Wanted dead or alive # 4 : what's this Boosie beat from?

"Been packin' steel since I was lil', part of my outfit
I got a house on a hill so I could talk shit"

Lil' Boosie - Thugged All The Clubs



Though none of his solo albums or mixtapes are as good as his two albums with Webbie and he's had a few solo cuts here and there since Youngest Of Da Camp, 2009 was the year I finally became convinced by Boosie as a fully fledged solo artist : there was a genuine undercurrent of menace to even his most celebatory shit, his sad-rap only got more wistful what with all his legal troubles and impending incarceration/daily threat of being bummed in the showers, his choice in production improved dramatically, he had a near-flawless string of viral video singles, and there was an austerity which ran throughout everything he did as you sense he knew he was running out of time. But dude released so much material last year that it's taken me until recently to check out his Should've Been My Beats mixtape which Thugged All The Clubs comes from. I swear I know this but I can't place it; anyone know? Some of the tape is really tacky (remaking I'll Be Missing You, whoadie? We'll Always Miss Big Poppa rebooted as Y'All Miss Lil' Boosie would've been a far better choice), but the lad with the CJ from Eggheads fade kinda kills this, 'Bout It, 'Bout It, Down Here, Death Around The Corner, and I Ain't Mad Atcha, which is a song I've never liked but it's ehhanced tenfold by no Danny Boy crooning (why didn't Suge insist Nate Dogg did that hook?) and Boosie is like That Rapist 2pac (™ Fat Lace) if all his annoying baggage was replaced with the classic country-rap sensibility of Pimp C. Actually, I think I can now admit to liking some Death Row era 'Pac without feeling any pangs of shame whatsoever because he inspired so much great southern rap and Nas stans have generally replaced 2pac stans as the most irksome fanboys around. Feels good to finally come clean that I've ALWAYS thought All Eyez On Me is a much better song than Street Dreams, man.

What a coincidence, then, that my favourite song on the new Boosie Incarcerated album released yesterday turns out to have to word Thugged in its title too :

Lil' Boosie ft. Double Trouble - Thugged Out



I say new when this has been floating around online as a Double Trouble ft. Boosie song for months now, but like Lil' Phat's Levi's became a Boosie song on Superbad, this officially becomes a Boosie song on Incarcerated. Even though I came to love Boosie as a solo rapper, songs featuring his various new weedcarriers were my main Achilles' heel last year and this is no different. I fully understand that Boosie should probably serve 25 to life for being involved in the murder of Nu$$ie and it's very sad that someone died, but can't he have recording equipment (which is, what, a laptop and a microphone nowadays?) in his jailcell and a steady stream of beats or something? It's 2010 FFS so why do innocent fans like me have to suffer because dumb rappers make mistakes?

Lil' Boosie - Boosie We Gone Miss You