April 2007 Archives

It’s Monday, so you already know what time it is.

Gangster rap will always be the first thing that most people think of when the topic of West Coast hip hop comes up, but there are a lot of Cali artists who have enjoyed successful careers without ever really going anywhere near the topic of gangbanging or dope-slanging. Today, we’re going to pay tribute to a group that helped pave the way for future generations of West Coast hip hop artists- and hip hop artists in general -who wanted to do things a little differently.

Apparently it’s time to clear things up on a couple of topics, since they keep rearing their ugly heads in the comments section of SOHH Left Coast. So let’s get to it...

In a recent interview with MTV, Snoop Dogg announced that his next album will not feature any guest appearances. Snoop is currently in the studio with Pharrell Williams working on the album, which is titled- appropriately enough -Ego Trippin’. Being that Snoop had guest appearances on 16 of the 21 tracks on 2006’s Tha Blue Carpet Treatment, this will be quite a departure.

As I said a couple weeks ago, the dude Scipio was going enough to send out a copy of his new mixtape, Angel Dust, Vol. 2: Lost & Found Edition. Based on the strength of the first Angel Dust mixtape, I had a feeling that this one would be a heater, even though it was mostly made up of tracks and freestyles he had recorded from 2004 to 2006.

After a couple of short delays, the CD finally showed up in the mail last week, and I immediately threw it in the CD player upon its arrival. And that’s pretty much where it’s stayed for the last week. Scipio definitely managed to step up to the bar in maintaining the high standards of his releases up to this point, which have all been mixtapes. It’s definitely a travesty that this guy hasn’t been signed yet, especially with all of the bullshit rappers out there that have been getting deals lately.

Lifesavas

I know I had said a few weeks ago that I would be reviewing albums from Butch Cassidy and Damizza, Lifesavas, Alchemist, A-Plus, Bukue One and Hieroglyphics. To be more specific, I said it on April 6th. It’s only fair that I catch up on all of that before I move on to a new topic, so here we go...

I know nobody wants to read 6 long ass reviews, so I’ll keep 'em short and to the point.

There are a couple West Coast Classics I’ve posted on here that some of you didn’t feel were qualified to be described as such. But there are a few songs whose status as a classic can’t be disputed. And today, we’re going to take a minute to remember one such song.

First off, I gotta give Don Gonzalez a big shout out for puttin’ me on to this yesterday, because I hadn’t heard anything about this incident up until that point.

Everybody already knows what happened at the last Spider Loc video shoot for his single “Blutiful”; Whiteboy and Big Fase got into it, and the rest is Youtube history...

But Wednesday, some footage of the shoot for the song's remix was posted, and it’s looking at this point like dude is hexed when it comes to shooting music videos in the LA area... Once again, violence broke out, but this time it’s looking like it had the potential to be a lot more serious.

Every now and then, I like to check in with you, the readers and see what you’re bumpin’ these days. And in the off chance that any of you are interested in what West Coast shit I’m currently listening to, I’m going to let everybody know what I got jumpin’ off in the ipod right now.

I’ve been a feeling a little nostalgic lately, so I’ve been dragging out some oldies lately. Here are a few albums that I’ve been bumping pretty steadily as of late:

With all of the talk of a major change needing to take place in the mainstream hip hop world, something pretty monumental took place earlier this month. A full 10 years after he dropped his first full length, F’real, it was announced that Murs signed a deal with a major label. After dropping his last solo album The End Of The Beginning on Def Jux, and releasing two albums with 9th Wonder on the rock indie label Record Collection, the Living Legends lyricist will be releasing his next LP, tentatively titled Murs For President on Warner Bros.

On Friday, a lot of you had some extremely insightful things to say regarding Don Imus, and the mainstream media trying to refocus the blame on hip hop after Imus pointed to it as his inspiration for the comments he made about the Rutgers basketball team. Several of you, on the other hand, decided to lash out and claim that this whole thing had nothing to do with hip hop, and that I should just stick to talking about who’s beefing with who this week.

This is exactly what’s wrong with hip hop culture- we obsess over trivial bullshit, and when something of this magnitude finally comes along and demands our interest and our opinion, and presents itself on a public forum, ready for debate, we shy away from the challenge because it requires too much effort. This has everything to do with hip hop.

Those of you don’t want to discuss this topic anymore, feel free to leave now.

