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The heyday of hyphy may be behind him, but Charles Toby Bowens ‘mdash; better known as Keak da Sneak, or the wolf on the ‘Tell Me When To Go’ hook ‘mdash; won’t stop. Not to brake the caddy before hopping out to ride the hood; not for a breather between manic full-lengths (he’s churned out nine discs in the last five years alone); and certainly never to clear the extraordinary league of crickets from his throat.
Though America’s consumer youth long tossed aside the stunner shades and white Ts they bought to accessorize their ‘Thizzle Dance’ (first stepped by Vallejo native Mac Dre) in favor of imitating YouTube smash hits like Soulja Boy’s ‘Crank Dat’ or the New Boyz’ ‘Jerk,’ the sparse beats and sneering choreography of those newer limb-flailers certainly borrow the freakishly high energy level made mainstream by hyphy.
Keak doesn’t exactly have the option of trying his luck outside the genre. The raspy, homely rapper holds the high honor of first-ever emcee to use the word ‘hyphy’ on record (thus providing his turn-of-the-century Bay Area hip-hop movement with its official name). Since then, he hasn’t written a single lyric that doesn’t namedrop the movement, and track titles follow suite: ‘Yadameen,’ ‘T-Shirt, Blue Jeans, ‘amp; Nikes,’ ‘Hyphie,’ ‘Super Hyphy,’ ‘E-Yes,’ ‘Who Started Hyphy,’ ‘Stunna Shadez On,’ ‘Go Dumb Go Stupid’ and ‘Hyphy Wifey,’ to name a few. And the list goes on, alongside satisfactorily stranger stuff like ‘Light Gray Stuff’ and ‘N Front Ya’ Mama House.’
Really, he’s a must-have cameo on any true-blood hyphy track; without Keak around, who would waddle in with padlock-shaped facial hair to wheeze out a pervy chorus and clammy verse to air out his guttural contemporaries? E-40’s 2006 ‘Tell Me When to Go’ was a culmination of the entire movement (and, though they couldn’t know it at the time, sort of signaled the coming end): All hyphy’s starting players crashed the video, collars a-pop, from Mistah F.A.B. to Too Short to Turf Talk; they talked stupid, dumb, shades, dreads and grills; Lil Jon made sure the classic Bay beat never exceeded the experience of a cheaply cut E trip and would sound just as hot on our shittiest speakers.
But Keak ‘mdash; who has bragged he wrote the ‘Go’ hook in five minutes, which does explain a lot ‘mdash; steals the show, sucking all the oxygen E-40 gasps for and then some, whizzing past his voice box without picking up anything over a squeak, riding it like the metal ball in a tin whistle. Making inner-city and bored university kids everywhere wonder: Maybe if I fry my brain to a crisp with pretty lights and speed-cut happy pills, stuff a couple foxtails up my nose and grunt half-asleep obscenities through it, I too can live the glamorous life of Keak.
Friday’s free show in Price Center Plaza is slated for an 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. time slot ‘mdash; tight fit for a spool as loose as the king of hyphy, who’s always been more about mind-numbing quantity than anything short and sweet: His albums are meant to spin on repeat, ensuring the cough-syrup all-nighter don’t end before every last brain cell is good and dead. One goofy trampoline beat zings ceaselessly into the next, high-strung in spandex catcalls and husky hairballs wriggling their way from his raw buzzing throat through the brainwaves of a zonked sea of followers. With no signs of stopping.
Keak da Sneak will perform live with Millionaires in Price Center Plaza on Friday, Sept. 25.