Lil Boosie Pleads Guilty
The Baton Rouge rapper pleaded guilty on Tuesday to three counts of drug smuggling, but insists he is innocent of the first-degree murder charges. straightfromthea

While Lil Boosie’s fans were eagerly awaiting his release from prison in Louisiana, the 31-year-old rapper, whose real name is Torrence Hatch, said he was surprised when he was released on Wednesday.

"My lawyer, my mama, they knew," Boosie told XXLMag.com Monday in an interview just hours before he was to speak at a news conference in New Orleans.

Even Boosie wasn’t tipped off his proper release date because prison officials didn’t want to media to show up. "I thought I was dreamin' at first. They surprised me, got me good. I don't think they wanted the media to pick up on it as fast as they did," he said. "I kinda got butterflies. I ain't got butterflies since my first concert that I ever did."

Apparently the warden at Angola State Penitentiary told him he was going to be released Friday instead of Wednesday, but it was a ruse. "I was like, 'OK.' I went on ahead and went to sleep," Boosie recalled. "I was mad, but they knew that the whole time I was [going to] get out. So they came and woke me up, 'Let's go.'"

Boosie served four years of an eight-year sentence for a drug conviction. He was also accused of murder, but those charges were dropped. His mother, brother, aunt and some of his cousins greeted him was he was released. "It was sweet, man. It was sweet," he said.

Follow me on Twitter @mariamzzarella