New Boyz

Towards the tail end of the 2000s, New Boyz stormed the Top 40 via “You’re a Jerk,” a lean, booming cut whose offhand disses helped spread the jerkin’ street-dance style well past the duo’s Southern California base. Far from one-hit wonders, the pair matched that breakthrough with three more singles across their first two albums, Skinny Jeanz and a Mic (2009) and Too Cool to Care (2011). A decade after splitting, they resurfaced independently in 2022 with the follow-up “You’re a Jerk 2.”

Legacy and Ben J—Dominic Thomas and Earl Benjamin—first linked up as classmates at Hesperia High School in California’s Inland Empire. Pooling birthday cash for gear, they began tracking material in 2008 under the Swagger Boyz moniker and posting it on MySpace. Rebranded as New Boyz, they scored a Warner-distributed Asylum contract once the Legacy-helmed “You’re a Jerk” caught fire online. Upon commercial release the single climbed to number 24 and earned platinum status. Its successor, the more R&B-flavored “Tie Me Down” featuring Ray J, fared slightly better at number 22, also going platinum. Both tracks anchored the gold-certified Skinny Jeanz and a Mic. In 2011 the follow-up Too Cool to Care arrived at number nine on Billboard’s R&B/hip-hop chart—three notches above the debut—and spawned two further Top 40 platinum hits: “Backseat” with the Cataracs and Dev, plus “Better with the Lights Off” featuring Chris Brown.

New Boyz returned to the charts in 2012 with “FM$” from the Foolie Tape mixtape and began work on a third album, yet announced their 2013 disbandment to focus on solo paths. Legacy and Ben J reconvened the following decade and dropped “You’re a Jerk 2” on their own in 2022.