Summer Jamz ’08 #11: G’Z Up, Prose Down
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=4NBDRWLQ
Each Summer Jam is proudly co-hosted with Screw Rock N’ Roll and What Was it Anyway.
- Parliament-“Give Up the Funk (Tear the Roof Off the Sucker)
- N.W.A.-“Alwayz Into Somethin’”
- Dr. Dre-“Nuthin’ But a G Thang”
- Above the Law ft. 2Pac & Money B-“Call It What U Want”
- The Dove Shack-“Summertime in the LBC”
- Domino-“Getto Jam”
- The Twinz-“Round N’ Round”
- Snoop Doggy Dogg-“Gin and Juice”
- 2Pac ft. Shock G & Money B-“I Get Around”
- Mista Grimm ft. Nate Dogg & Warren G-“Indo Smoke”
- Ice Cube ft. George Clinton-“Bop Gun”
- The Lady of Rage-“Afro Puffs”
- Sam Sneed ft. Dr. Dre-“U Better Recognize”
- The D.O.C.-“The D.O.C. and The Doctor”
- DJ Quik-“Jus Lyke Compton”
- W.C. and the Maad Circle-“The One”
- Tha Dogg Pound-“Let’s Play House”
- Kurupt ft. Nate Dogg-“Girls All Pause”
- Warren G ft. Nate Dogg & Snoop-“Game Don’t Wait”
- Warren G & Nate Dogg-“Regulate”
- Warren G & Nate Dogg-“Nobody Does It Better”
- Parliament-“P-Funk (Wants to Get Funked Up”
Radio raised me. Power 106 and 92.3, The Beat, filtering in fuzzy and faint from the battered and bruised transistor, blank cassette in at all times—just in case. “Gin and Juice” and Maxells as madelines and tea, inside my broom closet bedroom, tattered with tapes as trophies. The holy trinity: The Chronic. Regulate and Doggystyle; the latter, swiped from a shuttered Music Plus, purchased by me for a mere $7 from a kleptomaniac, entrepreneurial ex-friend. Last I heard, he’d moved to Northern Arizona to escape from drug dealers. In the process, he found God and eventually assumed a position in an evangelical Korean Ministry.
Contrasted with the cluttered condo clusterfuck of this last Bush year, that Los Angeles of 1992 seems almost unrecognizable. Back then, South Central, Compton and the land south of the Ten still smoldered, a burn-out husk from the Rodney King riots that had erupted a few moths prior, as though to prove Ice Cube’s point. The city had an almost martial tone to it, there were unspoken boundaries you didn’t cross and “the club” on every steering wheel. Crips, Bloods and Bullets waged internecine warfare* so the shrill sirens of Fox 11 News at 10 told us. Hell, even in the rich parts of town, neurotic school administrators banned Raiders and Kings garb for being gang affiliated, though the closest their students had come to ‘banging’ was the Whack-A-Mole at Chuck E. Cheese.
So maybe Mike Davis was right. Maybe Los Angeles was a city of quartz. But if so, it was about to turn platinum. Thing is, everything changed when The Chronic dropped. The Dre of N.W.A. that “didn’t smoke weed or cess,” was dead, his politics largely muted. Instead, he’d found the good drugs, a stack of Parliament samples and a lanky, ex-Long Beach Crip with a flow ostensibly ordained by God to soundtrack hot and hazy Sunday BBQ’s. The combination was unstoppable and by the time Snoop’s debut dropped the next fall, G-Funk had everyone on lock, from Baldwin Hills to Bel Air, from Compton to Calabasas. You want proof that Jayceon Taylor is full of shit? Because of no self-respecting Angeleno would’ve ever bragged about shop-lifting The Chronic in ’95. What was dude listening to before that? P.M. Dawn? Snap? Jesus Jones?
The story’s rote by now. The big money boom. Suge Knight, the mad villain, burning blunts and Cohibas, glowering at the world from a plush aerie inside a pitch black Wilshire Blvd. skyscraper, the same one shared by Larry Flynt and Hustler, on the corner of Beverly Hills’ restaurant row. Dre turned hip-hop’s Howard Hughes, hibernating deep in the West Valley, obsessed with the unattainable notion of perfection and whether Winstrol could make his biceps as big as his ego. Snoop became more brand than rapper. Warren G got busted for taking Nate Dogg’s advice to be “high like every day.” And as for poor Nathan Hale, that perpetually underrated R&B master, he was somehow felled by a stroke before the age of 40. God knows what happened to Sam Sneed? Drugs. Jail. The PGA Tour?
But for a few short years there, say that stretch from The Riots until 2Pac got shot, G-Funk owned the sound of our summers. Pure California ride music to cannon out of every car stereo, soundtrack every party, the ideal accessory to cheap weed, smuggled liquor and the baking black asphalt. I don’t know what kids listen to today. Weezy? Jeezy? The Game’s compelling but hollow nostalgia? We had it good. After all, who better to make sun-scorched jams than the kids from the real land of the endless summer? Like Nate Dogg and Warren G said, “Nobody Does It Better.”
18 comments
wade word says:
July 9, 2008 at 6:44 am (UTC -7)
Long live the G-Funk Era-
good look, JW.
