West Coast Hip-Hop

A decade before the Game got played (“How We Do”) and the Black Eyed Peas clobbered the Pop charts (“Let’s Get It Started”), the West Coast was bursting at the seams with beat-chopping producers and mic-seizing MCs. On the gangsta-rap side of things, N.W.A. set the bar so high it was practically out of reach with the heavyweight breaks and heated horns of “Straight Outta Compton.” Meanwhile, Tone-Loc, Young MC, and Digital Underground — a Bay Area collective that, at one point, included 2Pac — kept things as carefree as hip-hop’s old-school.

Ready to roll down the streets while blasting only the best West Coast hip-hop? Good call — just don’t leave the house without hearing our Next Steps first.

All of the hit movies and buzz-building commercials in the world can’t change one thing about Snoop Dogg and Ice Cube — just how gritty their post-Goodfellas approach to gangsta rap is. Yep, that’s Snoop sitting side by side with 2Pac as moonlit grooves and teeth-baring rhymes unfold in “2 of Amerikaz Most Wanted.” And then there’s our back-to-back breakdown of Ice Cube at his best, including the skittish samples of “Jackin’ For Beats,” the organ-grinding posse-cut stylings of “Gangsta Nation,” and the brief-but-bangin’ Westside Connection reunion of “Connected for Life.”

The beats and boasts continue in our Deep Cuts, which presents more A-listers alongside a revolving door of underground rap icons.

Just when you think gangsta rap’s godfathers (Ice-T, E-40, Dr. Dre) have the West Coast game on lockdown, the L.A. and Bay Area underground rise up to rob the mic for a minute. Del tha Funkee Homosapien breaks from the hardcore hip-hop teachings of his cousin Ice Cube with the funk-infused hooks of “Mistadobalina,” Souls of Mischief rep the Hieroglyphics clique with the left-field loops and laid-back flows of “93 ’Til Infinity,” and Jurassic 5 pay tribute to the game’s backyard-BBQ beginnings with the Public Enemy samples and seamless pass-the-mic rhymes of “What’s Golden.”

It’s hard to imagine a world without West Coast hip-hop. Actually, it’s impossible, what with the way N.W.A., Snoop Dogg, and the whole Death Row crew all but invented gangsta rap, bringing the sounds of the streets straight to the suburbs. And then there’s more than two decades of crucial underground cuts, ranging from such early adopters as the Pharcyde and Del tha Funkee Homosapien to such new-school favorites as Dilated Peoples and Jurassic 5. So maybe Coolio was right after all: ain’t no party like a West Coast party, ’cause a West Coast party don’t stop . . . when it’s soundtracked by everyone from Cypress Hill to Ice Cube to Too $hort. That is until the police come knocking’. In that case, blame the Doctor in the White Sox cap.