Boosie Badazz

Born Torrence Ivy Hatch Jr. on November 14, 1982 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, hardcore rapper Boosie Badazz became a respected figure in southern rap, having lived through the many difficult circumstances he rapped about. His hardscrabble childhood helped push him towards a rap career early—he became the youngest member of Concentration Camp while he was still a teenager. He started his solo recording career as Lil Boosie with 2000’s Youngest of the Camp. He signed with the record label Trill, and broke through with his third album, 2006’s Bad Azz, which topped the rap album chart, hit number 2 on the R&B album chart, and went top 20 on the main album chart. That success set the table for his entry on the LP Trill Entertainment Presents: Survival of the Fittest, “Wipe Me Down”, to give him his biggest hit to that point going top 10 on both the rap and R&B chart, and cracking the pop top 40 at number 38. He had another top 5 album with 2010’s Incarcerated, which dropped as he began serving five years in prison for drug possession. He returned in 2015, rechristened as Boosie Badazz, and promptly had the best charting album of his career with Touch Down 2 Cause Hell, which went top 3 on the rap, R&B, and main charts. He released mixtapes at a prolific rate, and he guested on tracks from some of the biggest names in rap, a fact which revealed his respect among rappers. Though his solo albums began to wane on the chart, his 2020 collaboration with MO3, Baddazz MO3, landed on the lower rungs of the main album chart.