But Lamar’s ode to G-funk, King Kunta, has been indicative of the bounce coming back to the wild, wild west. Untraceable production became the status quo for many beatmakers who grew up with unlimited access to sounds across the map. The internet has ushered in a more region-free era of hip-hop. Heavily drawing from Parliament Funkadelic (who play the Beatyard festival here on July 31st) and Zapp, funky outsiders that heavily infiltrated LA’s concrete boulevards in the 1970s and 1980s, the buzzing synthesizers, hypnotic grooves, thick basslines, Shaq-sized handclaps and sour vocodors are as distinctly 1990s as Clueless and flannel shirts. Produced by Dr Dre – whose handprints are all over that classic Los Angeles sound from his time with NWA, as a solo artist, producer and as LA’s chief taste picker – California Love is the most famous thesis of G-Funk, a sound that dominated and defined west-coast rap.
In a time when blood spilled on the streets of Ferguson, Cleveland, New York, Minneapolis and Baton Rouge has once again laid bare the all-too familiar trappings of being born black in America, the single Alright has been frequently heard chanted at Black Lives Matter rallies as a hymn of strength, unity, peace and defiance. His 2015 album To Pimp a Butterfly has been the soundtrack of a modern social movement, but it ends with a generation-connecting conversation with Tupac Shakur, who died in 1996. His music is undeniably LA-centric, but works in everything from Nigerian Afrobeat to Asian philosophy. Gangster rap can make weed and liquor sound like the most blissful nectar in the world, whereas Lamar observes alcohol’s corrosive effects on his community in Swimming Pools (Drank). His ground-level depictions of growing up in Compton bend the knee to rap deities NWA, but Lamar differentiates himself by decrying violence. Lamar makes new-age music viewed through old-school filters. Palm-treed pavements, Chevys bouncing up and down and fingers curled into the letter W – it’s imagery as iconic as the Capitol Records Building or the Lakers’ gold and purple sheaths. West Coast hip-hop made Lamar’s Compton and a group of neighbouring districts the 1990s pop culture capital of the world.
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Los Angeles in the late 1980s and early 1990s is remembered for Magic Johnson ruling the court, and the riots in the wake of the trial of the police officers accused of beating Rodney King, and South Central becoming a US national byword for urban mismanagement. Lamar’s musical forefathers would have been proud. The iconography was a right hook aimed at America’s solar plexus. He performed The Blacker the Berry – a blistering rap song that condemns systematic racism – with hands bound and his band locked inside jail cells. Before reading this article, we recommend you find a comfy seat, open a cold one and click on this Spotify playlist of tunes old and new from the LA sceneĪt the Grammy Awards in February, Kendrick Lamar walked out on stage in chains.