The five best Baton Rouge rappers of all time
The capital of Louisiana is not, as many outsiders tend to presume, New Orleans, but Baton Rouge, which is as rich in culture and history as any other major city in the United States.
Baton Rouge has long been a melting pot of different cultures, and that is reflected in its arts. The theatre and performance arts scenes there are vibrant, there are plenty of museums and art galleries to visit, and its jazz and blues scenes are world-renowned.
But that is not to say other types of music aren’t produced there. Rap is an especially important part of the city’s contemporary culture, with many rappers, be they from the underground or a small few who have made it big, calling the city home.
“It’s not just gangsta rap,” filmmaker Maison Kwame said of his home city’s rap scene in 2021, speaking with 225 magazine to promote a documentary he’d made about it, “It’s a whole multitude of things that we’re bringing to the culture.” That may well be the case, but the city’s gangsta rap scene is especially strong, as evidenced by its leading lights. Here is a selection of the very best.
The five best Baton Rouge rappers:
5. Webbie
Offering a hint about one of the other rappers who will appear later in this list, Webbie is a Baton Rouge rapper who first came to prominence through his collaborations with Lil Boosie. Webbie popped up on Boosie’s second album, For My Thugz, in 2002, before the pair together released the collaborative album Ghetto Stories the following year. His first solo album, Savage Life, arrived in 2005 and went straight to number eight on the Billboard 200.
Webbie has since released five more editions of his Savage Life series of solo albums, as well as several collaborative works with Boosie and other rappers, including his own son, Tre Savage. He has never truly taken the mainstream by storm, but his rap career has been solid, and his skills have proven sharp time and again.
4. Fredo Bang
Fredo Bang is known best for his song ‘Top’, which later got a remix featuring Lil Durk that drove it to genuinely great heights. The song has been certified platinum and has proved to be a defining track of the early 2020s. But even though that remains his major hit, his career has seen plenty of other highlights.
The fact that Fredo forged a career at all is itself an impressive feat; legal issues threatened to derail the whole project before it ever truly got going, as he spent more than two years behind bars. His incarceration seems to have focused his mind, as it was after his release in 2018 that his career really began to make strides.
3. Kevin Gates
Kevin Gates must have seemed like he came out of nowhere to many people. His debut album, Islah, went straight to number two on the American album charts upon its 2016 release, while it featured major names like Ty Dolla $ign and Jamie Foxx. But the reality is that his success had been a long time coming, as he’d been making music for a longer while before that album dropped.
His career really got going in 2007, after he signed to a local Baton Rouge label called Dead Game Records. He began releasing mixtapes and working alongside the likes of fellow rising stars and Baton Rouge natives Boosie Badazz and Webbie, which set him up for the success of Islah. He has since remained prolific, releasing four more studio albums and six mixtapes.
2. Boosie Badazz
Boosie Badazz, once known as Lil Boosie, is one of the leading figures of Southern hip hop and unquestionably is among Baton Rouge’s greatest rappers. His career has spanned three decades now, beginning in the late ’90s as part of a hip hop collective, before going solo as a 17-year-old and releasing his debut album, Youngest of da Camp, in the year 2000. He hasn’t ever really stopped from there.
Despite spending several years behind bars for drug and weapons offences, Boosie has proven to be an enduring and prolific artist. He has released 13 studio albums, plus seven collaborative albums, not to mention 44 mixtapes. He swapped his Lil Boosie moniker for Boosie Badazz in 2014, and, despite a string of controversies blighting his reputation among some, has remained successful.
1. YoungBoy Never Broke Again
YoungBoy Never Broke Again is still firmly in his 20s, but has already reached heights within the music business that few others ever get to reach. He is a chart-topping, wildly popular rapper with a host of hits to his name, known as the youngest ever artist to chart 100 singles on the Billboard Hot 100. And, crucially, for an artist of his generation, he is a streaming master with lots of Spotify listens and YouTube views under his belt.
As with several of his Baton Rouge rap peers, YoungBoy’s career has been affected by his frequent troubles with the law. But despite spending a considerable amount of time in court, behind bars and under house arrest, his output has been extraordinary. He has released nine studio albums, three compilation albums, 26 mixtapes and three EPs, all before turning 27 this October.