I'm fighting this case, and I was locked down 23 hours, 45 minutes a day.

Alone? Yeah, I was in a cell 23 hours, 45 minutes a day. I only get 15 minutes out to shower and use the phone in that same 15 minutes.

How did you not go completely insane? I don't know. I just maintained that I'd be free one day. I just kept it in my head, prayed to God. I ain't gonna let them break me.

When you knew that you had 12 months left, did you have more freedom? Yeah, when they let me out after I beat my murder case, they came to me and asked did I want to go in population. I'm like, “Hell yeah!” Because you know by you being a celebrity, you can say that you want to stay on lockdown, but hell no! I'm going in population. I got my GED, I completed all these courses, so I even came home a couple months earlier! Then I was able to touch my people who visit. I was given a job in the kitchen, I was just given more freedom.

Talk to me about your recording process in prison. How did you do that? Well it was all kind of ways. I was getting tape recorders, I was getting the guards to sneak me in iPhones. Whatever I had to do!

So you're recording on some burners too and sending them out! Yup! Sometimes you've got to break the rules to make money, that's just plain and simple. And that's what I was doing! I'm not going to say I went to jail and did right. I'm not going to say that, because I was going through a lot and I needed to be high half the time. I was going through a lot, but it made me value life more. It made me value my career more. It smartened me up. I was doing stupid stuff out there. Even though all these murders and all this was bogus, I was doing stupid stuff to lead people on as far as flashing guns every time you see me on DVDs. You know, that was stupid ass shit! Now I look at it like, “Damn, why was I doing that?” But it was fun then. But once they stack a lot of that against you, once you get in some trouble, that'll make people look at you like, “Hey, he's far from a saint!”

The interesting thing is that when you went in, Boosie was already a brand. Now you have some artists out today who have barely become brands, got their first single and now they're in or they're facing jail time. How does that make you feel just watching the next generation of hip-hop artists, not even giving themselves a chance to actually experience life at any level? I feel bad for them, but I never count nobody out. I always feel like somebody can come back and make a comeback. But I feel bad about it. Even in ‘09, I was nationally known, doing 300 to 400 thousand records, shows in Alaska and everywhere. But, once they put that lock on your wrist, it's hard to get out. Like my grandma always said, “Trouble is easy to get in, but it's hard to get out.” And I hate seeing people in that situation. I hate seeing Bobby Shmurda in that situation. I got pissed off when I saw it on the TV, because we're already targets and we just can't be slipping! They really have hip-hop police, they really have people who despise what you do, and how you get rich off what you do. When they feel you're a star, people be out to get you, and it's up to us as street dudes not to get caught. It's up to them to catch us. So I just hate to see people get in that trouble like that, because I know what he's going through.

What about artists who convict themselves with their lyrics? Right! I'm against that also. But sometimes when people are after you so much, they can take something that's not direct—it can be somewhat dealing with that—and they can make that and bring it into court and try to convict you on something. I just feel like it's out of hand now. That's because it's too many people getting rich off it! Shit, Johnny Cash said we shot a man down in Folsom Prison, just to watch him die! Bob Marley said he shot the sheriff! Freedom of speech is being cut right now. That's no longer a permanent rule, because somebody can say, “I'ma kill that nigga when I catch him!” and he can be killed the next day, but if they had beef, they would go indict him on him saying he could kill him the next day. Shit just happens! What if it just happened? But you know, once judges start ruling with them, it gets out of hand.

When you came back out and started making music, what was your mindset? I was saying I'm going to bring that Boosie music back. I was gonna bring an album that didn't sound like nobody out. I didn't want to have one that sounds like records on the radio. I wanted an album that was touching people, that had dark music on it, that was just a versatile album.

Why did you really drop the “Lil” from your name? I got tired of just people, grown men, like “What up Lil Boosie?” No, I'm grown. It should be Mr.! You know, I'm Boosie Badazz. I'm a dad, man. Just take the shit off! That's how I was feeling. Why didn't you just go with Boosie? I don't know. Boosie Badazz is just like, more people say Badazz when they see me than Boosie, so I just stuck with the Boosie Badazz.

Why was it important for you to get your GED? Really I wanted to make my mama smile. And you know, I got kids! I can't say I got no diploma! I want to at least be able to tell them, “I did it!” But it was for my mama, man. It's only a few of my grandmother's grandsons that have graduated and my mama always talked about that when I was little. “You're going to graduate from high school! You're not going to be like this one and that one!” So I made sure she was there. I made sure she was able to see me with my cap and gown on.

I love it. Well now your daughter's starting high school! Yeah!

Are you sweating? Yeah, I'm sweating. I just want them to say this age forever! But nah, I just try to have good relationships with them where they talk to me about everything. I think that's the key with daddies and daughters. When you talk to them, it's better.

Do you make her carry your picture with her in her pocket so she can show the boys like, “Oh by the way—this is my dad!” Oh, they know already! [laughs] They know already!

So are all seven of your kids in Atlanta as well? I have a couple in Atlanta, and the rest of them in Baton Rouge. But it's finna be the summer, so all of them will be there. I basically take them everywhere with me when they come. I don't believe in separate times. If they're with me, I'm not leaving them with a nanny. It's daddy time y'all, come on! We can balance all this work in together.

Where have you brought them so far? They've been everywhere, really. They've been all across the country. They like traveling, they like taking pictures. They've been waiting on this, you know? They've been waiting on this a long time. So if your youngest is five— He was born when I was in prison, after I went in.

And for three of those years, you didn't even get to see him, huh? Yeah, I got to see him, but I got to see him through the glass.

So you only got to hug him after that? Yeah.

What was that like? I had built a relationship with him then. Like, he had gotten to a point when he was like two that he wasn't just looking at me. It was, “Daddy! Daddy!” So, by the time he was that age, he already knew.

Are any of your kids showing their musical side? Yeah, my daughter makes music.

The 13-year-old? Yup! My son, the 11-year-old, he likes to rap. I'm just supportive of whatever they do. They're going to be signing people one day.

Which part of Boosie do you like the best? Outside of Boosie the father, because you seem to love that the best, but who do you love the best? Boosie the businessman, Boosie the artist, Boosie the author, Boosie the filmmaker—who's the guy right now that's giving you the most passion to keep doing this? Um, I say Boosie the hustler because my hustle has gotten greater because my fame, my music—steady dropping mixtapes killing the streets. Everything I'm touching is doing good, and I'm making money besides music so that's always a plus. It's bigger than Boosie the music artist now, and that opened up all kinds of doors for me. So I'm just happy with the hustle right now. That's what I'm happier with.

Do you feel like it's easier for you now to stay out of trouble? Yeah, because I value life more, I value my career more, I value everything more! Before jail I cared about it, but now I know what not to do. I know I'm not going to do this to put me in this situation again, so hell yeah, I'm way more careful and smarter. http://noisey.vice.com/blog/lil-boosie-badazz-interview-2015