At the time, the Bay Area wasn’t quite as creatively flush as it had been in the past. Mac Dre was rebuilding his career after being sidelined in the mid-’90s by legal issues, laying the foundation for what would become the Hyphy movement. But as the Mob Figaz developed their respective solo careers, the crew—particularly Rydah J. Klyde, a disciple of Queensbridge hip-hop—was drawing more upon East Coast influences. Said Jacka: “At that time, New York really had it on smash. They were the dudes who really had the dope ill sample beats, and the young niggas had real bars.” The early Mob Figaz were loyal Bay Area partisans, but their work blended the region’s slang and prominent basslines with the aesthetic approach of East Coast artists.
This led ultimately to the Jacka’s placement on Cormega’s Legal Hustle compilation in 2004 with the song “Barney (More Crime),” a record that channeled Jacka’s real-life struggle between music and the streets. The record “broke” the Jacka—to the extent that he would break outside the Bay Area axis—among hip-hop aficionados, who were introduced to a new brand of wistful, often tragic street rap that tapped a similar emotional vein as the work of Cormega, Tragedy Khadafi, and Nas.
At this point, things had started to come apart for the Mob. King Freako, a close associate and rapper who’d been down with the group, was killed right in front of the Jacka. In 2004, the Mob Figaz met with Mac Dre, who planned to sign them to his burgeoning label, Thizz Entertainment, and transform them into national stars. That same year, Mac Dre was killed suddenly in Kansas City. Meanwhile, many of Jacka’s friends had been arrested, and the money he’d used to promote his first album dried up. “All I could do was make skill pave the way,” he said. In 2005, four years after his debut, the Jacka and producer RobLo crafted The Jack Artist, an album now celebrated as the canonical classic of the Jacka’s large and chaotic discography.
Although I’d listened to Legal Hustle at the time it was released, it wasn’t until the following year that I caught on to the Jacka. In 2005, Houston was hip-hop’s biggest media story; Hyphy was still a year away, and when it came, the focus was wholly on the manic production style of Rick Rock, and the general Bay culture, rather than the rap auteurs most beloved at street level. A friend sent me a copy of a split mixtape between Lil Keke—a well-respected Houston rap star—and the Jacka, whose name I didn’t recognize. Although I listened for Keke, it was the Jacka’s “Pigeon on a T-Shirt” that jumped out, in part for its mournful production. Especially striking was the vivid imagery of the chorus: “Last nigga had beef with the Jack, I make him wonder why the last sound he heard had to sound like thunder.”