Steve 'Flash' Juon“Long Beach nigga with a worldwide vision.”
The rapper born Bryant Lamar Looney II has been repping LBC since at least 2018, when he famously said “Snoop (Dogg) fucked it up for every Long Beach artist.” That seems hella harsh unless you’re trying to see it from his point of view on “Better in Person.” If you say you’re from Long Beach people are going to automatically associate you with Calvin Broadus whether you like it or not. They’ll expect you to look like him, rap like him, maybe even C-Walk like him. And yes it’s true that Looney’s father was a member of the Boulevard Mafia Crips, but he never wanted his son to follow in his lifestyle. I think from “She’s a Dancer” alone you can see that Briss isn’t trying to be another Snoop Dogg clone.
“Grown man, I am not with the bullshit” quips Briss, and he’s clearly looking for a lady to have a one night stand with on this song. Now I wouldn’t say Snoop wasn’t a player in his youth (maybe still is) but he’s been with his wife since 1997, renewed vows with her in 2008, and now has six grandchildren. That’s probably not enough to differentiate the two though. People mature as they get older and it would be real weird if Snoop was the same man in 2024 he was in 1992. Let’s get down to brass tacks with the track “Just Might (Write a Book).” Over a light groove with just enough thump Briss is humble and thoughtful about where he’s at in rap today.
“I know ain’t nobody just gon’ put me in position
I know everybody look at me as competition
I know I’ma make it if I make the right decisions
Granny watching over, I wish she was here to witness”
This diamond is multi-faceted, or as he says himself on the song, “still waters run deep.” He can look for a quick layup on some trim on one song and show incredible poise and maturity on another. If we’re going to compare him to anybody it shouldn’t be the biggest LBC rapper. I think he’s more like Compton’s own Kendrick Lamar. No he’s not embroiled in a beef with a Canadian showboat right now, but if he was I can picture all of his clapbacks hitting the bullseye. Briss is delightfully old school about his game, spitting like he comes from an era where the only time you’d hear a rapper sing is on their song’s hook. Even the production of songs like “Numb (Snow Season)” sounds like a throwback — a throwback to an era when ‘Ye was a good producer and not a crazy right-wing influencer.
The biggest surprise of “Better in Person” for me was the track “Start a Business.” Some artists are just born different and think different, and Huey Briss is clearly cut from a different cloth (just like the fit on his album cover). Instead of “chasing hoes (and) falling off the mission” he’s talking about taking his music industry profits and investing for his future. “You make a million dollars now they callin’ you a genius/But when you lose it they gon’ act as if they never seen it.” It’s real talk and it seemed really unlikely from a rapper I bet a lot of you are discovering right here and now, but it is what it is.
Come to think of it he might actually not mind being compared to Calvin Broadus. Even though he may be aggrieved that Long Beach’s most famous emcee made it harder to represent his city, he definitely respects the way Snoop has transformed his hustle into owning multiple businesses and creating wealth for his family and community. From the sound of things on “Better in Person” Briss has a young daughter of his own and I’m sure he’d like to put her through college too. If you didn’t know Bryant Lamar Looney II before now this is a good time to revise your timeline and put a stamp on December 17th, 2024 as the day you discovered one of your new favorites.