As part of my job, I get the chance to listen to sorts of Hip Hop from all regions. But I have no shame in admitting that I have a bias for the West Coast. In my formative years, growing up in Southern California, I remember stealing borrowing a copy of my brother’s Warren G Regulate…G Funk Era and playing it obsessively. When that obsession cooled, I somehow managed to steal borrow a copy of my brother’s All Eyez On Me album. No Brown Sugar, but a favorite question among Hip Hop heads is “when did you fall in love with Hip Hop? For me, it was hearing Pac for the first time. Born only a few months before NWA released Straight Outta Compton, and being a toddler when classics like The Chronic, Doggystyle, Quik Is The Name, Dogg Food etc. were released, I invested an extraordinary amount of time to studying/admiring/fawning over the masters. In my teenage years, I vividly remember sprinting to my mother’s car after church service to see if Power 106 was playing Shade Shiest’s “Where I Wanna Be” or Westside Connection’s “Connected 4 Life.” Even to this day, there is no genre in the world that captures me quite like So-Cal West Coast Hip Hop. But as you well know, not long after Dr. Dre’s “Up In Smoke Tour” ended, West Coast music suffered an extended drought, to put it nicely. A few folks like The Game, Xzibit, Rass Kass nobly carried a dying genre for a time with incredibly dope s###, but a small minority can’t keep an entire Coast alive. Some (including myself) thought that the West Coast died the minute the legendary Nate Dogg passed away in 2011. But alas! Out of no where, the West has risen again to the top of the ranks with a multitude of new shining stars. Kendrick Lamar, ScHoolboy Q, Nipsey Hussle, YG, Tyler Tha Creator, Problem, Mellowhype, DJ Mustard, Ab-Soul, Earl Sweatshirt, Jay Rock, and many more. Not to mention, the O.G.s of the game like The Game, Snoop, Suga Free, Warren G, Cube, W.C., DJ Quik, and Dr. Dre (who’s recent Compton: A Soundtrack is a classic in my book). With the release of the thrilling Straight Outta Compton movie, the West Coast has definitely gotten its second wind pimp, to quote E-40. If you’re a music geek like me, you are obsessed with tracking the origins of historic musical movements. It’s crazy to think that a couple of (at the time) regular dudes from Compton (Kendrick, YG, Problem, Billionaire Buck) were inspired to become essentially new n##### wit attitudes, and subsequently put the West Coast back on the map. ATTENTION: Notice I didn’t mention Tyga, simply because he’s wack as s###. Period. Whenever my Spotify connection is down, and I’m forced to listen to the radio, all I can think about is how incredibly wack Tyga is. F### all the talk about Obama’s birth certificate, someone needs to find Tyga’s birth certificate and erase “California” from it– he has no business representing the coast in any shape or form whatsoever. Tyga’s music is so f###### wack that if you were to first play Hotel California and then Doggystyle the wackness is so strong that it has the potential runneth over and ruin a classic, or at the very least cause permanent brain damage as your cerebral cortex scrambles to make sense of the extreme disparity in quality. Some may call me a hater or whatever, but to quote Jay, I call a s#### a s####, it just it what is…and what it is is hot garbage that gives me severe migraines when I’m forced to listen. (These views are completely my own (Kellan Miller’s), and are not at all reflective of Allhiphop as a staff, label, or as a m############ crew.). I say that because if Tyga happens to read this and sic his goon squad of 75lb tattooed light-skinned stick figures and Kylie Jenner on me, somehow capturing me and forcing me to listen to all 45 excruciating minutes of The Gold Album, the good colleagues that I work with shouldn’t have to suffer that level of torture. So when I say I’ve been contemplating quitting my journalism career to become a rapper, for the sole purpose of Ja-Ruling/Meek Milling Tyga, these views are completely my own. When I fantasize about creating a diss track that ended Tyga’s career, so the world would be completely rid of a skinny tree tattooed tree fig that luckily got a break when Lil Wayne had a little too much lean when he heard his demo. Inevitably, I would be awarded the Noble Peace Prize for my efforts, and I imagine Eazy-E and Mac Dre would personally rise from the grave to thank me. But hopefully it won’t come to that, because mark my words, the next California rapper to blow is none other than Compton’s own Billionaire Buck. While he doesn’t yet have the recognition of Kendrick and YG, Buck started to make headway when he released the track “Around Da Way” about a year ago. With hot flows and thumping bass lines (ingredients of a proper Left Coast track), the song instantly became a favorite in my playlist. Watching the video made the song all the much better– featuring Buck walking through the actual streets of Compton, a nice throwback to N.W.A.’s “Straight Outta Compton” video. At some point after putting the puzzle together, I realized that Buck, Kendrick, YG, and Problem all grew up together, and collaborated with each other back when they barely had a dollar to their name and were just dreaming about making it to the main stage. As you already know, Kendrick has arisen as one of Hip Hop’s most golden voices. When he’s not directing incredible The Wire-like music videos/films, YG is flooding the streets with pure 100% Grade A bangers. ANd with all the recent talk about ghostwriters, it’s worth mentioning that Problem probably ghost-wrote the lyrics […]