b. Chris Dooley Jnr., 1989, Shreveport, Louisiana, USA. This US rapper was still only in his late teens when he achieved a national hit with the party rap track ‘A Bay Bay’. He had been appearing on local mixtapes since his early teens and joined the Lava House record label while still at high school. His association with the Shreveport ‘ratchet’ sound (a local variant of crunk music) led to appearances on a number of underground mixtapes. His rising profile on the Shreveport scene prompted Lava House to begin promoting the recently recorded ‘A Bay Bay’. Based around an insistent synth hookline and the repetitive chant ‘Ay Bay Bay’, the catchy but inane track was an immediate success in rap dance clubs and was quickly snapped up for national distribution by J Records. The single climbed up the charts during 2007 and eventually reached the Top 10 in August, prompting the release of 51/50 Ratchet. With critics already bemoaning ‘Ay Bay Bay’ as one of the worst rap songs in recent history, there was little of note on the album to merit Hurricane Chris lingering any longer on the charts.
