G-Eazy has been an elusive figure in hip hop, to say the least. One minute he’s in the charts dominating festival lineups, and the next thing, he’s a ghost. Nonetheless, it’s fair to say the Oakland rapper has had a lot of success in recent years, considering the neverending struggles he had early in his career.
G-Eazy first arrived in the mainstream around 2012 when, after having just completed a nationwide tour with the ‘Vans Warped Tour’, he independently released his debut album Must Be Nice. Eazy had slowly cultivated a fan base since 2010 while living with his mother in Oakland. Initially, starting out as a record producer and rapper, Eazy first worked locally with acts such as The Cataracs and Lil B.
However, as he continued to network around the Bay area of San Francisco, he built up enough of a buzz to become the go-to opening act for more prominent artists when they had performances in Oakland. Eazy got to open for the likes of Snoop Dogg and Lil Wayne.
Must Be Nice, thanks to the ‘Warped Tour’ exposure he recieved and his work opening for more prominent artists in Oakland, sold enough for the project to land at number three on the iTunes Hip Hop Albums Chart. As a result, a year later, alongside rapper 2 Chainz, Eazy landed another nationwide tour on Lil Wayne’s ‘America’s Most Wanted’ tour. The tour provided the rapper with even more nationwide exposure with several dates in Canada as well.
Now with a sufficient amount of fans, the rapper, with the help of Tory Lanez and KYLE, set out on his own tour compromised of 40 stops throughout the United States and Canada, lasting over a year. The tour was a precursor to an album, and as part of the rollout, upon completion of the tour, the rapper released his first major label album, These Things Happen, which topped the Billboard 200 albums chart. The following summer, in 2015, now on a major label, the rapper began undertaking the global festival circuit performing at the likes of Glastonbury, Lollapalooza and Coachella.
However, although G-Eazy’s rise was organic and sound, the hype wasn’t maintained, with each album seeming to perform less and less well from his debut onwards. His most recent album, These Things Happen Too, peaked at number 19 on the Billboard 200, just about scraping into the top 20 and is the rapper’s lowest charting major label album and first-week sales to date.
Behind the glitz and glam of being a rapper, Eazy (real name Gerald Butler) likes many everyday things, including watching films. In an interview with XXL Magazine in a conversation about just this, the artist revealed what his two favourite movies are but admitted that one narrowly clinches the top spot. When asked what his favourite film was, Butler interestingly responded, “Pulp Fiction. Tarantino’s probably my favourite. It’s either that or Inglorious Basterds. But Pulp Fiction’s just so fucking iconic. I can never watch it the whole way through. It gets really fuckin’ noir at the end. That’s his best work. It’s Tarantino at his absolute best; the style, the tone, the cinematography.”
You can watch the trailer for Pulp Fiction in the video below. It might become your favourite too.
