| West Coast hip hop | |
|---|---|
| Stylistic origins | Dancehall (Toasting) • East Coast hip hop • Funk • Jazz • Rhythm and blues • Soul music |
| Cultural origins | Mid 1980s, western United States |
| Typical instruments | Prominent Bass • Drum machine • Rapping • Sampler • Synthesizer |
| Mainstream popularity | Popular in the U.S. during late 1980s through mid-1990s. Gangsta rap subgenre dominant from early to mid-90s. Popularity declined during remainder of decade up to 2000s with small degree of mainstream exposure. |
| Subgenres | |
| Alternative hip hop • Chicano rap • Electro-hop • Gangsta rap • G-funk • Hyphy • Latin hip hop • Underground hip hop | |
| Fusion genres | |
| Jazz rap | |
| Regional scenes | |
| Hyphy | |
| Other topics | |
| East Coast-West Coast hip hop rivalry • Golden age hip hop • Hip hop • List of West Coast hip hop artists • List of West Coast hip hop record labels | |
West Coast hip hop is a hip hop music subgenre that encompasses any artists or music which originates in the westernmost region of the United States, as opposed to East Coast hip hop, based originally in New York alone. The gangsta rap subgenre of West Coast hip hop began to dominate from a radio play and sales standpoint during the early 90s. By the end of the 90s decade, hip hop's focus began to shift back towards the East Coast and also to a fast emerging Southern hip hop scene. It shares some similarities with Southwest Hip Hop too. West Coast hip hop is known for its copious sampling of funk and soul songs to form its beats.
The West Coast is also known to have a very fertile underground hip hop scene, with Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area being particular hot spots. Many of the West Coast's underground acts focused more on lyrical technique than their more mainstream peers.
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Some believe that the five elements of hip hop culture, which include B-Boying, beatboxing, DJing, graffiti art, and MCing, existed on the East and West Coasts of the United States simultaneously during the mid-seventies.[1] This theory runs in opposition to the more universally accepted belief that the fundamental elements of hip hop were all born and cultivated exclusively on the East Coast, New York City in particular, in the most early stages of the culture.[1] Although it is agreed that hip hop was given its name in New York, some say a culture that closely mirrored the East Coast hip hop culture had emerged in the West existing from Los Angeles to the San Francisco Bay Area during the same period.[1] The culture itself is believed to have been a mutual creation which probably evolved from interaction between people who identified with elements from their respective coasts.[1]
The history of the Radio/Radiotron is long and interesting. First opend as a nightclub in 1980 by a guy called "AJ" who was a close friend to Ice T. Together with Chris "The Glove" Taylor they formed the legendary "Radio Crew". In 1983 it was closed and reopend as a kind of youth center under the name Radiotron in the Mac Arthur Park area of Los Angeles.David Guzman formaly "MC SIN" meet Ice-T and AJ at the Roxy's in NYC through Africa Islam. David came to California for a job looking for AJ at the Radio but is was closed down. Dave was hired by Carmelo Alvarez to run the RadioTron in 1983. It was not just a community youth center; it also served as a safe place for young dancers in Los Angeles to focus on their creativity, leaving the negativity that plagued the inner city at the door. Kids from different neighborhoods, beliefs & backgrounds came to RADIOTRON, ignoring their differences and participating in recreational activities that had a definite Hip-Hop flavor & ultimately played a part in defining Hip-Hop culture.
Schoolly D, Ice-T,and Moriah Rhunkie, are often cited as the founders of gangsta rap.[2] Several years after they emerged, the Compton city based group N.W.A. debuted and helped gangsta rap achieve wider attention. Eventually, N.W.A. and their record label Ruthless Records infamously received a letter from an assistant director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) excoriating their landmark 1988 album Straight Outta Compton for its lyrical themes and content in 1989. By the early 1990's, gangsta rap became the most common form of Hip-hop on the West coast, spawning many notable critically and commercially successful artists.[3]
At that time all we had was N.W.A, and everybody thought everything coming out of L.A. is gangsta rap... We don't got to do that, you know? Let them do that, and let us do something else.[4]—P.E.A.C.E.
In the early 90s, many of the Los Angeles hip hop scene's most talented and progressive-minded MCs would attend the Good Life Cafe to hone their skills and develop their craft.[4] Artists such as Del tha Funkee Homosapien, Abstract Rude, Ahmad, Freestyle Fellowship, Jurassic 5, the Pharcyde, Skee-Lo, a pre-Dogg Pound Kurupt, and many others performed at the Good Life's open mic Thursday nights from the late-80s into the mid-90s.[5] In the 2009 documentary This Is the Life, L.A. hip hop artist and Good Life regular 2Mex likened the Good Life movement to that of the New York punk rock and Seattle music scenes.[4]
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