HBK Gang Defined Bay Area Rap During the Social Media Boom

Editor’s note: This story is part of That’s My Word, KQED’s year-long exploration of Bay Area hip-hop history.

In the early 2010s, we watched viral videos on Vine, not TikTok, and Instagram and Twitter were brand new. DatPiff hosted the latest rap mixtapes, and Spotify was just a European start-up. Most people still had CD players in their cars, and “aux cord” wasn’t yet part of mainstream vocabulary.

Locally, the hyphy movement had fizzled, leaving a disjointed and uninspired vacuum in its wake. But soon, that would all change.

At the dawn of this social media boom, a group of high school and college friends came together as a collective that defined the next decade of Bay Area rap culture. That crew? HBK, or Heartbreak Gang.

“We wanted to create our own identity,” says IAMSU!, one of HBK’s co-founders. “We felt like it was a new time in the Bay.”

The eclectic crew included rappers, producers and singers: P-Lo, Sage the Gemini, Kehlani, Jay Ant, Kool John, Skipper, CJ, Azure, Dave Steezy, Kuya, Chief and an ever-expanding spectrum of collaborators — over 20 artists at HBK’s peak. The squad built on the hyphy movement’s momentum, and turned its chaotic energy into glossy, sleek party music that appealed to suburban internet addicts and city-dwelling hustlers alike. They sold out major venues like the Warfield; collaborated with streetwear brands; toured with Wiz Khalifa; and made hits — like Sage the Gemini’s “Gas Pedal” — that continue to slap on today’s dance floors.

“I really associate HBK in my memory with early internet culture, around the time the Warriors were starting to win more and housing prices were really starting to skyrocket,” says HBK’s former touring manager, Tim House, who’s worked with Bay Area rap veterans like Hieroglyphics and Zion I. “Even though it was only a decade ago, the scene feels wildly different today.”

During a surging digital decade, HBK flooded stages and phone screens, all while propelling the Bay Area forward. Their imprint on the culture has remained ever since.

HBK’s East Bay origins

HBK initially came together in the mid-2000s, when most of the members were high school students in Richmond and Pinole. IAMSU! was doing numbers on MySpace as a member of the Go-Gettaz, and Jay Anthony (then known as Jay Ant) was part of Diligentz, a group active in the teenage, alternative “punk-rock” rap scene that included Berkeley’s The Pack.

It wasn’t long before the friends — IAMSU!, P-Lo, Kuya Beats, Jay Ant and Chief — started meeting up after class to make music at Chief’s house as The Invasion. Eventually, a friend’s older brother hooked them up with access to a professional studio, and their producer group became the core of HBK, which officially formed in 2007.

“My first beats were industry-sounding. Scott Storch, Dr. Dre. That kind of stuff,” IAMSU! admits. “I had to get educated on what the Bay sound truly was. It was all organic ’cause it’s our home, so I soaked the game up and took it on one from there.”

For HBK, The Pack was a foundational influence. “I started with Young L type beats,” IAMSU! says. “Then we made our own sound from that.” (Jay Anthony doubled down by saying the crew followed “a Based God lineage.”)

HBK members eventually went on to collaborate with Wiz Khalifa, Yo Gotti, B.o.B and Ty Dolla $ign. But the crew’s first taste of mainstream success was LoveRance’s 2011 hit “Up!,” which includes a featured verse and production by IAMSU! Its hypnotic, minimalist beat and lyrics about late-night mischief defined HBK’s trademark style: quick, two-chord progressions, repetitive loops, heavy bass and rich synth — all at around 100 beats per minute.

With the help of nascent social media platforms, the song exploded from a regional hit into a national radio single, and wrangled an official, Interscope-released remix featuring 50 Cent.

“This is the pre-streaming era, a weird time — I didn’t know how it would all change, but I knew the consumption of music was changing,” says Chioke “Stretch” McCoy, who managed HBK in their early days along with Will Bronson and David Ali.

While illegal downloads posed a problem for record labels, IAMSU! says HBK parlayed them to gain more fans. “LimeLinx and MediaFire was going crazy at the time,” IAMSU! says. “We had over a million downloads on there. That’s how LoveRance got his record deal [with Interscope]. That connected us with 50, Chris Brown, Jeezy, T.I. It was all up from there.”

The crew also embraced Vine and early Twitter in a time when it wasn’t the norm. “HBK was ahead of the digital age,” says Stretch, who previously worked with other influential Northern California artists, including Mac Dre, Mistah F.A.B. and Erk tha Jerk.

Another key to HBK’s success was how they softened the Bay Area’s signature hyphy sound into positive music with mainstream appeal. Underneath its joyful expressions, hyphy reflected the trauma and chaos of gun violence and street activities in the mid-2000s. And as it became more commercialized, drug-induced partying became its biggest selling point. HBK capitalized on that upbeat energy with their money-chasing, swirling tie-dye attitude.

“No one really dies or gets robbed in an HBK record,” says House. “They make feel-good music.”

Jay Anthony considers HBK’s early work a “reset” for the Bay Area. “At the tail end of ’06, people were getting mugged at parties,” he says. “There was no smiling. Baggy Girbaud [jeans]. The Jacka is on. You will get punched in here. But we were about fun — popular shit. We’re from Richmond so it could go different ways, but just know we’re just trying to have a good time.”

‘My click finna blow up’

After “Up!,” HBK only gained speed. IAMSU! was incredibly prolific, releasing a godly amount of free mixtapes from 2011 to 2013: Young California, KILT, Stoopid, Million Dollar Afro, Suzy 6 Speed — the list kept growing.