-WW
Disco Vietnam says:
July 9, 2008 at 7:28 am (UTC -7)
she’s gotta have ass for days
douglas martin says:
July 9, 2008 at 8:13 am (UTC -7)
you wanna know why you’re my favorite blogger, weiss? posts like this one.
Tauwan says:
July 9, 2008 at 10:47 am (UTC -7)
As a young man who was both born and raised in South Central Los Angeles, and spent the years from 1990-2000 in a commercial/popular/west coast hip-hop and R&B haze, I gotta say thank you for this opening: “Radio raised me. Power 106 and 92.3, The Beat, filtering in fuzzy and faint from the battered and bruised transistor, blank cassette in at all times—just in case. “Gin and Juice” and Maxells as madelines and tea, inside my broom closet bedroom, tattered with tapes as trophies.”; thank you for your write up; and, of course, thank you for this mix. Holla!
Passion of the Weiss says:
July 9, 2008 at 11:01 am (UTC -7)
My pleasure Tauwan. I was hoping some native Angelenos would read this. There was so much I had to leave out just because I wanted to narrow it to strictly G-Funk. Those old Gap band songs Power used to play. “Atomic Dog,” “Double Dutch Bus.” Paperboy’s “Ditty,” Ahmad’s “Back in the Day.” Cypress Hill. Lighter Shade of Brown. Tres Delinquentes. It goes on.
Now all you hear on Power is “A Millie” and “The Boss.” You’d think “Cappucino” would at least get a little burn considering Knux live in LA.
Tauwan says:
July 9, 2008 at 12:05 pm (UTC -7)
I hear you man. Remember when you would swear by Power 106 and 92.3 the Beat? [Make sure you stop that track before the Disc Jockey comes back in] Now The Beat is non-existent. [(?)Could be wrong. Don't really listen to the radio anymore] and Power 106 is nothing more than sometimes good/sometimes awful live DJ sets from clubs, a radio version of the latest incarnation of 106 & Park, innocuous shout outs, and/or a radio version of that part in the Chapelle Show skit with John Mayer where Dave shouts gibberish into a megaphone over some keyboards and horns in that barbershop. Tsk. Tsk. Tsk.
Drewski says:
July 9, 2008 at 12:45 pm (UTC -7)
Wow. I seriously got the creeps reading these first two paragraphs, seeing as how ridiculously accurately that describes me at age 11. Except it was my friend’s older brother who shoplifted “The Chronic” from The Wherehouse, and we always had to ask to borrow it.
I wish I still had those Power mixtapes. I’d call in requests and then sit there for hours waiting to record them. Man…I’m getting nostalgic as all hell here just thinking about it.
Plus, you’re the only blogger I know who can reference “Recherche du temps perdu” and “Doggystyle” in the same sentence and have it make total sense. Fuckin’ a, dude. Write a novel or something.
Tauwan says:
July 9, 2008 at 4:20 pm (UTC -7)
“The Wherehouse.” HA!
slav k says:
July 9, 2008 at 7:11 pm (UTC -7)
Yeah, J, this is a great post. Got me reminiscing.
drew says:
July 9, 2008 at 7:30 pm (UTC -7)
Ah, awesome mix, man. One question.. where’s the Toddy Tee?
Passion of the Weiss says:
July 9, 2008 at 7:37 pm (UTC -7)
I figured he was more late 80s than classic G-Funk. In hindsight, I would’ve probably liked to have gotten some Rodney O and Joe Cooley in here.
Disco Vietnam says:
July 9, 2008 at 11:25 pm (UTC -7)
I’m just glad Domino is on there. Great fucking album.
methodub says:
July 10, 2008 at 7:55 am (UTC -7)
These songs will forever be my Summer Jam. This mix brings back memories of going to great lengths fixing my radio antenna to catch the best signal to listen to KMEL from Modesto and it would always come through crystal clear on those hot summer nights.
Daniel Weisman says:
July 10, 2008 at 10:47 pm (UTC -7)
not gonna lie…I teared up a little reading your piece about this playlist. You left out some classics which I am adding to my joint.
Passion of the Weiss » Blog Archive » Domino-”Sweet Potato Pie” says:
August 21, 2008 at 5:00 am (UTC -7)
[...] cassingle, why not Domino’s “Sweet Potato Pie,” which narrowly missed the cut of my G-Funk mix in favor of the Long Beach rapper’s other hit, “Geto Jam.” God knows what [...]
Passion of the Weiss » Blog Archive » Damn, It Feels Good to be a Gangsta says:
July 30, 2009 at 3:04 am (UTC -7)
[...] Power 106 and 92.3 The Beat. Consider Damn, It Feels to Be a Gangsta, the khaki-clad sibling to my G’Z Up, Prose Down Summer Jamz from last year (link still active). What’s most striking is that both tapes only share [...]
The faster blade | Barker Rant says:
January 7, 2010 at 12:49 pm (UTC -7)
[...] saw Jeff Weiss (proprietor of Passion of the Weiss and arguably the finest hip-hop critic on the West Coast), make the exact same [...]
Perfection is perfected « ::No New Brakes:::::::: says:
February 28, 2010 at 7:33 am (UTC -7)
[...] how Jeff Weiss puts it (be sure to read the whole post): Contrasted with the cluttered condo clusterfuck of this last Bush year, that Los Angeles of 1992 [...]