West Coast Cooler

Xzibit was well on his way to becoming a fully fledged cultural icon long before he even scored his role as host on MTV's Pimp My Ride, which has rocketed him to mainstream celebrity status. Coming up through the ranks as a West Coast rapper officially endorsed by Dr Dre, his guest verse on the Doctor's second (and most recent!) album 2001 saw him welcomed into a VIP club rubbing shoulders with the likes of Eminem, 50 Cent and Snoop Dogg. He's even been immortalised in meme form – surely one of the greatest honours of our time – thanks to his Pimp My Ride role, with the 'Yo Dawg, I heard you like...' gag reproduced countless times online to describe things inside similar things. His appearance in the Eminem 'biography' pic 8 Mile (where he famously loses to Eminem in a rap battle) is clearly an embellishment on reality, but even taking such a literally dramatic fall didn't lessen his grasp on becoming a vital part of the ever extending history of West Coast rap.

“It's like you have different hip hop in different regions, nah what I'm saying?” he says. He's talking about whatever it is that has always kept the West Coast rap scene on the map, even if for a small while it did derail itself with some kind of electric dance sound, as he mentions then laughs off, using this exception to illustrate his point.

“West Coast has always had a distinctive sound and a distinctive presence,” he continues. “Like everything, the basic principle stays the same but the characters change and the faces change. The West Coast is about having a lot of pride in where we come from and having the music be a reflection of that. It's more like a movement than an individual push.”

A regular visitor to Australia, he says that this time around the trip was made easier via a detour to an unlikely place where his profile has grown considerably over the last few years.

“Yeah, I've been to Australia few times. It's a long trip from America, but thankfully this time I was in Moscow before we came here, finishing a tour with my new group Serial Killers that me, Demrick and [Cypress Hill's] B-Real are a part of.”

He's very excited when talking about the Serial Killers project, and while it's still in its earliest stages we're likely to hear a lot more about it over the next couple of years.

“It was amazing,” he says of the response so far. “We only put out one free mixtape, and we went out there to test the waters and see what it was gonna be like, and it ended up being something spectacular, so we were pleasantly surprised with the support. We sold out all the shows. In fact, Moscow is one of the places I've personally toured a lot over the last few years. I've been going back and forth on a regular basis. It's pretty cool, they are really into the music. It's just a free mixtape for now, we're gonna get back together and regroup and make some more music.”

While he has never been one to take other artists under his wing in the same way as many other rappers, a recent chance discovery has changed all this for him.

“I don't really get into the name game because I don't really give a fuck,” he laughs. “If it's music and I like it I'll pick it up. But what I'm really excited about is, I brought this kid Jon Connor to Dre and Dre signed him to Aftermath. I'm looking forward to seeing what he does in the industry. I have a very difficult ear to impress and this kid really impressed me. I found him in Flint, Michigan. I heard his music and invited him to go out on a Canadian tour with me and then I got to see all the other aspects I look for in a well rounded MC. He just released a mixtape of all Kanye West music, where he just rapped over Kanye West beats and destroyed them. He's about to release a Biggie tape so keep an eye out for that. I've never taken anyone to Dre so he took it seriously when I did.”

A surprising tidbit that fans would not be aware of is one of X's hobbies, one that is particularly relevant to Australia.

“I'm gonna take advantage of your natural resources,” he says somewhat cryptically before elaborating. “I'm going do some fishing in Broome. I've heard the fishing out there is incredible so when I heard that I was like, 'Book it in, lets go!'” he laughs. “I love fishing, man, I've been fishing since I was a kid. I get out to the ocean and I get it!”