My Sh*t

My Sh*t: A Boogie Wit da Hoodie and the Sound of the Bronx

Artist Julius Dubose, who records under the name A Boogie Wit da Hoodie, emerged from the Highbridge neighborhood of the South Bronx in New York City with a melodic style that blended trap production sensibilities with R&B vocal hooks in a manner that felt distinctive within the crowded field of New York rap that dominated streaming platforms from approximately 2015 onward. By late 2016, Boogie, as he is commonly known, had built a substantial regional following and a growing national streaming audience through a series of mixtapes released without major-label infrastructure, a path that had become increasingly common for artists who had grown up watching peers achieve commercial success through online platforms rather than traditional radio pipelines.

"My Sh*t" was released in 2016 as a central track from A Boogie's debut project Artist, which was released on October 21, 2016, through Atlantic Records and Don Q's label. The song showcased Boogie's ability to craft a singable, emotionally accessible hook that could drive streaming numbers while the production maintained credibility with listeners attuned to the trap-influenced sound of the era. The track's beat, built around a melodic piano sample and a booming bass pattern, balanced accessibility with the aesthetic markers of street credibility that Boogie's core audience demanded.

The production reflected the sonic landscape of mid-2010s New York trap, a sound that had absorbed influences from Atlanta's dominant production styles while retaining certain melodic sensibilities associated with the New York tradition. Boogie's vocal approach, which relied heavily on autotune processing and a melodic delivery that blurred the line between rapping and singing, aligned him with a generation of artists including 6ix9ine, A$AP Ferg, and the broader SoundCloud rap movement that was reshaping how young listeners engaged with hip-hop in the streaming era.

On the Billboard Hot 100, "My Sh*t" debuted at number 98 on the chart dated November 5, 2016, and proceeded to spend a total of twelve weeks on the chart, a run that reflected the song's sustained streaming performance rather than radio promotion. The track climbed and fell over its chart run, reaching its peak position of number 86 on the chart dated January 14, 2017. This gradual trajectory, ascending and descending over weeks rather than spiking immediately on release, was characteristic of streaming-driven chart performance in the mid-2010s, when organic playlist discovery and word-of-mouth could keep a track circulating well after its initial release.

The debut album Artist performed strongly for a first release, reaching number 11 on the Billboard 200 and establishing Boogie as a commercially viable act with crossover potential beyond the regional fanbase that had first discovered him. The album's commercial performance was aided significantly by the streaming numbers attached to its strongest tracks, with "My Sh*t" serving as the primary traffic driver.

A Boogie's Highbridge background gave his music a geographic specificity that resonated with listeners from the South Bronx and from New York City's outer boroughs more broadly, communities that had historically felt underrepresented in the glamorized version of New York hip-hop that dominated national narratives. His recordings consistently referenced the specific textures of Highbridge life, the neighborhood's economic realities, its social codes, and the emotional landscape of growing up in an environment defined by both community solidarity and acute precarity.

The 97 million YouTube views accumulated by the song's primary video document reflected the track's sustained appeal across a listener base that extended well beyond New York's outer boroughs, reaching young fans across the United States and internationally who responded to the song's melodic accessibility and emotional directness. The video's visual aesthetic, consistent with Boogie's overall brand, combined luxurious imagery with markers of the street environment he came from, a combination that had become standard in the visual grammar of trap-influenced hip-hop by 2016.

Critical reception of "My Sh*t" and the broader Artist project was generally positive in publications that covered the streaming rap ecosystem, with reviewers noting Boogie's talent for constructing hooks that were immediately earworthy without sacrificing the sonic authenticity that his fan base prized. The track was compared favorably to the work of artists in the melodic-trap tradition who had achieved commercial success slightly earlier, with critics positioning Boogie as one of the more promising voices in a crowded field.

The song's title, censored in its commercial release, was itself a marker of the track's alignment with a certain strain of rap culture that used casual profanity as a form of authentic self-expression. This titling strategy, common across the hip-hop landscape of the period, signaled the song's intended audience while also allowing it to circulate on platforms and in retail contexts that required clean-version availability.

In subsequent years, Boogie built on the foundation established by Artist and "My Sh*t" to develop one of the more durable careers in the New York melodic rap scene, releasing a string of successful projects including Hoodie SZN (2018), which debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, demonstrating that his commercial trajectory had continued well beyond the initial promise suggested by his debut single's chart run.