This video features the Blue City Crew, an early incarnation of the Boo-Yaa Tribe, who, if you ask them (and consult a calendar), were the predecessors to bands like Ice T’s Body Count, which achieved crazy hype and criticism due to their song “Cop Killer” in the early nineties, and pioneers of the gangster rap / rock style along with Suicidal Tendencies.
The Blue City Crew were then based in Japan, where the Devoux brothers escaped to avoid repeats of prison time (Ganxsta Ridd) and death (Youngman, the youngest Devoux brother – who was murdered). Gradually building a buzz overseas through performances and, I’m sure, the overall novelty of an all-Samoan rap act, the brothers were eventually able to make their way back to the US and sign to 4th and Broadway, releasing the debut “New Funky Nation” in 1989. Through their affiliation with West Side Piru and Park Village Compton Crip, two Los Angeles street gangs with heavy Samoan representation and on the opposite sides of the red and blue line, and their increasingly menacing image, the brothers built a legendary rep with both street credibility and real talent (you ever heard these brothers harmonize? – forget the actual song BTW, please). They supposedly combined the “Boo” from the blood slang “that’s boo”, and took the PVCC call ‘yaaaah’ and combined those, but if you remember kids were saying “boo-yah” all over the place back then from basketball courts to busstops, and Cypress Hill also had that lyric “shotgun go BOO-YAH” so who knows if that factoid was an afterthought, but that’s the word.
It’s a trip how far they came, no?
As far as the video you can see some original West Coast style shit, from the poplock which was born in Fresno to the Tut. Me and a friend in I think 10th grade or something had a old school dude show us how to put your back against a wall and strike your positions against that to keep your Tut very sharp and realistic.
Links:
Waveomatic talking about the LA Scene and Blue City Crew
Tutting
