![]() ![]() “Choices (Yup)” is arguably the best song Earl Stevens created in the 2010’s and the Warriors redux was the soundtrack to greatness. Extra points for that guitar outro: Mac Dre da GOAT.Į-40 - “Choices (Yup)” įind me a person who hears a different song in their head when thinking of the Warriors 2015 championship run and I’ll show you a liar. ![]() In fact, This is straight up unfair and a player’s anthem if I ever heard one. Want to know how to make any rap cut velvety as hell? Put Raphael Saadiq on the hook. Raphael Saadiq - “It’s Raining Game (in Northern California)” “We got some real hard hitters in the East O/ We got some real hard hitters in Vallejo/ We got some real hard hitters in the Bay yo.” Pep’s sonata celebrates all that is great about the road up and down the Pacific Coast. And on "Pacific Heights", he extols the virtues of the Bay and beyond. The Hieroglyphics sage, nobody has a voice like Pep Lava. I dare you to walk out of the 19th St-Downtown Oakland BART stop ‘Telegraph Ave’ exit and not not start singing this song ad nauseum. It’s about the perils of a long-distance relationship, pining to be in the city where he’s left his love. The only way to be with her (Oakland) is to be there in the flesh. ![]() Gambino personifies the breadth of his relationship through where the apple of his eye lives: Oakland. If there was ever a line that painted the picture of Bay Area hip-hop in the 90’s it’s “the bass is hittin’ so hard that the CD skips.” People Under The Stairs’ Thes One and Double K pay homage to the late 60’s jazz psychedelia of Gabor Szabo & The California Dreamers’ “San Francisco Nights” on this track, while they climb hills and burn one staring out at the city’s scenery.Ĭhildish Gambino - “III. People Under The Stairs - “San Francisco Knights” Much like the flowery vibe Mystic purveys in the Adams Point-set video for “The Life,” the Digital Underground collaborator nails it on this one off of her 2001 debut. Oakland’s Mystic and Fresno’s Planet Asia team up for this Grammy-nominated nod to the natural beauty of the West Coast and Cali. “Konkrete Jungle” typifies the eat-or-be-eaten life that many lived in inner-city Oakland, and it’s the lynchpin of Zion I’s rap-cum-drum and bass masterpiece Mind Over Matter. The hook is rugged and tough and the last line samples Gang Starr. Sure, you could cite the more overt “The Bay” as being the defining Zion I cut about the Bay, but “Konkrete Jungle” personifies the area’s grit, then extrapolates it into other cities. Pioneers of early 90’s Bay Area hip-hop, The Conscious Daughters (CMG and Special One) put down on “We Roll Deep” an Oakland-centric cut akin to the Fresh Prince and DJ Jazzy Jeff’s “Summertime.” And in classic Oakland summer style, this jam is all about 40s and reefer. RBL Posse: The Bay Area pro-legalization nostradamus crew. Have there ever been any bars as prophetic as “Don’t gimme no bammer weed, we don’t smoke that shit in the SFC”? Our weed clubs are arguably the finest in the country, and even before the medicinal marijuana wave took over, the Bay Area was long-considered a destination for fine herbals. RBL Posse - “Don’t Give Me No Bammer Weed” This was the song that pulled me towards the Hiero Imperium with its car culture metaphors delivered with the signature Hiero fluency and a loaded reference to rolling blackouts that mired the city of Oakland throughout the 80’s and into the 90’s. While many look at 3rd Eye Vision album opener “You Never Knew” as the defining Hieroglyphics track, Del and Opio on “Oakland Blackouts” is the one that directly shouts out the city. And nothing hits harder than San Quinn proclaiming “5-time champion, destroy any challenger/ Hit like Barry, score like Jerry.” These dudes rep everything from the FIllmore and Twin Peaks to Hunters Point and Hayes Valley (spare me the gentrification jokes, this track is all love.) They had me at the Scott McKenzie “San Francisco” sample, which underlies the track from start to finish. San Quinn, Boo Banga and Big Rich - “San Francisco Anthem” With that, here’s twenty game-changing tracks about the ups, downs, ins and arounds of the Bay. Some new, some old, it doesn’t just lay down all the classics - what list could? - to make room for some new blood too. This list isn’t about the best songs by Bay Area artists, so much as it’s a shouting out of songs that are about the Bay Area, in one way or another and it joins this earlier list about SF-centric songs as part of San Francisco Appreciation Week. Not as commercial as our NY and LA counterparts, our independent nature and uncompromising hip-hop ethos emanate from every hyphy beat, every socially-conscious rhyme, and every figment of our unique style. Bay Area hip-hop exists in a class unto itself. ![]()
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