East Vs West Hip Hop

For those of you who are not familiar with Hip Hop, it has several sides. The two sides Hip Hop that tends to be the most infamous is the West Coast and the East Coast. Though some people might think that rap is just rap, hip hop actually has different styles according to coast or personality of the emcee.

East Coast is known to be the originators of hip hop. It was at the East Coast were hip hop started. Most of East Coast hip hop is based on the fundamentals, the lyrics and break beats. Upon hear an emcee, it can quite easy to tell if he or she is from New York. A rapper from New York would tend to be very lyrical. Example of some fine New York rappers include Nas, The Notrious B.I.G, Jay-Z, KRS-ONE, and many others. These emcee's lyrics tend to be really thought provoking and stays very close to the foundation of true hip hop. Not New York artists tend to be lyrically gifted but they are also different when it comes to music production. The beats from East Coast producers would contain sampling, and other traditional forms of hip hop production.

The West Coast whoever is a different story. While the East Coast as been known for originating hip hop, the West coast has been known for inovating it. The West Coast started gangster rap. Gangster rap tends to be less traditional than the music from the East Coast. Gangster rap uses funky beats, and would tend to be more straight forward than lyrical. For most of the time, lyrics of gangster rappers would revolve around life in poverty and mischieves acts committed by the rappers.Excellent examples of West Coast emcees include, Ice Cube, Eazy-E, Tupac, and Ice T. Most of the noticable West Coast rap would come Los Angeles. There are other parts of the West Coast, such as the Bay Area, that would contribute musically. Bay Area rappers such as Too Short, E-40, Mac Dre, and Del tha Funkee Homosapien all part of the West Coast.


The balance for hip hop dominance is constantly shifting. Not all the money and power comes from one coast. The Coasts are constantly battling each other for Hip Hop supremecy. When Hip Hop first started, Hip Hop belonged to the East Coast. Then in 1988, when the West Coast group, N.W.A, dropped Straight Outta Compton, then the attention when directly to West Coast. From that time till 1993, the West Coast owned Hip Hop. Ice Cube, Dr. Dre, and Snoop Dogg's G-Funk made people forget about the East Coast during that time period. Then in 1994, New York emcee's Nas and The Notorious B.I.G. release albums that shifted the power back to the East Coast. Now, mainstream hip hop is currently being overrun by the South by their Crunk style music.