What got you into West Coast Rap?

[PLANT]

when my cousin played Doggystyle

no shit eh

same here

[J Bananas]

thats just what was around, i remember birthday parties growin up where my friends older brothers and sisters would be playin the chronic and too short and stuff and we would all love it cuz of the swearing, it was on since then

[Dj Eskimo]

remember seeing the vid for Dr Dre - Nothin But A G Thang when i was a kid... and the rest was history.

[J$crILLa]

when i was about 10 or so

around 92/93 snoop n dre.... then too short, eazy e, then 2pac

[TraceOneInfinite]

I was 11 years old, summer of 93', and I was at a weeklong basketball camp that was held at a Division 1 college campus.  So we lived in the dorms for a week, and there was a lobby with a TV in it, where we'd hang out in between games.  The older kids always had it on MTV, they'd play the top 10 video's of the week.  It was all these Rock video's on I wasn't really impressed with...

Then standing alone as the only hip-hop video in the countdown was "Wit A Dre Day"... when Snoop came in and started with, "Bow Wow Wow Yippee Yo Yipee Yea", that was it for me.  Everybody was repeating that line all week around camp... I've been a hip-hop head ever since.

[WestCoasta]

Growing up in Los Angeles Killafornia.

the cd that got me looking for more west coast shit was "Dogg Food"

[WestCoasta]

why do you prefer west coast rap over east coast rap for example?

pretty much cuz I'm from the West and the music really fits the lifestyle and mood of the everyday scene

[rik]

why do you prefer west coast rap over east coast rap for example?

pretty much cuz I'm from the West and the music really fits the lifestyle and mood of the everyday scene

exactly.

[CaliKorleone]

Warren G's Regulate.

[Nutty]

Shit, some of you guys are young.

Wasn't overly exposed to 80s rap artists like Run DMC, LL, Beastie Boys etc, etc, although I knew some of their songs back then. Was a fan of MC Hammer without knowing that it was rap, lol. I remember listening to my mates older bro's Str8 Outta Compton tape at school and thinking, shit, we're gonna get into trouble, this has swearing on it, lol.

It wasn't until Tony Toni Tone's 'Feels Good' that I got into the funky shit.....then Quik came out....can't forget the whole Death Row era shit....and I was hooked.....my fav. time...early to mid 90s.

[Inspire / Moss]

Eazy muthaphukkin E lol

[suckaa free]

^why is that funny?

but for me, The Chronic....then it was "Get in Where You Fit In"  Beeyatch!!!   

[Narrator]

I would saying growing up there, but then again, lliving in the South hasn't really gotten me into Southern rap all that much.

Must have been the appeal of the gangsta image at that time.

[Juronimo]

With me it started in the late 80's when I was in junior high school. I remember listening to the pop rap of the day, such as DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince, Salt N Pepa, MC Hammer, shit like that. Then I got into EPMD, Public Enemy, and X-Clan as I wanted to delve deeper into hip hop musically. Also NWA was absolutely HUGE during that time and anyone who grew up in Cali can attest to that. Also when Cube left, that's all that people talked about for months.

That's when I started getting curious about gangsta rap and all of the sudden I was listening to Ice-T and Ice Cube. Also, the Underground and Playboy Short had that funky shit that just sounded good in the ride. By this time I was in high school and everyone was getting into that shit. DJ Quik comes out, CMW, Above the Law, Kam, Cypress Hill, Cypress Hill was huge at my high school when they dropped. Can't forget Da Lench Mob. I liked the in your face nature of west coast shit and the militancy of it, so I was listening to a ton of west coast rap by then as well as Public Enemy. Plus I liked how it sounded in the ride, in my homeboy's bucket with just one tweeter and that shit would be distorting the bass something terrible, bumping Kam's Every Single Weekend on the Boyz in the Hood soundtrack, but we didn't give a fuck, we'd bump that shit anyway. I remember seeing kids trying to hook up systems in their car with second hand equipment and wires hanging everywhere, shit like that. The whole vibe of west coast rap just went along with that, not to mention growing up here in the first place. It didn't matter what piece of shit you drove, it had to bump.

Even though I always like east coast music, west coast rap just has a certain feel to it, a certain rhythm to it. You can relate to the subject matter, whether positive or negative. As the 90's progressed, it was west coast artists that pushed the boundaries musically, while east coast cats were stuck in sampling drum break mode. It was west coast cats who first fucked with instruments, composing melodies, using horns, guitars, keys, and being that I grew up around music and played musical instruments, I could appreciate the musicianship behind it, whether it was Ant Banks brand of funk or Dr. Dre's brand of funk.

[Teddy Roosevelt]

But then i bought my first music album ever, Dre's 2001 album.

That's the album that did it for me. Before that I was in to some hip hop, but when I got this album I fell in love with hip hop (and West Coast hip hop in particular).