Ice Spice took 2022 by storm, and is making an even bigger splash in 2023. The 23-year-old earned her first Billboard Hot 100 chart entry with her new track “Gangsta Boo” featuring Lil TJay.
“Gangsta Boo” debuted at No. 82 on the latest Hot 100 chart and was the sole track on her debut EP Like..? to include a feature. This isn’t her first experience being on the charts, as “Munch (Feelin’ U)” and “In Ha Mood” appeared on Billboard’s Bubbling Under Hot 100 and Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs charts. “Gangsta Boo” also made its way onto the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart.
As far as feature selection for Like..?, the Bronx rapper told Apple Music 1’s Ebro Darden that it was all organic in a recent interview. “I made the song, and then I was just thinking who I would hear on it really. But I wanted it to be a real genuine collab,” Spice said. “We’ve been friends since last year, so I was just like, ‘Yeah, who better than him?'”
Notably, her now-charting record shares a name with the late Memphis rapper Gangsta Boo who passed away at the start of 2023. Ice Spice had glowing words to say about the former Three 6 Mafia member. “So Gangsta Boo’s fire. RIP Gangsta Boo, too. Feel me? […] I made the song before she passed. Right before, actually. So, yeah. That was a really sad, very exact coincidence.”
Like..? dropped Jan. 20 and also includes the tracks “Princess Diana” and “Actin’ A Smoochie.” Chartdata predicted the EP would debut within the top 50 of the Billboard 200 albums chart and sell around 15,000 album-equivalent units.