Webbie

Hailing from Baton Rouge, Webster "Webbie" Gradney, Jr. forged a bold, streetwise approach shaped by the earliest No Limit and Cash Money releases surfacing from nearby New Orleans, together with the signature West Coast flavor of Snoop Dogg and Eazy-E. Cancer took his mother when he was eight, after which he shuttled between relatives; the West Coast cassettes loaned by his cousin supplied rebellious sounds that matched his internal strain. Before becoming a teenager he gravitated toward the raw street recordings of Master P, Eightball & MJG, and UGK, Dirty South legends whose slang matched his own. Realizing that hip-hop success did not require East or West Coast roots, he began treating seriously the rhymes he had experimented with since age five. Intense focus on rapping undermined his high-school performance, yet the poor grades lost relevance once Pimp C from UGK made contact. Signed to Pimp C’s Trill Entertainment before he could drive, he delivered two joint albums with fellow Baton Rouge rapper Lil Boosie: Ghetto Stories in 2003 and Gangsta Muzik in 2004. Early in 2005 the solo cuts “Gimme Dat” and “Bad Bitch” circulated on mixtapes from Evil Empire and DJ Smallz while Trill finalized a distribution arrangement with the Warner Bros.-linked imprint Atlantic. Once contracts were executed, Savage Life arrived in June of that year. Savage Life 2 followed in 2008; the 2010 release All or Nothing placed Webbie alongside Lil Boosie and the wider Trill Entertainment roster. A third installment in the Savage Life series appeared in 2011, with Savage Life 4 arriving in 2013. Savage Life V reached stores in 2016 together with the single “Problems” featuring Boosie Badazz.