Hitting you with a str8 up niche here… 90’s West Coast Rap Compilations and Soundtracks. If you were deep into gangster rap out of Cali in the 90’s, you knew everybody had compilations. There were independent businesses popping up with the craziest compilations of all time. But maybe sometimes it would be an artist who wanted to flex his exec producer muscle and show off that not only was he dope at rapping, but he could build albums as well. And it wasn’t only these California compilations that brought a lot of artists together. It was also soundtracks for movies… The Above the Rim soundtrack brought us “Pour Out a Little Liquor” from 2Pac but it also brought us “Pain” from Tupac. and fam… IF YOU DON’T KNOW PAIN????? Go listen right now… don’t bullshit either… go listen.

Pretty cool that the best song Pac made is a song you’ve never heard right? Or maybe you have heard it already… and if you have heard it already… how do you feel about “Pain”? Top 5 at least right? Will give you me that? I love “Pain”… but then I also loved “Big Pimpin’” which showed me that Daz and Nate Dogg were some of the best artists from‘94… I’ll battle anybody on this…. And that’s what I love about rap and hip hop… It’s just some cool shit to help us keep our minds out of gutters. These artists pour their hearts out over dope beats and I’ve always thought it was the best art form…. Here’s “Big Pimpin”… DPGC 4 Life btw… Shout out Kurupt and rest in peace to big Nate Dogg.

Alright… let’s get out of the weeds on these words and just drop fire… follow me now… here is some Cellski… I don’t even know what Cellski to include because he has that many slepppppppppppppppppt on heaters. HEATERS. Listen in and tell me this dude doesn’t have one of the best voice + flow combos of all time… Young Cellski is the first rapper on the beat.

The Bay to LA hustle was crazy in the 90’s. Artists were linking up and pushing together to try to go get some paper. Sure you had your gangster rappers trying to get their money… But you also had conscious rappers trying to hit a lick… maybe some more melodic dudes experimenting with their flows over jazzy type instrumentation… or maybe you get Aceyalone on “Fortitude”… ACEYALONE ON FORTITUDE??? Whoa… This is one of the best hip hop tracks of all time right????

Or how about when Scarub and Eligh dropped this gem out of nowhere… literally out of nowhere. How did this track drop on a compilation and not one of their projects? I heard this and geeked out for months. I had new flows to try to learn out of my walkman… out of my car… while I skated… while I road my BMX… while I was steady mobbin through town. I don’t even remember the name of this track… It’s labeled as “Anything Goes” but was that the name? I don’t think so??? Whatever… get to the track. This is rapping to me. Whoaaaaaa….

West coast rap compilations gave you everything. The Bay to LA were cookin… L.A 2 the Bay was cookin… RIP Mac Dre… Let’s go get it off that Rompilation though…. shit is just toooo nice….

We all knew Ice Cube but I felt like I met a different Ice Cube on that Boyz N The Hood soundtrack. That flow was free and he had all the confidence in the world after leaving NWA and doing the rap thang solo dolo… Cube a G. “How to Survive in South Central” is right here for your ears.

you haven’t heard “West Coast Parlae” tho… quit frontin… That Brotha Lynch Hung run of features on compilations was the craziest shit I had ever seen. Brotha Lynch is right next to Andre 3000 for me on rap flows of all time. If Lynch was in Compton could you imagine??? And yup, I’d put Lynch’s production up against Dre. Lynch was absolutely g-funk in the early days… Go listen to 24 Deep and tell me that ain’t the shit… Hard…

What you know about that Beneath the Surface compilation out of Los Angeles though? OD had those crazy beats… And he always worked with a lot of dope rappers and seemed to bring the best out of them. Omid had that touch… Vixen was crazy on this beat… Crazyyyyy… Then Slant coming in chopping all crazy… Puzoozoo Watt with that mellow flow and then at the end the three of them combine for the chorus… ohhhhh… soooooo good… “(In)sense”…

I love finding tracks that I was never expecting to find. In music nowadays, it’s the wild wild west of artists dropping songs all the time. It’s sometimes a needle in a haystack to find a dope track… so I wanted to bring together some dope 90’s compilation songs that you might have missed… and fam… just know that I’ll be building and rearranging this playlist… there are always more songs to listen to and more to learn about with this music.