Going Back To Cali
In response to my NY State of Mind choices, Mr Nimmo suggested the natural progression was a west coast version. So, we have 10.1 Californian cuts from 94-96, notably excluding the title track, Biggie’s Going Back To Cali, because it came out in 97.
This round was a bit harder than the New York one, as the east coast albums pretty much picked themselves. There weren’t so many stone cold classics coming out of California at the time, but there were some greate albums, and I think this is a pretty good selection.
Souls of Mischief - Secret Service
‘93 to infinity is one of my favourite records, though a year too early for this list. No Man’s Land is dead in the middle of the date range, and while a slightly weaker album overall, has some amazing tracks. Secret Service has a huge double bass line, some great trading of verses, and a little bit of social commentary for your money.
Xzibit - Paparazzi
Before the pimping and the riding and the occasionally brilliant Full Circle, X to tha Z did this kind of thing for a living. Extra large.
Westside Connection - Bow Down
I’d not listened to Bow Down (this being the title track) before, mostly because of Westside Connections annoyingness on Beef 2, but it’s a decent album. I’m not sure whether this is the strongest cut, but it’s definitely one of the most immediate, and everyone likes to hear Cube and Friends larging it don’t they?
Tha Dogg Pound - A Doggz Day Afternoon
There were a lot of Doggs in Cali in the mid nineties, and while Kurupt and Daz didn’t exactly like the world on fire afterwards, Dog Food is a suprisingly consistent album, and well worth it’s platinum status.
Dr Dre & Ice Cube - Natural Born Killaz
Yes, so it’s almost over the top enough to stray into horror rap territory, but it’s still great to hear to Ice Cube and Dre on a track.
Cyprus Hill - Let It Rain
For Cyprus Hill, Temple of Boom is a pretty restrained album. The tracks are either chilled or laced with an aggressive undertone, but mostly are in contrast to the gangsterism on, say, Westside Connections album. Not that those two would have a problem or anything.
2pac - Fuck the World
I never really got Tupac. Good flow, some good tracks, nice Zapp inspired sound, but not who I’d have pegged to sell 70 million odd albums. Relistening to Me Against The World and All Eyez On Me didn’t do much to change this, but it’s hard to ignore the impact he had on the scene. Fuck the World is one of my favouritem, and one of the funkier, tracks off Me Against The World.
Too $hort - Can I get A…
A westside anything is probably incomplete without $hort dog, the pimpingest pimp rapper. Probably not the most politically correct track in the collection, but funky as all get out.
Warren G - Regulate
I suspect a fair chunk of Warren’s Wealth will always be supported by this track. Sing along with Nate y’all.
The Coup - Fat Cats, Bigga Fish
I don’t think I’d heard Genocide and Juice before searching out the albums for this post, and it’s pretty much awesome. This track opens the album with a brilliant bit of storytelling rap, and and a fresh, string and guitar beat.
DJ Shadow - Why Hip Hop Sucks in ‘96
As a bonus, the .1 of the list is a little bit of commentary from Entroducing.
At this point, I think the only way out is to round off the country with midwest and southern equivalents, but I’m having trouble thinking of midwest releases already, so that one could be interesting.
April 26th, 2007 at 6:06 pm
you could do dirty south next…Oh yeah there’s no real 90s history there cept Bubba.
Loving the picks from the west coast, being an east coast fan early on myself I preffered the grittier new york sound. But listneing to regulate and paparazi when they first came out was fresh. There was some good prgressive sound coming out of the west coast during NYs title grabbing era though and these picks prove it.
Natural Born Killers I still have the original single of, as I also have of Slick Ricks ‘Tell a tale of LA county jail’. Slick should have made it into your top ten yo, he was happenin’.
Final point on 2pac. Hmm. This is a tough one cos when it comes to criticising 2pac or biggy it’s like dissing the pope. I’m with you in that when I listen to 2pacs sound now it feels dated, but so does a lot of that school.
2pac is good too, you’re right, but does he warrant the status? For me I’d say that he was a lyrical genius, his flow was tight and he put a lot of heart and soul into his early work. His work ethic was extreme too, blazing up and cutting tracks for hours (This allowing many others to cash in after his death of course). His was the first of a really ‘confessional / progressive’ feel that I really heard, not to say he was first, just that it felt that way for me at the time. All in all I prefer Biggy’s sound, his flow can be incredible sometimes (Listening to his freestyles I -still- shout out ‘ooh’ at some of the lines). But 2pac deserves an award for pusing things forward. What makes me sad is that he eventually became the machine that Naz decries. Everybody jumped on pacs back and released everything hed ever recorded mixed in with their own. If I have to listen to ‘pacs life’ once more on MTVBase I will scream.
2pac RIP, Biggy RIP too. To the rest of you musical car jackers BACK THE FUCK OFF AND LEAVE THE MEMORY ALONE.
April 27th, 2007 at 4:06 pm
Yeah, the numerous pac related shit that has come out since his death is crazy.
“Oh yeah there’s no real 90s history there cept Bubba”
Actually there’s some class southern stuff from the period, Bubba’s a bit more late ninties-early 2000s, I think his first album was 2001, something like that.
April 28th, 2007 at 1:26 am
He (Bubba) did some demo stuff on other peoples tracks in the mid ninties then he broke his back. It took him offline until early 2000 when he produced that intro solo album.
I know sod all about the dirty south form the mid ninties onwards, so if you want g’head and pick some tunage. I might recognise a few I didn’t know existed!
Either way so far this has been a great series.