Next Up: Part 2 (Crooked I, Young Dro, Joell Ortiz, Gorilla Zoe, Papoose)

[Lunatic]

Gorilla Zoe:

Atlanta’s latest trapper turned rapper, Gorilla Zoe, has the drive to survive in the streets forever. Having been chosen to fill Young Jeezy’s very big shoes in the four-man collective Boyz N Da Hood, and signed as a solo artist to the Bad Boy/Atlantic Records–distributed Block Entertainment, the 25-year-old MC is connected to more marketing departments than billboard.biz. But Gorilla Zoe himself is the strongest force behind his candidacy for stardom in the Southern rap capital.

“Ain’t nobody gonna promote me harder than me,” says Zoe, whose song “Hood Nigga” is gaining momentum on national airwaves. “You wanna know why I got a street buzz? I did nine mixtapes this year… Why do you need a label to show you how to promote your muthafuckin’ self? If you’re working harder than everybody, you’re going to make it.”

Born Alonzo Mathis, Gorilla Zoe learned the value of hard work at a young age. Kicked out of high school after the ninth grade, he enrolled in the U.S. Department of Labor’s vocational training program Job Corps in Kentucky. Upon returning home in 1999, he worked a variety of day jobs—including cleaning airplane cabins at Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport—while supplementing his income by hustling weed on the city’s drug-infested west side. Seeking to diversify his résumé, he went into business with a friend who owned a record store. But retail wasn’t ringing the register enough, so, in 2005, Zoe turned to the production side. “I wasn’t making no money off CDs,” he says. “So I opened up a studio right next to Tip’s studio and DJ Drama’s studio. I’m thinking I’m gonna sell studio time, but the shit didn’t work. It actually turned into a hangout. So I was like, Fuck it, I got all this equipment, I’m finna learn how to work this shit. I learned Pro Tools in 30 days. The fourth song I recorded was ‘Hood Nigga.’”

Zoe’s catchy ode to the everyday pleasures of purple smoke, 24-inch rims and women of varying hair color was all it took to convince Russell “Block” Spencer to add him to a roster that already included platinum-selling artist Yung Joc. While he promises to “keep it hood, folk,” in song, Zoe insists his music carries a message that runs counter to stereotype: “I ain’t about the gangsta shit and the drugs and the guns. ’Cause we was raised with that shit. It’s about how to stop that shit.”

With his debut solo album, Welcome to the Zoo, scheduled for a September release, Boyz N Da Hood’s second offering, Back Up in Da Chevy, coming in October and a spot on the Screamfest ’07 tour alongside Joc, T.I. and Ciara, Gorilla Zoe’s presence is bound to grow bigger. “I’m No. 1 in the trap, I’m No. 1 in your dope hole, I’m No. 1 in your strip club—I ain’t gotta be No. 1 on radio and TV,” he says. “But because I’m signed to Block Entertainment, Bad Boy and Atlantic, I will be.”

Joell Ortiz:

“Joell Ortiz is a Puerto Rican kid from in front of a bodega in Brooklyn that just likes rhyming.” Please allow him to introduce himself. Born in the summer of 1980, an only child to a single mother battling a drug addiction, Joell Ortiz was raised in Brooklyn’s Cooper Projects on food stamps and welfare checks. But as the young Boricua with a gift for writing rhymes grew up, he became a model student and star shooting guard at Manhattan’s Lower Eastside Prep. After graduating, though, with various scholarship offers on the table, he opted to stay home because he feared for his mother’s well-being. “If I go away to play ball at school and get this wild phone call or letter talking about, ‘Come view her…’” He shudders at the thought. “Nigga, fuck basketball! I’m not leaving my moms.”

To pay the family bills, Joell took to hustling the same stuff that had his mom stuck, honing his rhyme skills on the side. When his mom cleaned up—she’s been sober since 1999—Joell started looking at music as a serious career option. Years of days and nights at studios in and around Brooklyn and Queens yielded a 2005 mixtape, Who the F*@k Is Joell Ortiz? that showcased its author’s witty wordplay and strong sense for honest, emotive storytelling. Industry interest was piqued, and Joell started taking meetings at
record labels.

