5 Pre-Prison Boosie Tracks You Need To Know

Last March, Boosie came home after almost five years in prison. At 32 years old, it was unclear if Baton Rouge's biggest hero would be able to execute a return to form, though we should've known better. Since he's been on the outs, equipped with a fresh name change, Boosie Badazz has already hit us with too many features to count. And his own singles, including "Retaliation" and "Like a Man," indicate that Touchdown 2 Cause Hell will be one of the best albums of the year. 

As you prepare for Touchdown, it's time to revisit the career that began over 15 years ago and was tragically put on hold for five years. Fortunately, he claims to have written hundreds of songs in the pen, and it seems he hasn't lost any of his bite, or his ability to channel pure terror. Whether or not you can stand his high-pitched nasally barking, there's no denying Boosie B is the most viscerally raw rapper in the game. As he fights to be the lone keeper of Southern gangsta rap, look back on the tracks that started it all. 

It's been said the Boosie remix of "Wipe Me Down" is played in place of the national anthem at all civic ceremonies in Baton Rouge. While that's not on the list, we've included five pre-incarceration tracks to get you acquainted with Boosie's prolific talent and to prepare you for Touchdown 2 Cause Hell, which promises to be a wild, wild ride. 

Any Boosie hidden gems that we need to know? Feel free to share 'em in the comments. 

We gotta start with the obvious--"Zoom," Boosie's first hit outside Louisiana, and the single that the single that earned him nationwide recognition. Boosie introduced us to Baton Rouge like something out of a horror movie. He brought the hood rich sound of No Limit and Cash Money soaked in blood. "Zoom" is one of the tamest records in the Boosie catalog, probably why it was his first hit. 

The hook had the whole country like "Zoom," over a turnt production from Mouse On Tha Track, Baton Rouge legend in his own right. We get a decent verse from Yung Joc, hot off "It's Goin' Down," but Boosie's yapping was like nothing else ever brought to the mainstream. You're gonna love or hate the voice, but you can't deny the raw adrenaline. 

Before Boosie's major label debut, Bad Azz, in 2006, he'd already cemented a mean partnership with Webbie, and it was clear both guys were gonna put on heavy for Baton Rouge. Though still finding his vocal range, "Trouble Man," off Gangsta Musik, their second joint album, showed off Boosie's unhinged (troublesome) persona in full effect. 

Young Boosie was well aware of his own vices, but also knows his penchant for danger is why he's so damn hot on the streets. Listening back, "Trouble Man" is chillingly prophetic, as Boosie's already well-acquainted with the Baton Rouge judge, who calls him by his rapper name-- "but he can't hurt me / Can't give me life, so I be back up in that dirty dirty."  

Lil Boosie telling you to ease your mind doesn't exactly do the trick, but we certainly catch a strong whiff of that purple he often talks about--yikes, and a little angel dust too. Some might knock Boosie's versatility--and, indeed, it's hard for Badazz to tone it down. Maybe impossible. It's not like Baton Rouge ever cools down for him. 

One of Boosie's many smoking songs, "Smokin' On Purple" is the rare blunt cruisin' anthem in which "murder" is spat three times on the hook. Even when Boosie's doing some much-needed inhaling, his mind never loses track of his glock nine. 

On his closing verse, Webbie gets so high he almost passes the blunt to Pimp C, to whose label both Boosie and Webbie were signed, on that Trill shit years before ASAP Rocky. 

Last year, right after he got out, Boosie dropped off "Crazy," one of the hardest records off Life After Deathrow. Indeed, he sounds like a madman, but he proves, again, for someone who's seen what he's seen, he may be the sanest man alive. 

"Crazy" is "Mind of a Maniac" 2.0, off Boosie's fourth album, Superbad: The Return of Boosie Bad Azz, released a week before he was put on house arrest for a marijuana charge. We get the picture right off the bat: "I keep a gat cause niggas murder / Gotta bad habit of purple / In the studio I murk ya." The man who'd sit on death row a year later showed us there's nothing glamorous about real gangsta rap, in the deep South at least.

"Spade for spade, I'm the realest nigga out." Cue up the video, which shows Boosie at the actual loony bin, and try to tell us differently. 

As Boosie prays on the intro, "Dear God, I ask you to make my heart cold tonight," we know the goosebumps are imminent. Incarcerated was released while Boosie was in prison, though we're gonna assume he recorded his verses before he went away. Feeling "Betrayed," Boosie can't trust anyone, from "bitches tryna slide the rubber off" to homies who'll "cut yo fuckin' throat like Rich and Alpo," and even his own family. 

He knows he's got Webbie, though.