Not for nothing did local hip-hop label Thizz Entertainment name itself for a movement associated with a popular designer drug — one that was gaining wide currency in the mid-2000s, as it shifted from the rave scene to hip-hop. Evidently, Thizz was also merchandising itself in ways that didn't involve turntables and a microphone. Last Thursday 25 people were as part of an effort to break up a nation-wide drug-trafficking ring, the Contra Costa Times reports.

Many arrestees were rappers associated with the label, some accused of shilling narcotics at drug distribution centers in the Crestside neighborhood of Vallejo, California, which is often name-checked in Bay Area hip-hop songs. (Mac Dre, B-Legit, E-40, Celly Cell, Mac Mall, and Turf Talk all hail from Crestside, and it was featured prominently in the documentary Hood 2 Hood).All told, the feds seized 45,000 Ecstasy pills, 4 pounds of crack cocaine, a half pound of heroin, $200,000 in paper returns, and 230 acres of property, worth about $1 million, Coco Times reports. For a little background on Thizz, read our 2006 cover story about the burgeoning subculture and its many detractors.