It’s Monday, which means it’s time to remember another West Coast Classic. Today we’re taking it way back to 1991...

It was between this and “Growin’” Up In The Hood” from the Boyz N The Hood soundtrack, but in the end I had to go with “Hood Took Me Under” by Compton’s Most Wanted.

I have to say that this was a pretty interesting week in hip hop, and on the comments section of SOHH Left Coast. Wednesday and Thursday’s posts about Spider Loc’s Game diss and Crooked I’s DMX diss drew a pretty polarized crowd. And although a few readers had some disparaging comments to make about some of the things I said, the highlight of this week definitely had to be some disgruntled homotional DMX fan who posted a comment about coming to Cali with his crew wearing “durags (I think he meant doo-rags) and Timbalands” to serve beatdowns to myself and Crooked I. Apparently this little digi-thug plans on getting my personal info through either his connections in the seedy make-believe criminal underbelly of the hip hop message board community or through Miss Cleo; I’m not really clear on which, as he failed to specify this part of his plan.

Since yesterday’s blog was about a wack ass diss song from Spider Loc, I’m gonna go ahead and balance the scales today. For those who don’t know, DMX made some disparaging comments about West Coast rappers in February during an interview with the Ventura County Star newspaper. Here’s what Big Earl had to say:

I’m sure everybody saw it coming; after The Game dropped “Body Bags” a week or so ago, and we all knew it would only be a matter of time before somebody from G-Unit came with the retaliation. As it turns out, apparently 50 put one the newer recruits on the frontlines to handle business for this round- Spider Loc.

After coming together to form the group Westurn Union, Damani, Bad Lucc and Priest “Soopafly” Brooks have released the video for their single “Hat 2 Tha Bacc” featuring Snoop Dogg. The track is from Snoop’s upcoming compilation The Big Squeeze, but the release of the video is also looking to warm fans up for an album from the group later this year. The video for “Hat 2 Tha Bacc” recently popped up on Youtube; no word yet on whether it’ll pop up on MTV or BET, but time will tell.

In the meantime, take a look for yourself...

First off, a big shout to Don Gonzalez for the correction on my translation of Vida Guerra’s name. I must’ve forgotten about the second R in her last name for a minute. But as far as using Google to translate Spanish to English and vice versa, I have a wife whose parents taught her to speak Spanish before they taught her English, so I usually just look to her for translations. Plus, Google doesn’t cook chilaquiles for me on Saturday mornings...

Either way, next time I’ll make sure to double check my work... My apologies for the couple hours of mis-info.

But getting back on track, it’s Monday, which means it’s time to remember another West Coast classic.

So I mentioned The Game’s new 50-Cent diss, “Body Bags” earlier this week in a blog, but before I could even catch my breath, now he’s got a diss song for Vida Guerra- or as he calls her, Vida Guerrera. The song is titled- appropriately enough -”Vida (They love It)”. You can check yesterday’s news posts for a link to the song.

For those of you who caught my review of Scipio’s Angel Dust mixtape a while back, you already know that I think this dude is the truth. Angel Dust is still available to download for free on Scipio’s myspace page at www.myspace.com/thelostangel; if you haven’t already given it a listen, go handle that now.

Although sideshows have a been pretty prevalent in the Bay Area (and in its music and videos) for a long time now, the recent spotlight on the whole hyphy movement has been spreading the phenomenon to other cities throughout the state. In an effort to make the consequences for participants more rigid, the Senate Public Safety Committee voted unanimously in support of SB 67 last tuesday, which is a bill authored by Senator Don Perata that aims to crack down on reckless driving and more specifically, sideshows. There was a previous bill (also authored by Perata) with the same objective called SB 1489 that was in effect from 2002 to January 1st, 2007; SB 67 is basically reenacting that law.

Sometimes hip hop bums me the fuck out.

In the past several days, there’s been some sad shit going on; hip hop lost another young artist to violence, and meanwhile we have one rapper talking about how he’s gonna murder another rapper. And to be real, this endless string of bullshit is is starting to cast a pretty dark cloud over the hip hop world.

Hopefully everyone had a good weekend. After a week of shitty weather, it was nice to be able to get outside and take advantage of that world-renowned Cali sunshine...

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the drill, today we’re going to start the week off the same way we always do- remembering a West Coast Classic. So without further ado...

“Pistol Grip Pump” by Volume 10.