Born Bryant Lamar Looney II, Huey Briss is the eldest of four children. Growing up, when he wasn’t with his mother, he was under the care of his grandmother and his father. Briss’s grandmother instilled his love of reading and writing while his father, a member of the Boulevard Mafia Crips, did his utmost to protect Briss from gang life.

Though Briss’s father succeeded in deterring him from joining a gang, the Long Beach school arguably system failed him. Labeled a “social butterfly” with a “defiant attitude”—Briss claims he still possesses the progress reports—he bounced from one grade school to another. By the end of his freshman year at Jordan High School, Briss was turned off of academics entirely and dropped out.

Inspired to rap after watching a friend receive praise for his freestyles, Briss did everything from selling weed to thrifting clothes to working as a longshoreman to finance his earliest recordings. Somewhere along the way, he adopted the name Huey Briss. A play on the Greek-rooted “hubris,” Briss says the name is partly ironic. “I do deal with pride, but I really don’t. I’m willing to do whatever it takes to get it done.”

His debut project Ash Lightly was released in 2014, followed by the Rules Follow Us, Volume 1 project made with fellow rapper Seafood Sam. Last year, after a video of Briss freestyling got the attention of Adam Grandmaison (aka Adam22), the host of popular rap podcast/YouTube show No Jumper, Briss messaged Grandmaison on Twitter and eventually freestyled for his In the Kitchen series.

Briss’s relationship with Nikobeats might be the most fruitful, though. After meeting through a mutual friend, the duo’s near-instantaneous bond spawned 2017’s Sidekick Files, Pt. 1. On the strength and success of Black Wax, they opened up for Evidence at the Novo, one of the largest rap-friendly venues in L.A. Their musical partnership would only continue with the release of Grace Park Legend in 2021, featuring guest appearances from Seafood Sam, Reuben Vincent and A. Lynn.

Huey would continue to release a plethora of albums between 2021 and 2023, including Flowers Before the Grave, the HUE EP with Mike & Keys and Living Off the Land. He is currently working on his next project, entitled Better in Person. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.