In Ghetto Stories, a 2010 Baton Rouge hood flick that I like to think of as Trill Entertainment’s The Fast and the Furious, Boosie and Webbie are rivals from opposite sides of town. “You finna witness some other shit, nigga!” threatens Boosie at one point during a gas station confrontation, one of at least a dozen of his hilarious line readings. Unknowingly, the two have a mutual OG, Slimm, a big-time drug dealer with morals, although he’s cheating on his girlfriend, played by Hoopz, the winner of Flavor of Love season one. Eventually, Slimm is mysteriously killed, forcing Boosie and Webbie to come together to carry out his mission of getting rich or something and to find out who did the deed. Most of the second act is about the formation of their friendship, which is strengthened through strip club nights, getting money, cooking crack, and, of course, a makeover montage. Watch the movie once and you’ll understand the central idea of Baton Rouge rap: Nothing means more than brotherhood.
That might be why, even beyond Boosie and Webbie, Baton Rouge has been a city with strong rap duos for a minute: Scotty Cain and Mista Cain, TEC and Maine Musik, and, at the moment, 70th Street Carlos and WNC WhopBezzy. Supposedly, Carlos and WhopBezzy met in the first grade when Bezzy walked into class with two golds in his mouth, a chain on his neck, and girls throwing themselves at him. In that instant, Carlos thought, “That lil bitch thuggin’,” and they’ve been boys ever since. (You should know by now to take rappers’ stories with a grain of salt, but I choose to believe this one.)
Years later, in the mid-2010s, back when Bezzy used to do Carlos’ tats, they started rapping on a whim. With a run of singles and a 2017 joint mixtape, the pair made a lot of noise in a competitive era of Louisiana rap—the rise of NBA YoungBoy and JayDaYoungan; Kevin Gates’ star turn—until they eventually took an unexplained break from dropping music together. On their return, with Out the Blue, they pick up right where they left off.
And that means, an unfiltered Carlos and Bezzy navigating their way through the ups and downs of petty beefs, hustling, tricking, and fatherhood. But most importantly, churning out big trash-talking tunes with fat ass basslines made to set the clubs of Louisiana off. They’re fun as hell, like Yung Nation with scores to settle. On “Fall in Line,” as Bezzy yells dancefloor commands with a Foxx-esque rasp that sounds like he lost his voice at the party, you’ll feel like you’re doing cone drills at football practice. “Rappin & Trappin” might have more handclaps than a Milwaukee lowend track, as Bezzy channels Juvenile with the way he orders asses to “moveee” in a sing-song delivery from the gut. Carlos deads Bezzy’s hype-yourself-up anthem on the HBCU drumline-ready “DYS” by throwing grenades at everyone they have static with and making bazooka noises.
It’ll be obvious once you listen, but Carlos is the loose cannon of the duo. He bulldozes onto tracks unexpectedly with ad-libs and flows that rarely stay the same for more than a few seconds. On “Up Wit Me,” he’s damn-near having a back-and-forth with himself, alternating between a relatively laid-back flow and moments where he’s flapping his lips, hitting what seems like Ric Flair wooos, and doing a mush-mouthed scream-rap thing that makes him sound like Animal from The Muppets.
At the same time, Carlos can be introspective without softening the relentless bounce of the tape. On the groovy “Mail Man,” bits of conversation with his mom (“I don’t even go to church, but my mama praying/She like ‘You can die right now,’ I’m like, ‘I understand’”) brush up against brags about all the fucking he does. Bezzy has the thankless job of keeping the tape on the rails with steady hooks (except the awfully generic sing-rapping on “10 x 5”) and rhyme schemes that bring Carlos back down to Earth. Eight years ago, on their last tape, I found that dynamic just made me want to hear more Carlos, but now I think they’re essential to bringing the best out of each other. Just being around Carlos makes Bezzy looser and funnier, like the “uh huh” powering up he does at the start of “It’s Like That” or the moment on “In the Mix” when he calls out some dude’s courage (aka he calls him a “pussy”) and weak car tints in the same breath. Given how much of their music is about riding around Baton Rouge in American muscle cars, I think the latter is supposed to be more offensive.
Stitching Carlos and Bezzy’s bond together even tighter is a shared affinity for the Louisiana ass-shaking music that came before them. In a Deep South scene of the 2020s full of so much piano-centric pain rap, hearing them go on about their life of hectic, twerk-filled club appearances is a much-needed break from that melancholy. That feeling is there whether they’re doing a little flexing over the vintage 2000s Trill-style funk of “No Talking” or “WTF,” which boosts a B.G. classic to the upbeat jiggin’ tempo. On their remix of L.O.G.’s “G’s & Soldiers”—one of those mid-’90s ominous Mannie Fresh basslines that sounds like bounce for an Agatha Christie whodunit—it almost seems like they’re freestyling in the club parking lot, as Bezzy hilariously claims “Bitch, I’m bad like a kid with two teeth in his mouth” and Carlos croons like he’s got the bottle they snuck out of the section still in his hand. I don’t know about you, but that sounds like the ultimate form of brotherhood to me.
