However, this year’s BET Hip-Hop Awards Detroit cypher is what formally put the rap world and its eager indulgers on notice. His three tapes, all critically praised, have put valuable blips on the radars of SBTRKT, Skrillex, Rihanna (when she called him her “new fav.” beneath an IG clip of his sobering “N***a Needs” video, his social numbers skyrocketed), Kendrick Lamar and more. It’s a far cry from what he says his first string of performances looked like. With the crook of his finger, he summoned one lucky guy to join him on stage, much to the chagrin of his bodyguard, to play hype man. When he leapt directly into the center of them all, matching their raucous jumping, ecstatic fans-your typical suburban white teenage festival-goers sporting mesh bralettes, khaki shorts paired with jerseys, dust bandanas and CamelBak water backpacks-towered over him. A tight crowd of 50 or so bordered the platform, to which Boogie shed his white tee and fired off cunning couplets from his only three projects: Thirst 48 (2014), The Reach (2015) and Thirst 48 Pt. When I first saw him this past summer, Boogie commanded two separate Lollapalooza stages, the first of which included a tucked away tent for Toyota’s Music Den. That is, except for when he’s got the mic in his hands. His speaking voice coasts along a relatively flat tonal spectrum, breaking only sparingly for inflections. Naturally low lids only peel back during blips of honest amusement. “Super chill” in nature, Boogie’s default demeanor seems to hover in between the two extremes, as if he’s in a hazy but functional high. Not necessarily the kind that makes a stranger entering his space feel comfortable, but rather the sort that makes it hard to put a hiccup in his mood. The West Coast rapper and Shady Records signee-not to be confused with New York’s rap-singing upstart, A Boogie wit da Hoodie (“ don’t bother me, we got different lanes,” Boogie says)-has a funny kind of ease about him. Today it just so happens to be, by his own admission, “the best rapper ever” in training. It’s the freak accident I’d been dreading would happen to me or someone else in the office. I wince as Boogie recoils and cradles his face in his hands. The rushing person on the other side of the door stands frozen and wide-eyed. The next morning, they’d turn right back around to L.A.Īs we make small talk down the corridor of our Midtown offices to grab a few things and head to our next destination, an admittedly ill-placed door juts out from the wall beside him, colliding with his face in what feels like slow motion. An evening visit with VIBE would be the last appointment before hanging it up for the day. Earlier, he and his two-person entourage disembarked from a red-eye flight that robbed him of decent shut-eye (blame middle seat discomfort) to make obligatory New York press rounds. propped up on his shoulders, the day all but promises to end in disaster. Within just seconds of meeting Boogie, the nimble wordsmith with Compton, Calif.
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