This Friday, one of the Bay’s most hood-famous rappers, San Quinn, comes to San Jose following the release of his latest project, T.H.$.C. Extraz.
In full, that title is The Hustle $eason Continues. On it, we indeed see the continued hustle of Quinn, born Quincy Brooks, a powerful Bay Area legend who grew up around San Francisco. Extraz represents extra work, extra money, extra hustle. It’s the season of more everything for the Bay Area rapper. For example, Quinn is offering hooks and verses in San Jose for an exclusive $408 “special price” for South Bay artists who tap in with him this weekend.
“I’m looking forward to having fun and celebrating with my folks in San Jose the Bay Area way,” Quinn says. “I’ve been giving them game for the last 30 years. But it’s not gonna be no shit from 30 years ago, it’s going to be some shit that’s happening right now.”
Though he’s mostly known for his connection to the City, Quinn fondly remembers a childhood love for San Jose. As a kid, his grandfather would often take him to the Berryessa Flea Market on weekends. From there, he began to build his swagger and persona.
Though the future of the market remains teetering between a survival and abyss, as a youth, Quinn roamed its aisles to find Louis Vuitton bags and hats, furniture, food and more.
“We used to have a great time shopping there,” he says.
Quinn’s days in the market became some of his earliest memories of hustlers making money off of their products—fond memories that would inspire his life as a rapper.
In fact, one of his most successful hits was a collaboration with a San Jose artist: 2008’s “the San Francisco Anthem,” an underground famous song produced by the late Traxamillion. The song solidified the culture of “City Situation,” a term meaning business exclusively for SF and the city’s Bay Area affiliates.
Now Quinn is focusing on the extra work he’s got cut out for him as an OG of the Bay Area rap scene. The 30-song Extraz is a testament to the knowledge he’s collected as a hustler, a cinematic trip through his years as a loyal Bay boy.
“If you listen to it, it’s a story. It’s a movie once you hear it,” Quinn says. “It’s going to be some phenomenal stuff. I guarantee you’ll get bitten. And when you get bit, you know I’m on fire.”
Quinn uses a specific metaphor to explain the record: the feeling of buying a pound of weed (aka 16 oz., for the non-stoners) and instead getting 20 ounces worth. That’s Extraz—extra work, but for good reason: a blessing in disguise.
The Hustle $eason Continues is both a reference to Quinn’s 1996 album The Hustle Continues and also a nod to the late Compton rapper Nipsey Hussle. In the game now for 30 years, Quinn is still running and hustling, though some of those who ran with him are no longer around.
Quinn bursts out of the gate on opener “Quintro,” detailing his exploits “living in the Valley of the Shadow of Death in Killa California. Surrounded by questions of financial and literal survival, he raps about protecting himself while making moves in diamond Nikes.
For years, Quinn’s music has felt infused with the water of the Bay, all its desires for monetary mastery and success, its hopes for its youth, its fiends and families. Today, he brings all those years together. THSC’s production is littered with modern trap beats and eternal 808s, all while staying true to the Bay’s beloved hyphy movement. On “Mack Activatiion,” Quinn brings us back to the era of smooth leather seats and mackin’, cruising the Bay Area streets in a nice whip like a boss.
Like anyone familiar with the streets, his music speaks to being locked into the grind, trying to stay out of prison, friends that “Got Your Back,” Maybachs and burners in the Sucka Free City.
Through it all, Quinn stays tapped in with the South Bay.
“I’m looking to have a good time this Friday at the 386 Lounge,” Quinn says. “I’m looking for a lot of my good friends to come out.”
San Quinn
Fri, 9pm, $15
386 Lounge, 386 S 1st St, San Jose
