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West Coast Hip Hop


West Coast hip-hop, also known as California hip-hop or West Coast rap, is a style of hip-hop that originated in Los Angeles, California in the 1980's.

Origins and Early Success


The West Coast scene got its start during the early 1980's as hip-hop music first gained national appeal, and established itself in California in general (and in Los Angeles and the Bay Area in particular). Early hardcore/gangsta rap performers included Too $hort, who put out three independent albums during the 1980's before his 1988 major-label debut, "Born to Mack," went gold. His next four albums all went platinum. In Los Angeles during the same period, artists like King Tee and Ice-T gained prominence, while World Class Wreckin' Cru, Egyptian Lover and the Arabian Prince innovated a style called electro hop (or simply ''electro''), essentially a hybrid of dance music and rap - following the lead of Afrika Bambaataa, who had originally created hip-hop by mixing together reggae, funk, and German techno. However, hip-hop purists refused to accept elctro hop, and it had all but disappeared by the mid-1990's.“Born to Mack“ album cover 1988
N.W.A. "Straight Outta Compton" album cover 1988The so-called "gangsta rap" movement also originated in California in the 1980's, serving as a sharp contrast to electro hop and other lighter forms of hip-hop. Hardcore gangsta rap achieved little success until the dawn of the 1990's, though Toddy Tee's "Batter Ram" (1985) and Ice-T's "6'n da Mornin" (1986) did receive some national exposure. Ice-T's seminal 1987 recording ''Rhyme Pays'' was a landmark for the genre, and N.W.A.'s ''N.W.A. and the Posse'' came out shortly thereafter, making waves among hip-hop listeners nationwide. In 1988, the now-legendary West Coast group N.W.A. released their blockbuster, ''Straight Outta Compton'', and put the West Coast on the hip-hop map. Their sound was influenced by hardcore, metal-tinged rap performers like Ice-T, Latino sounds like those of Cypress Hill, the popular success of MC Hammer, and the P Funk samples and humor of Digital Underground. ''Straight Outta Compton'' united these sounds with minimalistic beats and hard-hitting social commentary.It has been suggested that the West Coast movement gained early recognition in Los Angeles partly due to that city's affiliation with the entertainment industry, especially in its downtown and Hollywood districts, where most of the major record companies and labels reside. And while Los Angeles was the epicenter of the burgeoning West Coast scene, West Coast hip-hop was also contributed to by groups based in the Bay Area of San Francisco (particularly nearby Oakland) and Seattle, Washington, which produced artists such as MC Hammer and Sir Mix-a-lot.

The First Great Divide: East vs. West


In the early 1990s, hip-hop was split by a rivalry between the two coasts. N.W.A. splintered apart, with three of the members acrimoniously beginning solo careers. The rage and fury of N.W.A. continued in the Public Enemy-influenced recordings of Ice Cube, but Dr. Dre's G funk sound that came to dominate the West Coast took a totally different tack. As opposed to the East Coast's traditional reliance upon angry, metal guitar-laden beats, G funk relied on P funk samples to create a stoned, hazy beat that was defined by Death Row Records' stable of artists throughout the 1990's. Most important to the solidification of the G Funk sound was ''The Chronic'' (1992), Dr. Dre's solo debut that launched the careers of future G funk stars Warren G and Snoop Dogg. The G Funk sound was not limited to Death Row, however, and Paris, a Berkeley, California based "conscious" rapper, presented his own rendition of it, which he called "Guerrilla Funk." His radical leftist politics and hardcore flow won him many listeners and attracted the attention of the Secret Service, who objected to his single "Bush Killa," which demanded the assassination of then-U.S. president George H. W. Bush.In the mid-to-late 1990's, rap's intercoastal rivalry reached a fever pitch, culminating in the murders of Tupac Shakur and Notorious B.I.G. in 1996 and 1997, respectively. In the wake of the murders of two of its biggest stars, hip-hop splintered again. West Coast hip-hop during this period was particularly fractured, with most of the scene going underground and losing access to major play on the radio, a medium increasingly dominated by MTV-style rap-pop artists like Puff Daddy and Will Smith and gangsta rap and hardcore hip-hop groups like Wu Tang Clan, all of whom were based on the East Coast.

The Second Great Divide: Commercial vs. Underground


An often-cited reason for the decline of the West Coast scene in the late 1990's was that it split it into two almost totally unconnected factions. While Gangsta Rap artists like E-40 and Snoop Dogg - along with all of their countless imitators - continued to fight for access to the mainstream, the so-called Conscious Hip Hop scene on the West Coast adopted a more do-it-yourself ethos, disdaining commercial success. The aftereffects of the West Coast scene's "great divide" of the late 1990's can still be felt today: as a result of the split, major West Coast cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles are now home to not one but multiple hip hop scenes, which are differentiated from each other as much by their politics as by their music. In the late 1990's, the West Coast's Underground Hip Hop scene began to gain national and international prominence as artists like Spearhead, Blackalicious, Zion i, Aceyalone, Del tha Funkee Homosapien, Hieroglyphics, Of Mexican Descent, Jurassic 5, The Coup, Dilated Peoples, Ozomatli, and many others (most of whom self-identify as "conscious" artists, and all of whom include overtly political messages in their music) gained worldwide fame without ever being signed to major labels. Other West Coast artists like Emcee Lynx, Company of Prophets, and Entartete Kunst have taken the political aspect of their music a step further and become active participants in - and de-facto spokespeople for - various social movements, something that has not happened to any significant degree in any of the U.S.'s other regional rap scenes.Snoop Dogg “Rhythm & Gangsta” album cover 2004
Despite the emergence of the Underground movement as a major competitor at the turn of the century, West Coast Gangsta rap is still alive and well, although the sound and feel of the music has changed remarkably since the G-Funk era. Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre continue to be major players in the national mainstream, but local gangsta rap artists like E-40, The Frontline, Andre Nicatina continue to struggle for name recognition, having enjoyed less commercial success then their more politically-minded counterparts.Today's West Coast rappers continue to carry the legacy into new directions, after years of remaining dormant on radio stations and within the music media. The Game (who once successfully crossed the East-West divide by teaming with 50 Cent and G Unit) is proving to be a force that can compete with many of his East Coast counterparts in the rap business, as his debut album has already garnered multi-platinum status. The Game “The Documentary” album cover 2005

West Coast Artists



Category:Hip hop genres