Blaze Ya Dead Homie

Psychopathic Records crafted a fictional origin tale around Blaze Ya Dead Homie, born Chris Rouleau, portraying him as a gangsta reincarnated after dying in the late ’80s just as the gangsta-rap era began. That invented narrative accounts for the way his releases merge the label’s horrorcore aesthetic with raw gangsta-rap aggression. His earliest underground work came under the alias Psycho C as one half of the Detroit duo 2 Krazy Devils, later known as the Sleepwalkaz. Ties to fellow shock-rap act the House of Krazees led member the R.O.C. to helm the sole 2 Krazy Devils album, Flipped Insanity, issued in 1996. Both groups eventually disbanded, yet when ex-House of Krazees rappers Jamie Madrox and Monoxide Child launched Twiztid and secured a deal with Psychopathic Records, they brought Blaze onto the roster as well.

Label turbulence notwithstanding, his loyal following expanded with every release—the 2000 Blaze Ya Dead Homie EP, 2001’s 1 Less G in da Hood, and 2004’s Colton Grundy—culminating in the last of those three moving the highest number of copies and appearing on four separate Billboard charts. Capitalizing on that momentum, Blaze issued the Deluxe G Edition of 1 Less G in da Hood in June 2006, drawing tracks from his self-titled debut, the 2001 full-length, and several newly recorded bonus cuts. Between his first two albums he teamed with labelmate Anybody Killa to create the short-lived Drive-By project, which yielded only the Pony Down (Prelude) EP before Anybody Killa departed Psychopathic Records in 2006. Additional Psychopathic titles followed: Clockwork Gray in 2007 and Gang Rags in 2010. Blaze moved to Twiztid’s Majik Ninja imprint in 2014, debuting there with Gang Rags: Reborn, a set of previously unreleased material; the next year he delivered the LP The Casket Factory along with the singles “Ghost” and “Wormfood.”