Koch Records offered a one-album deal, and papers were signed. Before the ink could dry, though, a twist of fate brought Joell’s demo CD to the place where pretty much every artist in rap music would most want their music to be: the desk of Aftermath Entertainment’s head honcho, the greatest producer in the history of hip-hop, Dr. Dre. Impressed with what he heard, Dre flew Joell out to Los Angeles. “I can’t lie, man,” says Joell, recounting his meeting. “I’m human. I’m nervous as hell. Shit! Whoa… N.W.A, nigga! Like, whoooo! I got the jitters and shit. I think I got some things to say. He comes in the room, and everything I had prepared flew right out my shit. He’s like, ‘What up,’ and I’m like, ‘What up.’ And that nigga like, ‘I love the music. It speaks for itself.’ He stopped and paused. ‘So if you want to be Aftermath, then let me know.’ I’m like, Oh shit, so this is it? He said to have my people call his and get the paperwork together. ‘Welcome to the family.’” (A deal was worked out that let Koch release Joell’s acclaimed The Brick: Bodega Chronicles this past April.)

That day in L.A., a rapper whose dreams had just come true stepped outside of the Aftermath offices and called his mom back home in New York. “‘Ma, I’m on Aftermath.’ To hear her scream with joy, ‘Get out of here!’ She’s ecstatic on the other line.” Joell Ortiz smiles. “I ain’t make the wrong decision. We won!”

Crooked I:

Three years ago, Dominick “Crooked I” Wickliffe came to a crossroads. His career was stagnant. He was signed to Death Row Records, but his debut album, Say Hi to the Bad Guy, was on indefinite hold. Making matters worse, his affiliation with Death Row CEO Suge Knight was leading to “a lot of gunplay, fights and brawls.” The Long Beach, Calif., rapper hit a low point in April 2004, when he was arrested after getting into a fight at a local mall.
“I just spent one night in jail,” says Crooked, 30. “But I was laying down on that floor, and I was like, You know what? I need to get off of this label and put my career in my own hands. Because police are going to mess with me for the rest of my life because I’m on Death Row… And I can’t even put my record out.”

So, in late 2004, after a four-year stint that produced more hype than results, the man once billed as the heir to the Death Row throne terminated his contract and set to rebuilding his career from the ground up. He started his own label, Dynasty Entertainment, and landed a joint-venture deal with the Cali-based indie Treacherous Records. Then, after releasing a critically acclaimed mixtape, Young Boss Vol. 2, and a DVD, Life After Death Row, in 2006, he devised the marketing plan that would propel him to his current pole position. “That’s when I thought of Hip-Hop Weekly,” he says of the eureka moment that came this past spring. Exploiting the Internet to its fullest potential, under a banner perfectly suited for today’s tabloid culture, Crooked started posting a new freestyle every seven days on his MySpace page. “Everybody is like, ‘I’m not a rapper, I’m a hustler.’ Nigga, I’m not that. I’m a rapper. I’m an MC. I can hustle, yeah, ’cause I’m from the hood. But hustling ain’t my calling. My calling is getting down on that mic and expressing myself with that ink pen. I just wanted to give them something free, ’cause they say if you love something, you’ll do it for free. So here you go—free, once a week. Download it, whatever you want.”

In less than a month, he had the Internet going nuts. Top-name producer Just Blaze gushed on his MySpace blog, calling Crooked “the best not-so-new artist I’ve never heard before.”

In November, after a full 12 years of setbacks (Crooked signed his first deal with Virgin Records way back in 1995), the long-suffering lyricist is finally going to release an album: B.O.S.S. (Beginning of Something Serious). “Right now is the time,” he says. “Everybody is talking about me, from producers, different artists, everywhere I go. I walk in the mall, and they ask me, ‘What beat you gonna rap to next week?’ Strangers and shit. It’s a beautiful thing. And I feel like it’s now or never for me, man. I can’t wait. I can’t wait to see how it plays out.”

Papoose:

Even before DJ Kay Slay and Busta Rhymes agreed in early 2006 to co–executive produce his debut album, The Nacirema Dream, Papoose was hailed as the savior of true New York hip-hop. The two-time Justo Mixtape Award winner was seen as the MC who would return lyricism, and even social commentary, to rap.

Nearly two years later, Nacirema has yet to see the light of day. But even as another tentative release date passes, Papoose is patient. “I’m not frustrated at all,” he says. “We was ready to put it out from day one. But when you have people like Scott Storch and Jazze Pha asking to be involved, you’d be an idiot to say, ‘I’m done already.’”

