As part of the Sacramento-based rap collective ShooterGang, ShooterGang JoJo emerged as a talented solo artist. He frequently collaborated with other ShooterGang members such as ShooterGang Kony, as well as other Sacramento rappers like BabyFace Gunna and Young Meezy. Crafting a style that relied as much on humor as it did depictions of brutal street life, JoJo's personality shone as a key component of his style. He was briefly incarcerated in early 2018 but returned after his stint in prison with the spirited mixtape Free Jojo.

Coming up in the fertile rap scene of Sacramento's Oak Park neighborhood, ShooterGang JoJo was a founding member of the ShooterGang collective. Along with upwards up eight other rappers and producers mostly in their late teens, JoJo began working on tracks around 2016 that would find their way onto various mixtapes or single releases. After several collaborative tracks, his first solo mixtape, Monkey in the Middle, was released in 2017 on Mozzy Records, label of established Sacramento rapper Mozzy. He followed up later that same year with Jumpshot Jodye, a mixtape that found him branching out to work with even more guest collaborators such as Noni Blanco and Papi Jay. Around the time of these releases, Jojo was facing criminal charges and eventually went to jail for a period of several months in early 2018. He was just 19 at the time. Upon his release he hit the studio with renewed vigor, offering the angsty prison-themed single "Fresh Out" days after his release and following it with the Free JoJo mixtape in July of that year. ~ Fred Thomas, Rovi