You’ve probably seen Problem on rap blogs and glossed over him because no one really wants to listen to a rapper with a name as generic as Problem. He’s from Compton and if you didn’t know any better, you could confuse him with Skeme, Nipsey Hussle, and Glasses Malone as West Coast gangsta rappers who operate somewhere in the concrete blocks between YG and TDE. Until “Like Whaa,” Problem’s greatest accomplishments were his ability to rival Jackie Chain at writing songs about Molly and getting the cover of Murder Dog magazine.
Enter a Young Bleed sample. I’m clueless why suddenly “How Ya Do Dat” is suddenly the most popular sample of 15 years ago. But between “Like Whaa” and both King Louie and Kool John’s versions of “Full of Dat Weed,” Happy Perez must suddenly be getting paid. Maybe. What’s interesting is that Problem has been slowly bubbling for years, but it took a remake of a No Limit song to finally crack rotation on LA radio. I’m sure money was involved somewhere in the equation, but I’ll prefer to think that it’s his hometown’s psychic regret for missing out the first time.
“How Ya Do Dat” might have been an anthem for the entire South and anyone who bought the I’m Bout It soundtrack, but I never heard it once on terrestrial radio. A decade and a half later, Southern party music soundtracks Spring Breakers and ratchet music takes it’s name from a Sheveport club song from 2004. Everything comes full circle. Bleed interpolated Project Blowed legend Volume 10 on the original and now “Like Whaa” currently plays every ten minutes on Power 106. This is probably the place where I should write a tribute to the entirety of My Balls and My Word, but if you don’t have that record, you can figure out how to acquire it.
Credit due to Problem for shouting out Master P and Young Bleed, even if he left out C-Loc in favor of the Based God. Everyone always leaves out C-Loc, but Baton Rouge rap might not have happened without him. It was Loc who first hooked up with Master P and wrangled his Concentration Camp a short-lived distribution deal with Priority. When I interviewed him last year, he said that “How Ya Do Dat” was technically not even a No Limit song. Supposedly, it was a hit in Baton Rouge and the some parts of Louisiana and Master P remixed it for the soundtrack and took it national. Then again, I bet you that boat in the video below belonged to Percy
Watch:
Download:
MP3: Problem ft. Bad Lucc – “Like Whaa”
MP3: Young Bleed ft. Master P & C-Loc – “How Ya Do Dat”
