You’ve probably never heard of The Creatures crew but in my opinion we made one of the dopest unreleased posse album covers back in the late 90’s. I’m definitely biased but looking back at this pic I am happy how it turned out. Our skate gear is on point and our mean mug game was in full effect as well. The crew was made up of me right there on the right, Destined, Tenshun, Myself, Germs, Romali and many others in San Diego. I went to school with Destined and he was one of my best friends in high school. Destined was an emcee and a producer and dropped his debut hip hop album back in late 90’s. All funded out of his own pockets with some help with some homies and I thought that the DIY type of independent release was dope. Myself was also a beatmaker with a choppy flow rhyme style and while we didn’t go to the same school, we linked up through Destined and became great friends going to record stores, talking baseball and just always listening to good music. Tenshun was a DJ and was ill with the scratches and obscure samples. Germs was always up on the streetwear gear and was a graf writer. Romali was a true b-boy and had the 1990’s and windmills that always got him respect during breakdancing circles at the different events we went to. As for me, I had the emcee name of Eyetim but other than some freestyles now and then, some written rhymes and some weak tags I was really just a fan of all 5 elements of the hip hop culture. The Creatures were my crew and we all had one common interest which was hip hop music. In this pic we had just flown back home to SD after enjoying a few days in the Bay Area where we ran around getting into dumb sh*t during those warm San Francisco nights that summer.
This trip was my first time making it up to the Bay and we all had a blast up there. We even spent one night talking turns sleeping in the car because we would rather spend our money on music than on a hotel. The Creatures always rolled deep and that’s the only way to roll with your posse. At one point on this trip in the Bay we had 7 of us crammed in a Civic and we were just riding around the city. That meant a lot of sideway sitting in the backseat of that car which wasn’t ideal but we had no other option. We cruised all over the Bay listening to good hip hop while maybe kicking some freestyles over some downbeat instrumentals every now and then. We spent a lot of time checking out graffiti in the area, eating good food and hitting up the big local record stores too. Amoeba Records and Rasputin’s were up in the Bay and it was a dream for me to finally go see these stores that I had heard so much about. In these record stores you could literally dig in their record crates for hours trying to find something that caught your eye. That was pure bliss to a young hip hop head like me.
Back in the late 90’s, if you were a fan of rap you were usually all in on what you heard on the radio (aka mainstream) or you went the independent route with underground rap. You had underground rap artists who were really dope but never got the right distribution into the big music stores like Tower Records, Sam Goody, The Wherehouse and Music Trader. In San Diego there weren’t many major stores that had these types of artists on their regular replenishment orders so these artists remained local talent for the most part. You could try to special order albums with the store’s manager but that was a lengthy process which wasn’t often too fruitful.
One of main ways you got to hear the music from these underground artists was through 2nd and 3rd generation dubs (think music recorded on blank tapes) from your friends at school who “knew somebody who knew somebody” which gave you access to these obscure gems. These underground rap artists had to tour small clubs all around the US (and globally for some!) to get new fans. They had to give everything they had on stage and then would hang out with the fans in the crowd, at the merch tables or outside where everybody smoked their beadies, cigs and herb. The broke rappers were hungry artists who were real and just trying to turn their passion into a career and I loved that. When you watched these artists rip a show you had no problem dropping $10 on their newest project. And if you had an OG tape from a popular underground rap artist you were a boss within your circle of rap homies. What’s an OG tape you ask? That meant that you had the cleanest quality sound on your original tape and when others knew you had an original they wanted to record a copy off of you. All they wanted was a quick 2nd hand or 3rd hand so they could listen in their walkmans and boomboxes with the dual cassette deck player. Want to hear what the quality of a 3rd generation dub sounds like? This is probably like a 7th generation dub but you get the point. This is Eligh, MURS and Scarub from 3MG (Living Legends) ripping a beat to shreds over a Nirvana loop.
SIDE NOTE: How does this track only have 20,000 views? I think this perfectly blends the lofi hip hop and jazz rap waves that are gaining serious steam now. But because this song was released in the mid90’s before the streaming era it unfortunately missed its time. This song was a favorite of the west coast underground rap scene and the only way to have the cleanest version was if you owned MURS’ hard to find EP, coMURShul.
Another way you could get these underground rap artists’ albums was by going up to the Bay where they had huge record stores that supported unsigned artists and had a wide selection of music carrying almost everything you could ever want. Unsigned artists would put their tapes out on consignment and there were a lot of dope emcees in Cali at the time so going to one of these record stores meant you would potentially be dropping a ton of money on some music. So that’s exactly what I did once I made it to these record stores. When all was said and done I dropped $270 at Amoeba Records on nothing but underground rap tapes. This was a ton of money for me back then but my Jansport backpack full of new tapes was everything to me. I would open them up and unfold the j-cards (aka the mini booklets inside) to read what I could about the artists and their albums. I picked up a lot of albums from Cali hip hop artists that trip as I always tried to support the hip hop from the state where I was born. Cali Hip Hop was made up of artists including Aceyalone, The People Under the Stairs, The Solesides Crew, Abstract Rude, The Pharcyde, The Lootpack, Jurassic 5, Dilated Peoples, The Nonce, Rasco, Planet Asia. The Living Legends, Hieroglyphics and so many others.
Back in the mid and late 90’s, my hip hop friends and I would always be trading tapes when we saw each other so we could bring them to school with us during the week and bump them during our high school classes. You would run your earbuds through the arm sleeve of your hoodie and put the tiny headphones in your hand and nonchalantly rest your hand against your ear. To the teacher at the front of the class, he/she just thought that you were sitting in that manner as you listened. But in reality you would be listening to new music you had never heard before and this made paying attention in school very hard for real hip hop heads. I was never that interested in school to be completely honest. I had an ear for good music and everything else fell behind my first passion. If I had a bad day at school or was down in the dumps this music would take my mind off of everything and I loved that.
To pay homage to The Creatures and this particular era of my life I’ve put together a list of my top 10 songs from the west coast hip hop renaissance of the 90’s. Some are songs you probably know and others are personal favorites of mine that might be brand new to you. I think the vibes here properly paint a picture of the boom bap sounds back then along with the thriving skate culture that went hand-in-hand with the music. Props to all of the artists making music during these times! You gave me and a lot of kids a reason to live and that is worth much more than a million streams nowadays. Shout out to the innovators!
TOP 10 WEST COAST UNDERGROUND HIP HOP SONGS OF THE 90’s
Souls of Mischief “93 til Infinity”