Original Gangstas by Ben Westhoff

Author:Ben Westhoff
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Music / Genres & Styles / Rap & Hip Hop, Music / History & Criticism, Social Science / Popular Culture
Publisher: Hachette Books
Published: 2016-09-13T04:00:00+00:00

Nearly every rap crew worth its salt had a strong female MC, and Death Row landed the toughest of all. The Lady of Rage was a thick rapper in Timberland boots—175 pounds of beef / Beatin’ yo ass down to the concrete, in her own estimation. A Virginia native, she may have inspired Queen Latifah comparisons, but was a vicious, self-proclaimed “lyrical murderer” with a penchant for stealing the scene. When Dre first heard her recordings with a production team called L.A. Posse, she was quasi-homeless, sleeping on a couch in Manhattan studio Chung King. He got her on the phone, and before long Death Row sent her a ticket to fly to Los Angeles.

Also in the mix for The Chronic was a pair of Snoop’s cousins, one on his dad’s side, a rapper and producer named Dat Nigga Daz—Daz for short—who partnered up with Kurupt for the Snoop-allied group Tha Dogg Pound. Daz was also affiliated with Long Beach Crips, and the act was sometimes called Dogg Pound Gangsta Crips. Snoop’s cousin on his mother’s side, RBX, was a former football teammate of Suge’s at the University of Nevada, a towering defensive end who came back to Los Angeles on the weekends to battle with the Freestyle Fellowship at the Good Life Café, hoping to win rent money. He boasted a heavy, thick flow. “The first time I heard RBX rap I was high on mushrooms,” D.O.C. said. “[I]t was like havin’ your eyes closed and havin’ muthafuckas hit you with rocks from all different directions.”

RBX, whose name stands for “Reality Born Unknown,” saw his life changed forever one day when Snoop came by the shoe store where he was working and hit him up for a ride to Dre’s house. When they later arrived there, the producer noticed RBX’s deep, resounding baritone, hoping he might be able to rap as distinctively as he sounded. Later that night RBX showed him he could. “You can’t leave,” Dre told him.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.