When last we checked in with Bobby Sullivan -- a/k/a
Sullee -- Hingham's great white hope was a teenage Celtics fan with roots in the hardscrabble South End of yore, a five-minute stint (at five years old!) as a Maurice Starr protege on his resume, and big dreams of stardom.
Could an Irish kid who lives with his folks in a oceanfront house in the tony Boston 'burbs really make it as a hip-hop heavy? There were doubts.
But Sullee's no-nonsense father/manager, Bob provided the street cred and helped make it happen. He enlisted Wellesley Hills homeboy
Billy Squire to rerecord his ubiquitous "
The Stroke" for sampling on an autobiographical track of the same name about Sullee's rise from the South End's mean streets. And the single "
Rock Star," featuring production from
New Jack Swing guru Teddy Riley and fretwork from the one and only
Slash, was another minor coup.
A year later, the collaborators keep getting better. On the new single, "What Cha Tryin' To Do," Sullee trades rhymes with Jersey City free-styler
Joe Budden.
And if the deeper, harder-edged voice bobbing and weaving over that thick sample-heavy stew doesn't prove that Bobby Sullivan is all growed up, his rhymes' unsubtle references to various grownup pursuits do.
LISTEN: Sullee (feat. Joe Budden), "
What Cha Tryin' To Do" (MP3)
READ: "
Sullee Forth"