The West Coast Rap All-Stars

Remember when a group of rappers made up of  Tone-Loc, Dr. Dre, MC Ren, Eazy-E, MC Hammer, Ice-T, Above the Law, Digital Underground, JJ Fad, Young MC, King-Tee and more banded together and ended the war between the Bloods and Crips?

Well, maybe not, but I guess they tried with the song "We're All in the Same Gang".  Anyway, the beat was produced by Dr. Dre and it's a fun song to see all these faces together - I love the beat switch when Humpty Hump jumps on.  I actually have the album with this on it somewhere - I don't remember it being very good but this song isn't bad.  It also sparked off a few other posse cuts similar to this throughout the 90s like "Where Ya At" from the One Million Strong album.

 

Soundtrack Classics - MC Ren - Who Wanna Be the Villain?

"Who's your top ten, is it MC Ren or MC Shan?"  - Nas, "Hip Hop Is Dead"

Nas posed the question and I'm guessing the answer from most fans was neither.  Nonetheless, I've always kind of liked MC Ren's solo stuff, even though he talks an awful lot about people getting pounded in the you-know-what.  Still, when you want a dark West coast album for the winter, you can't go wrong with Ren, especially his The Villain in Black album.

Here's a song from the soundtrack he did around the same time of that album - I'm guessing this was left off  though I don't know why, as it would have fit perfectly.  I also love how the guy that created this simple video for YouTube incorporated that cover.  This is "Who Wanna be the Villain" from the soundtrack for the film Original Gangstas, which I've never seen - but it sounds horrible!