With all due respect to Atlanta and Chicago, Los Angeles might be the most important city in hip-hop.
There is a real movement being built out west and it’s showing its strength this year. Two of hip-hop’s best albums in 2014 so far have come from Los Angeles acts: ScHoolboy Q and his excellent Oxymoron album, and YG with his My Krazy Life project, which might even be better.
Look who else L.A. has popping off: there’s Tyga, who is prepping a Kanye West-executive produced album, Kid Ink, who dropped off a nice project earlier this year, and Tyler, the Creator, who has a strong movement and so much more. Wait, did we mention DJ Mustard? He’s killing shit, too. We could do 20 posts about son.
Oh, and then there’s this guy named Kendrick Lamar. You might have heard of him.
L.A. music is doing great. But, more importantly, it’s getting the recognition it deserves.
That always wasn’t the case.
The truth is, L.A. music has always been great, but it didn’t get the love it should have. (Throughout the ’90s and half the ’00s, there was a crazy East Coast bias.)
So we decided to salute the West Coast and dig up some of the more underrated L.A. hip-hop acts of all time. If you haven’t heard of these dudes, take some time this weekend to catch up.
