William Joseph Crawford (born on January 28, 1984), better known by his stage name Ya Boy, is an American rapper from the Fillmore District of San Francisco, California.
He graduated from El Camino High School in 2001. Shortly afer, he started rapping in the year 2002, with his song "16's With Me" being the first to hit it big locally. It was produced by South San Francisco producer Big D and sampled the Imperial March from Star Wars. Ya Boy gained more attention from his song "100 Bars of Crack" where he raps 100 bars over Dr. Dre's "Nuthin' But a "G" Thang" beat (featured on The Black Wall Street Journal Vol. 1) and "100 More Bars" which is done in the same style, but it uses the instrumental from the Jim Jones song "We Fly High".
Ya Boy was given his name by his cousin Bailey, and was helped to develop into a rap artist by his other cousin San Quinn. In the Summer of 2005, Ya Boy released his first solo mixtape, Future of The Franchise. This was to be followed up by his debut album, Rookie of the Year on Done Deal Entertainment, LLC. His album features E-40, Turf Talk, Clyde Carson of The Team, San Quinn and more. The first single off the album was produced by Rick Rock and is titled "Step Ya Game Up." Done Deal also owns the rights to another Ya Boy album, titled West Coast Machine (originally called The Machine), however, a release date for this album has not yet been determined. All songs on the album were recorded from 2004-2006 while Ya Boy was still Done Deal's number one rapper. It is a big possibiblity that the album will not ever be released. Ya Boy is still on good terms with Done Deal Entertainment, and does songs with the label on a regular basis. He is the younger cousin of Done Deal's owner, San Quinn.
In 2006, Ya Boy began an affiliation with The Black Wall Street. The Game took him under his wing and the two began to network. His affiliation with Game brought him a step higher in the rap game, as he began to collaborate with big name producers such as JR Rotem, Nu Jerzey Devil and Scott Storch. Pop star Britney Spears' then husband Kevin Federline called upon Ya Boy to co-write songs and appear as a guest on Federline's debut album Playing with Fire. Ya Boy is the nephew of Phat Rat, who helped him found the Precise Music Group label, and has been helped on the music scene by his uncle. Ya Boy was also featured in the Source magazine in September of 2006 as the Unsigned Hype.
He now released the single for "Holla At Ya Boy" produced by Cool & Dre for his self-titled album called Holla At Ya Boy. It can be heard on his MySpace page and can be bought on iTunes. . He also released "100 Bars OF Death" , which can be heard on his my space right now.
