Xzibit On Why West Coast Rap Is Still Relevant

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.”

More.