2006 Emerges as the Year That Rap Thought Locally

 

2006 Emerges as the Year That Rap Thought Locally By KELEFA SANNEH Published: October 19, 2006 If you want to understand hip-hop in 2006, you should acquaint yourself with Torrence Hatch, a 23-year-old fellow from Baton Rouge, La., known professionally as Lil Boosie. He has got the five things every rapper needs: a memorable voice, a bad attitude, an infectious love of trash talk, a regional reputation and a record deal. And this Tuesday he will make his major-label solo debut with “Bad Azz” (Trill/Aslyum/Warner). YouTube.com The ratchet dance on YouTube.com. Readers’ Opinions     kingyella.com Lil Boosie, a Baton Rouge, La., rapper with an album coming out on Tuesday. Make no mistake, Lil Boosie is hardly the rapper of the year. But you might say this has been a year defined by rappers like him, neighborhood guys with modest dreams. Forget about dreams of multiplatinum success. If Lil Boosie’s catchy current single, “Zoom,” becomes a nationwide hip-hop hit, then maybe he can sell a few hundred thousand CD’s. His label would be happy with that. Or should be. For reasons best explained by entertainment lawyers, the new album doesn’t include Lil Boosie’s underground summer hit, “Do tha Ratchet.” That track was a collaboration with a couple of Shreveport rappers, released on an independent CD, and it inspired a dance move that spread through local clubs and through one notably unlocal Web site: YouTube, where the usual assortment of pajama’d teenagers and dressed-up dandies can be seen doing their own Ratchets. This is how you measure hip-hop stardom now: not through big-budget videos but through no-budget videos. Was it only a few years ago that rappers routinely bought — which is to say, dreamed about buying — private jets and expensive yachts? Some big-name rappers, including Jay-Z and the Game, are scheduled to release albums in the coming months, but so far the year’s top rappers seem less like globe-trotting celebrities and more like neighborhood guys. T. I.’s “King,” the year’s best hip-hop CD so far, is also the only 2006 rap CD that has sold over a million copies; it’s a tough, single-minded disc that wasn’t designed to woo pop fans, and it doesn’t sound too different from one of his mixtapes. Yung Joc and Chamillionaire both scored big hits (“It’s Goin’ Down” and “Ridin’,” respectively), but neither seems like an A-list star. And despite months of publicity and controversy, Busta Rhymes’s New York-centric recent album, “The Big Bang,” has sold barely half a million copies; the same is true of Rick Ross’s heavily promoted major-label debut, “Port of Miami.” Unless you’re a record executive, or a yacht salesman, this state of affairs — an era in which rappers think locally and sometimes sell that way, too — is nothing to complain about. It’s easier than ever for fans to learn about regional scenes, from the Bay Area’s space-age hyphy movement to the rough beats and rhymes of Baltimore. The Internet has made it easier to get mixtapes, too, and no 2006 hip-hop collection is complete without “Dedication 2,” by the New Orleans rapper Lil Wayne, or “I Told U So,” by the Memphis rapper Yo Gotti. (Both were compiled by DJ Drama, and both are available at mixunit.com.) In short, hip-hop feels both more local and more accessible, and nothing captures that combination like the continuing popularity of hip-hop dances. From “It’s Goin’ Down” to “Chicken Noodle Soup,” from “Do It to It” to “Walk It Out,” many of this year’s club hits have arrived along with simple (provided you’re a well-coordinated teenager), loose-limbed steps; they filter up from clubs to YouTube, and then back down into bedrooms. “Do tha Ratchet” never got as big as the Harlem-bred hit “Chicken Noodle Soup,” but the song — along with its arm-flapping dance — spread surprisingly quickly, especially considering its provenance. The song was released by Lava House, a label run by a rapper and aspiring mogul from Shreveport, La., who calls himself the Ratchet King. As you can guess from his name, he came up with the song’s concept, and he rhymes alongside another Shreveport rapper, Untame Mayne. (“Mayne” is regional slang for “man,” but his verse isn’t as marvelous as his stage name.) Inevitably, Lil Boosie steals the show with a wonderfully shrill, sing-song verse. He cheerfully salutes a money-making mother in the club: “She got ’bout nine children, but she be makin’ ’fetti/But I can’t talk ’bout li’l mama ’cause I got three already.” And in the chorus, he sums up the state of the world: “He ratchet, she ratchet/Man, we all got some ratchet in us.” Visit myspace.com/lilboosieratchetbadazz to hear it. All of this raises an obvious question. And on Tuesday night, during a visit to the Atlantic Records office in Midtown, Lil Boosie was happy to provide an answer, of a sort. What does ratchet mean? He chuckled, then provided a few examples. “Outside, your car might be clean as a” — well, finish the simile yourself — “but junky inside. You might be Miss America, but with yellow teeth. Everybody got something wrong with ’em.” Like, say, an album that’s missing a crucial song? Anyway: there’s plenty to like on “Bad Azz.” Plenty to skip, too. Almost all the beats were made by Lil Boosie’s in-house producer, Mouse, who favors hard synthesizer tracks. As with many a Southern hip-hop album, the focus is on slang and enunciation, not intricate lyrics. In “That’s What They Like,” Lil Boosie injects plenty of feeling and music into the deceptively simple phrase, “Dey like like dat, huh.” “Zoom,” featuring Yung Joc, is a well-built club track, with electronic drum rolls and a chorus that’s nearly impossible to un-remember. And “I Represent” gives Lil Boosie a chance to spit rhymes alongside his fellow Baton Rougeian and sometime partner, Webbie. Baton Rouge hip-hop is less festive than New Orleans hip-hop, so the late-1990’s rise of New Orleans stars like Juvenile and Master P didn’t much help rappers like Lil Boosie. In fact, his best-known patron is Pimp C, from the beloved Port Arthur, Tex., duo UGK. He lent his name to a 2003 CD, “Pimp C Presents ... Ghetto Stories,” by Webbie and Lil Boosie. Webbie, a lackadaisical loudmouth, released his major-label solo debut, “Savage Life” (Trill/Asylum/Warner), last year; thanks to an addictive summer hit, “Give Me That,” the album was a modest success. Now it’s Lil Boosie’s big chance to become a little star.