Inevitably, Lil Boosie steals the show with a wonderfully shrill, sing-song verse. (“Mayne” is regional slang for “man,” but his verse isn’t as marvelous as his stage name.) As you can guess from his name, he came up with the song’s concept, and he rhymes alongside another Shreveport rapper, Untame Mayne. 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. “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. 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. In short, hip-hop feels both more local and more accessible, and nothing captures that combination like the continuing popularity of hip-hop dances. (Both were compiled by DJ Drama, and both are available at .) 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.
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. 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. 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.” Yung Joc and Chamillionaire both scored big hits (“It’s Goin’ Down” and “Ridin’,” respectively), but neither seems like an A-list star. 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. 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. This is how you measure hip-hop stardom now: not through big-budget videos but through no-budget videos.
Or should be.įor 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.
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.
Forget about dreams of multiplatinum success. But you might say this has been a year defined by rappers like him, neighborhood guys with modest dreams. Make no mistake, Lil Boosie is hardly the rapper of the year. And this Tuesday he will make his major-label solo debut with “Bad Azz” (Trill/Aslyum/Warner). 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. 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.
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