HBK earned crucial support from Bay Area veterans like E-40, Too $hort and J. Stalin. In 2012, IAMSU! scored another hit feature on E-40’s “Function” alongside Compton’s YG and Problem. The track was a show of California unity, and Su gassed on his verse in a moment when the Bay seemed to lack any established young talent.

The following year, in 2013, HBK struck gold again with Sage the Gemini’s napalm-hot singles “Red Nose” and “Gas Pedal” (featuring IAMSU!), both of which dominated the Billboard Hot 100 for over 20 weeks. P-Lo, who emerged as a solo artist with his MBMGC mixtapes, further proved himself as one of the crew’s most sought-after producers with Yo Gotti’s hit “Act Right.”

At the same time, HBK’s standout vocalist Kehlani single-handedly broke the internet with their debut mixtape Cloud 19 in 2014, the same year IAMSU! released his Warner Brothers-backed debut studio album, Sincerely Yours — which included a few of the Bay’s most anthemic releases during that era, and was one of the last CDs I ever purchased at a Best Buy.

And though he wasn’t an official member, HBK collaborator G-Eazy benefited from the cresting tide on his way to major-label stardom. But arguably no one better represented HBK’s internet apotheosis more than IAMSU!

“We were just some kids from the Rich putting music out. I spammed my mixtapes all over the internet and people just started playing it until it reached other cities,” he says. “People in Louisiana and Boston were hitting me up. I was like, ‘Huh?’ The music spread hella quick.”

But the internet wasn’t the only way HBK took their music beyond the Bay. “Importantly, they hit the road too, and didn’t just sit at the home,” says Stretch.

In 2014, IAMSU! and Sage the Gemini went on tour with Wiz Khalifa, whose Under the Influence of Music Tour featured rappers representing almost every major market — Jeezy and Rich Homie Quan from Atlanta, Tyga from LA, Mack Wilds from New York and Gangsta Grillz mixtape impresario DJ Drama.

HBK’s palpable hype attracted young fans from everywhere to experience it in person. “It was a wave,” IAMSU! recalls, reminiscing about his performances at The FADER Fort during South by Southwest in Austin.

As sneakerhead and hypebeast culture grew in the 2010s, HBK worked hard to align their party music with streetwear brands to increase their radius. HBK Day, a massively popular free concert in 2015, featured exclusive merch drops from popular Bay Area brands like True SF, and was sponsored by Pink Dolphin. Taking a cue from veteran Oakland rap crew Hieroglyphics and their iconic three-eyed logo, HBK looked to the previous generation for how to create a community offline.

“They have an iconic logo. They have longevity. Their merch game is on lock,” IAMSU! says of Hiero. “They wasn’t all ice and chains. They were more about the craft. I respect that a whole lot. And more so than just their music, it was about their process and business strategy in branding. They’re a tribe. That’s how we wanted to mob.”

HBK’s pixelated, broken heart design and Kool John’s $HMOPLIFE smiley face became emblems for a generation of internet-age, hip-hop-loving hippies and skaters. Along with brands like HUF and Diamond Supply Co., their merch could be seen at house parties, on BART trains and in bike mobs all over the Bay throughout the 2010s.

“People at my high school who were big fans like me would deadass ditch class and go to HBK’s pop-ups,” says Sydney Welch, a music photographer from Fremont. “Seeing that impact on the whole culture here, their interactions with fans. Their style and sense of family really made a big difference in our lives.”

“HBK changed my perspective on life and made me feel I could be myself fully,” says Oopz All Berriez, a local entrepreneur in the cannabis industry who considers himself a mascot for $HMOPLIFE. “They influenced me to think outside the box and be different. They are the modern-day Wu-Tang of the West.”

HBK’s lasting influence

Like many large crews from the era — A$AP Mob and Odd Future included — HBK members eventually went on to focus on their solo careers, and collective efforts tapered off.

Still, if you scan the culture in the Bay Area and beyond, HBK’s impact remains, and most of the members are currently active. Kehlani has nearly 16 million followers on Instagram, a Grey Goose sponsorship and two Grammy nominations. P-Lo keeps dropping singles and his own Wingstop commercial, all while wrapping up an international food tour. Sage the Gemini is performing in arenas. Jay Anthony is steadily evolving his sound in LA. And IAMSU! — who is releasing his latest mixtape, 1-833-HBK-GANG, this week — gathered a handful of members for a reunion IAMSUMMER concert in August.

When HBK came together, during the early days of smartphones, social media’s potential felt limitless and democratic — before big tech became increasingly associated with gentrification and disinformation. Emerging artists could circumvent record labels, forge grassroots brands with direct access to consumers and relish in the limitless exchange of free files.

But the same tools that propelled HBK’s rise have undercut artists’ ability to make a living off recorded music, and, some argue, have made the culture more homogeneous. “Today when a trend goes viral online and everyone starts doing it, it feels like everyone is doing the same thing at the same time,” IAMSU! laments. “But we definitely wanted to keep the Bay Area vibe alive back then.”

With regional rap classics slowly fading from the internet, I’ve been popping in my old HBK CDs to remember what the Bay sounded like a decade ago. Nowadays, listening to their throwback hits instantly transports me high above the Bay Bridge to a simpler time, when a few East Bay kids on the internet could show you how to float and glide through it all. For many of us, it represents a golden era unto itself.

“Some of us moved away, some of us have kids now, girlfriends, all that. It’s life,” says IAMSU! “It was a completely different era. It feels like a different lifetime. It was a beautiful time though, I ain’t gon’ lie.”