West West Ya'll

This summer will see releases from many well known and up and coming West Coast's MCs.

The legendary Ice Cube will be dropping his eight solo album entitled "Raw Footage." From what I heard so far, Cube can't do no wrong with this album. Here is the latest video from the album, "Do Ya Thang." Raw Footage drops August 19.
Do Ya Thang (Download Link)


The Game will be releasing his 3rd album L.A.X. late August. The latest record to find it's way to the internet is the 1500 or Nuthin produced "Dope Boys" featuring Travis Barker (of Blink 182/+44 fame) holdin it down on drums.
The Game feat. Travis Barker- Dope Boys (Download Link)



Hailing From Carson, Bishop Lamont is the latest Protégé from Dr. Dre. After making serious noise with a series of mixtapes over the last two years, His debut, The Reformation is slated for a November 2008 release. This is the first single off the album, "Grow Up," produced by The Good Doctor. I love the message in this song.

Bishop Lamont- Grow Up (Produced By Dr. Dre) (Download Link)

"Niggas' still crusin' Crenshaw at 36/Ya wife at home, you wasting gas, tryin' to bust a bitch/At club, acting young, wear the wrong shit/Thinkin' you Chris Brown but you look like Keith Sweat bitch." LMFAO!!!! This is real talk.


Last but not least is Producer/Musician/MC Terrace Martin. Growing up in Westside section of L.A (Inglewood, Crenshaw, Slauson area, Culver City, according to him. Which are some of my own stomping grounds), and attending Locke High School, Terrance has been a crucial part of Snoop in-house production team and touring band, and has released his own mixtape entitled Signal Flow. He preparing his next tape with DJ Drama entitled Locke High. The first track of it is "Bounce Rock Skate" featuring Snoop, Kurupt, and a show stealing verse From DJ Quik.

I got ahold of this song late April and have been wearing out ever since. As a matter of fact, I loved this song so much, I played the DJ Skee tagged version at a Basketball game I was DJing at school about a week later, and I NEVER.... EVER play tagged versions of songs at gigs. Here is what went behind the track according to Terrace via a interview by Dubcnn.com

Terrace Martin- Bounce, Rock, Stake (feat. Snoop, Quik, And Kurupt) (Download Link)

Dubcnn: Tell us about the "Bounce, Rock, Skate" track with Snoop Dogg, Kurupt and DJ Quik, how was the recording session to that?
T.M: The recording went like this. First all I had was the drums, just "boom, clap, boom, clap", you know? I kind of wanted to do a type of record that when you closed your eyes you could picture going to a dope dope club in New York City late at night, where it's real small, and all you hear is claps with phases on it and big bass drums going off. I had that picture in my head and I wanted you to see that through the sound. That's all I had on my drum machine for like a month, "boom, clap, boom, clap".

Then, I got heavily influenced by that Kanye West album man. Listening to that and how he experimented with vintage keyboards. I've always played vintage keyboards on everything I do, but they used a lot of different keyboards on the album, like they used the JP or the Jupiter. So I went and bought those keyboards, cause it gave that "Flashing Lights" kind of vibe, you know what I mean? Futuristic music but still sounding like 1981-82, feel good music! So after I laid the keyboards, everybody came to my house and did their vocals, except for Kurupt. On the last day when we were doing that record, me and Kurupt had to go to Atlanta, so we went out there to work with Snoop and DJ Drama.

So Kurupt's is the only verse that wasn't done at my house, we actually did that in Atlanta, but I was still in the room producing the record. That's just a well produced, very fun record and everybody gave it their all. Did you hear that DJ Quik verse on there? Oh my god! I mean I see the blogs where everybody talks, some people love it and some people say "Oh he sounds gay!" You know what though? Hands down, I think that is an excellent verse and Quik served it!

Currently, Terrace is working with fellow L.A native Murs (Murs For President coming soon!!!), The Game, and the legendary Quincy Jones.

Keep ya eyes and ears open... the West is the rise again... West, West Ya'll.

And on that note... I'm out.