Pap’s top-shelf production team and heavy-hitting co-signers are a result of a highly successful, long-running underground career. He first came to the attention of the rap cognoscenti as a teenager, in 1998, when he appeared on Kool G Rap’s DLMR Records album, Roots of Evil. The next year the Brownsville, Brooklyn, neophyte released his debut single, “Thug Connection,” which featured the concept record “Alphabetical Slaughter” on its B-side. The lyrical acuity Pap displayed on “Slaughter”—going through the alphabet, spitting lines, composed entirely of words beginning with one letter—immediately endeared him to fans of literate rhymes in hip-hop.

In 2003, Papoose came to the attention of DJ Kay Slay, who signed the MC to his Street Sweepers Entertainment management firm. Since then, the two have collaborated on 19 mixtapes (the latest, Already a Legend, dropped in September), and Papoose has distinguished himself as one of the most intricate and political wordsmiths in rap, speaking on such diverse topics as Hurricane Katrina and the death of the unarmed 23-year-old Sean Bell at the hands of NYPD last November. “Hip-hop is the voice of the streets,” he says. “If we don’t speak out, who’s gonna let people know? Kids in the streets don’t listen to speeches by George Bush or Minister Farrakhan, but they might listen to Papoose.”

As Pap continues to workshop The Nacirema Dream, he continues to attract an impressive coterie of collaborators. In addition to Storch and Pha, the album is slated to include beats from DJ Premier and Kanye West, and Jadakiss, Bun B, Chamillionaire and Jim Jones have already contributed guest verses. And while declining sales figures have had a chilling effect on the releases of even established superstars, Papoose is paying attention to an entirely different bottom line. “In the NBA, when you on the court, it’s not about how much money you make,” he says. “It’s about talent. Hip-hop needs to be like that again. The wrestling matches—I don’t pay attention to that. My motto is simple: All lyrics, no gimmicks.”

Young Dro:

Coming up as a part of a successful rapper’s crew is not necessarily a guarantee of success. (Just ask the St. Lunatics. Or Flipmode Squad.) Djuan “Young Dro” Hart, though, is making the most of the who-you-know world of hip-hop. Having grown up in Atlanta’s Bankhead section a close friend of adolescent rap star Chris “Daddy Mack” Smith (one-half of the duo Kris Kross), the 28-year-old MC is now riding his affiliation with reigning hip-hop royalty T.I. to the top of the charts.

The first time most people saw Dro was in the “Nothin’-but-a-‘G’-thing”-meets-ATL clip for his breakout single, “Shoulder Lean.” Head to toe in Ralph Lauren, Dro immediately set himself apart from his peers, delivering vivid lines like, “Suicide doors/Brown Rover look like pork ’n’ beans/Everybody know me in the club ’cause they smokin’ me.” His languid flow and colorful wordplay took the South by storm—and the rest of the country was soon to follow. “One day we was on the road with Tip,” he says, “and I think it was like 30,000 people [in the arena]. And, man, everybody was leaning. I don’t think it was no money that I’ve made that could pay for that moment.”

“Shoulder Lean” went on to earn an RIAA platinum certification. Behind that and second single “Rubberband Banks,” Dro’s Grand Hustle/Atlantic Records debut, Best Thang Smokin’, sold 335,000 copies by the end of 2006. And after bodying guest appearances on remixes for Jim Jones’ “We Fly High” and T.I.’s “Top Back,” the protégé has proven himself a fixture in the game.

Keeping the ball rolling, Dro is set to drop his sophomore effort, Young and Restless, in early 2008. While he promises more of the off-the-wall banter his fans expect, Dro says he’s digging deeper on this album, getting personal, discussing real-life situations with girls and some of the problems that come with life in the hip-hop big leagues. At the same time, he’s stepping up his commercial effort. “Every time we record, we trying to do singles,” he says. “I’m picturing videos for everything I’m spitting right now.” T.I. confirms it: “Young and Restless is primed up to be better than Best Thang Smokin’ by far.”

But while the King has spoken, and bestowed his golden touch, Dro wants it known: He’s his own man, with his own plan and his own style. “When I used to write a long time ago,” he says, “I was like, I am not going to write like nobody around where I rap at. It had to stand out. I felt like, let’s start rapping and let these people know we know how to talk.”