Lil Boosie is one of the most influential artists from Louisiana.
But growing up in the streets of Baton Rouge,
Boosie has had many ups and downs throughout his career,
including spending almost 4 years on Death Row for first-degree murder.
Let’s dive into the career and criminal history of Lil Boosie.
Boosie was raised on West Garfield Street in the southside of Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
His mom was a school nurse, and his Pops was in the streets
and also worked as a pastor.
Boosie grew up in a rough neighborhood that was full of drugs and violence.
and eventually got expelled from school.
So, with basketball out of the picture and school no longer an option,
Boosie started hustling to survive.
But he always had a dream of being a rapper.
He started rapping in the late ’90s.
His cousin Young Dee plugged him in with another Baton Rouge rapper named C-Loc,
who started mentoring him.
In 1998, he joined a group
called the Concentration Camp which included C-Loc, and also rappers
Young Bleed, Happy Perez, Boo, Max Minelli, J-Von, Lee Tyme, and Lucky Knuckles.
Even though he was the youngest in the group, he was also one of the most popular.
At 17, he released his debut album Youngest of da Camp,
which was a tribute to the crew that helped put him on.
The album was a hit and made Boosie a local celebrity.
It also gained the attention of other major names in the rap game,
including Pimp C from UGK.
In 2001, Boosie signed a deal with Pimp C’s Trill Entertainment
and released his first record on the label For My Thugz the following year.
That was also the first album where he took the name Lil Boosie,
having gone by just Boosie on his first album.
In the summer of 2003,
Boosie started collaborating with fellow Baton Rouge rapper Webbie
for the album Ghetto Stories.
The duo continued collaborating over the next few years,
dropping tapes like: Trill Azz Mixtape Volume 1 and Gangsta Musik.
His collaborations with Webbie and Pimp C
started to build Boosie a buzz all over the south
and also got the attention of representatives from Universal Music Group.
So Boosie was on his way to taking over the rap game.
He kept dropping projects over the next few years that established him as a legend.
In 2005 he signed a deal with Warner Records and dropped his major-label debut,
Badazz the following year.
But, just as Boosie was starting to gain national recognition,
he started going through legal problems that almost ended his career forever.
On October 22nd, 2008,
Boosie was arrested by East Baton Rouge Sheriff’s deputies
after they found a bag of marijuana, a blunt, and a Glock in the car he was driving.
Louisiana is pretty strict on weed.
So, he was facing up to 20 years with a mandatory minimum of 5 for the gun.
Instead, he copped a plea deal to a third-degree marijuana offense.
Judge James Moore first gave Boosie a 10-year sentence
with all but the first two years suspended,
which meant he’d only have to serve about a year behind bars with good behavior.
But the judge learned that Boosie violated his probation while awaiting sentencing.
So, he decided to double his sentence,
meaning he’d be sentenced to four years with the expectation of serving around two.
Between his plea and sentencing,
Boosie was also ordered to be electronically monitored and placed under house arrest.
The verdict was handed down on November 10th, 2009,
and Boosie began his sentence the next day.
But not long after that, he got hit with another serious charge
that ain’t just threaten his freedom but also his life.
On June 17th, 2010,
Boosie was indicted on first-degree murder charges
for death of Terry Boyd.
Boyd was Boosie’s baby mama’s brother.
He got killed on October 21st, 2009
after someone fired a 9mm handgun through the front window of the home he was staying at
on Vermillion Drive.
The house belonged to a man named Ben Hawkins and Boyd had been staying there for about a month,
ever since being released from prison after serving 5 years.
Police had no DNA evidence or eyewitnesses.
But neighbors claimed they spotted two men sprinting toward train tracks
near the home after the shooting.
According to prosecutors, Boosie had paid a 17-year-old named Michael Louding,
also known as “Marlo Mike” $2800 to murder Boyd in a turf war.
If convicted, boosie faced the possibility of the death penalty.
So to await the trial, he was brought to Death Row at Angola Penitentiary,
where he was on lockdown for around 23 hours a day.
Marlo Mike was a well-known shooter in Baton Rouge
who lived with Boosie for little while.
He got locked up multiple times as a juvenile for offenses like simple battery and robbery.
He once told his mom he was hearing voices and she tried to get him help.
But he refused because it meant he’d be put in an institution.
In an interview with DJ Vlad,
Boosie claims that Marlo Mike had at least 9 bodies at just 15-years-old.
He later admitted to some of the other murders after the trial.
Police arrested Marlo Mike for the murder.
In a taped jailhouse confession,
Mike said he killed Boyd because Boosie wanted him dead and he was his shooter.
They used phone records to trace Marlo Mike to Boosie’s studio
just two hours before the murder.
Plus, two weeks after Boyd was killed Mike got a tattoo that said
“Yo Boosie. Who’s Next”,
along with lyrics from the songs 187 and Body Bag,
which were recorded the same night as the murder.
Prosecutors also claimed Boosie wanted Boyd dead
because he received a letter from the victim saying he was going to “jack and slap" him.
But The actual letter was never brought into evidence.
But the defense brought forward a completely different version of events.
They claimed Marlo Mike was a rogue gunman
who was possessed by voices that instructed him to kill.
Boosie had treated Mike like a son and was even his official guardian at school.
