Curated playlist
West Coast hip-hop musicians
- Dr. DreDr. Dre's G-funk had live musicians replay funk melodies instead of sampling them. It debuted on The Chronic.
- Tyler, the CreatorAt the age of seven, Tyler Gregory Okonma, known professionally as Tyler, the Creator, was already making albums that did not exist. He pulled the covers out of CD cases and made new ones for imaginary records, each with a tracklist and…
- Hi-C (rapper)Compton rapper Hi-C kept turning up on DJ Quik, AMG and 2nd II None records. It lasted from 1991 to at least 2004.
- Kendrick LamarKendrick Lamar won the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 2018, the first for a piece outside classical and jazz.
- Snoop DoggSnoop Dogg bought Death Row Records, the label that launched his career, in February 2022. It took nearly three decades.
- Mike ShinodaMike Shinoda has toured Japan with Linkin Park about four times, and the first visit began with a smell. Stepping off the plane, he later recalled, "it smelled like my aunt's house, in the airport, it smelled like Japan." He had not yet…
- Tupac ShakurTupac Shakur wrote and recorded the album The Don Killuminati in three days. Mixing took four more.
- MadlibMadlib sampled his first song at 11 years old, using his father's record.
- Ice CubeIce Cube, born O'Shea Jackson, started writing raps in ninth grade because a friend challenged him in typewriting class. The friend, nicknamed Kiddo, lost the contest. The class was at George Washington Preparatory High School in Los…
- Ice-TIce-T got his stage name when friends heard him recite novels by Iceberg Slim.