So Boosie had that whole party-rap thing down cold, whether that was what he wanted to do or not. The way he howled “ yeeeaaauuuhh!” halfway through his verse on Webbie’s “Independent” is an all-time party gauge: If you’re at the club and everyone yells that word along with Boosie, you’re among the right people.

Once, on assignment for King magazine, I stood behind Boosie on an Orlando parking-lot stage and watched a euphoric crowd shout Boosie’s verse from the “Wipe Me Down” remix - “B-O-O-S-I-E B-A-D-A-Z-Z THAT’S ME!” - back at him, and it ranks as one of my favorite live-music memories ever. Ratchet music, the prim and minimal strain of party-rap that’s currently dominating West Coast rap, got its name from a 2005 Boosie single. But Boosie’s biggest hits were his party songs. Boosie started off as a gangsta rap child star, and by the time he got around to making Ghetto Stories, his great 2003 collaborative album with Webbie, he’s matured into a wizened seen-it-all street rapper, squawking about impossible hardships in a voice that sounded like a feral cat on helium. The party songs never dominated the Baton Rouge rapper’s catalog, and you sometimes got the impression that he didn’t like doing them. Once upon a time, Lil Boosie made party songs.

Boosie badazz full mixtape