But Mike killed Boyd at the instruction of two different men,
Michael “Ghost” Judson and Adrian Pittman.
According to Boosie’s lawyers, Ghost had a longtime grudge against Boyd,
who robbed him for $720 just a few weeks before the murder.
Ghost was killed on January 1st, 2010 before the trial began.
Police found him on the 3300 block of Charles Street
with several gunshot wounds
and brought him to the hospital where he was later pronounced dead.
But what really helped Boosie’s case
was when Marlo Mike went on stand and took back his statement.
He claims the jailhouse confession was false
and that he only did it because he was swayed by crooked cops.
He said the officers in the jail threatened him with legal injection
and said that they would arrest his mom and stepdad if he ain’t cooperate.
He also alleged the confession was coached by prosecutors
who claimed Boosie put a $25,000 bounty on his own head.
Sgt. Chris Johnson also took the stand and denied making any threats toward Marlo Mike.
But Boosie’s lawyers noted that out of the hours that police spent interrogating him,
only his confession was taped.
Johnson also denied telling Mike that Boosie had put a hit out on him.
But during the confession tape, Mike can be heard saying
“that dude want to kill me? He’s getting out now?”
Boosie also later claimed that Marlo Mike only told on him
because he wanted to keep him behind bars after one of their close friends died.
Mike knew what Boosie would do if he was let back out on the streets,
so he told on him to keep him locked upfor his own protection.
But after they spoke and cleared everything up,
he decided to tell the truth and admit that Boosie had nothing to do with the murder.
Boosie’s baby mama Tori, Boyd’s sister,
also took the stand and testified that the rapper had nothing to do with the murder
and that he and her brother never had any problems.
But, years later, she went on social media
and claimed Boosie did have something to do with her brother’s death
and that she only testified on his behalf to protect her daughter.
But without Marlo Mike’s testimony and no other evidence tying Boosie to the murder,
the prosecutors had a much harder case.
What wasn’t helping his case was the fact that while locked up,
Boosie was also facing some other legal problems.
Not long after being indicted for the murder of Terry Boyd,
Boosie was also charged with three counts of intent to distribute narcotics,
including marijuana, codeine, and cocaine.
Investigators claimed Boosie smuggled drugs into Angola on two separate occasions.
But his lawyers said his drug convictions in no way proved that he was also connected to the murder.
On November 29th, 2011,
Boosie pled guilty to the drug charges and was sentenced to eight years in prison.
But, a few months later on May 11th, 2012,
he was found not guilty of the murder of Terry Boyd.
The jury reached a unanimous verdict after only discussing the case for 10 minutes.
But luckily, Boosie’s lawyers also managed to get the drug charges dropped as well.
They were able to prove that the alleged drug ring was actually a setup.
A police informant offered to provide Boosie with codeine syrup
in exchange for his help smuggling the drugs into the prison.
Boosie agreed because he was an admitted codeine addict.
So, his lawyers were able to get the drug charges dismissed
and Boosie was released as a free man on March 5th, 2014.
Marlo Mike ended up taking the fall for Terry Boyd’s murder and on top of that,
he also admitted to carrying out a crime spree that lasted about 14 months
leading to the deaths of at least six different people.
His confessions also lead to the indictment of six other men from Baton Rouge.
Because he was a minor at the time of the murders,
Marlo Mike was not eligible for the death penalty.
So, they gave him life in prison for the murder of Terry Boyd
and wrapped the other cases into that conviction.
One of the most shocking admissions from Marlo Mike
was that he was responsible for killing Chris “Nussie” Jackson,
who was an up-and-coming rapper and one of Boosie’s longtime rivals.
Nussie was killed on February 9th, 2009 after getting shot in the head.
Boosie was never charged in connection with the murder,
but he was named as a primary suspect after the FBI received information
that he had put out a $30,000 hit on his head.
The two was beefing before his murder, with Boosie releasing a diss track called
“What Goes Up Must Come Down”.
Since being released from prison, Boosie has mostly stayed out of trouble with the law
and focused on his music career.
But back in April 2019, he got arrested again for possession of a firearm
during the commission of a crime,
possession of schedule 1 narcotics, failure to maintain a lane, and possession of marijuana.
He was in Newnan, Georgia with a co defendant named Antonio Allen.
Police officers say
that they noticed a white Dodge Challenger swerving in and out of its lane.
When they pulled the car over, they smelled weed, so they decided to search the car.
During the search, they found 11 grams of marijuana, a loaded 9mm handgun,
a bag full of cash, and a dab pen.
Boosie also admitted to talking on the phone while driving
and told police that Allen was his bodyguard.
The police determined that the car was a rental from Florida
but was not registered to either Boosie or Allen.
So both men were arrested and hit with gun and drug charges.
Luckily, Boosie was already off probation for his previous drug convictions.
So in February 2020, he pled guilty to the charges
and was sentenced to 6 months of probation and a $1,000 fine.
Since then, he’s stayed out of trouble with the law.
Instead, he’s focused his attention on beefing with Lil Nas X
and the CEO of Instagram for constantly deleting his account.
But Lil Boosie will always be a legend in the rap game.
He’s had a crazy career full of ups and downs
but has always stayed true to himself,
which is what has helped him stay relevant for all these years.