The 50 Greatest Bay Area Rap Songs BY WILLY STALEY | JAN 26, 2011

42. Saafir "Light Sleeper"

Year: 1994
Produced By: Jay-Z (but not that one)
Album: Boxcar Sessions
Label: Qwest Records

Saafir, of Oakland's Hobo Junction crew, free associates over a dreamy, almost ambient beat. While other rappers from Oakland were talking about the amount of pussy they were getting, Saafizzle was thinking about the multitudes of personae contained within his head. The video for this song has some hilariously janky use of early green screen technology.

41. San Quinn "Shock the Party"

Year: 1996
Produced By: JT the Bigga Figga
Album: The Hustle Continues
Label: Priority/Get Low Recordz

Easily one of the Fillmore District's most widely-respected voices, and one its most prolific, San Quinn has been making music since he was a teenager, and continues to do so today. In a city not known for deft lyricists, San Quinn stands out. "Shock the Party" is full of complex rhyme schemes over a classically mobbed-out JT beat, perfect for getting low to; this was long before the Bay Area became known for its funny dancing, but San Quinn's crew, the Get Low Playaz, were known for "getting low"—walking around in a crouch while popping your collar, with both hands. It looks hilarious.

40. Too $hort "Blow The Whistle"

Year: 2006
Produced By: Lil Jon
Album: Blow the Whistle
Label: Jive

Okay, Lil Jon is capable of making a good hyphy beat. He managed to make a gray-whiskered Too $hort sound pretty damn young on this track, even as he runs down his extensive resume, and takes credit for making the word "bitch" popular—ask Dave Chapelle. This beat would become even more popular a couple years later, due to its use of a referee's whistle, when Jay-Z dissed Deshawn Stevenson over it, in retaliation for Deshawn's disparaging comments about LeBron James. Not that Hov was the first to engage in an inter-disciplinary beef with an athlete; that would be E-40, who decimated Rasheed Wallace on 1996's "Record Haters."

39. E-40 f/ Spice 1, 2Pac & Mac Mall "Dusted and Disgusted"

Year: 1995
Produced By: Mike Mosley, Sam Bostic
Album: In a Major Way
Label: Jive/Sic-Wid-It

Virtually every classic Bay Area rap album has a superb posse cut; there are few lone wolfs in the Bay. On In a Major Way, 40 Water invited East Bay legends Mac Mall, Spice 1, and 2Pac to help him tell a sinister tale of revenge, cold-hearted bitches, and slu-uh-slu-uh-slugs. While Tupac came up in the Bay Area, between Marin City (as in, Marin County) and Oakland, he spent so much of his career in Los Angeles that it's easy to forget he was a Bay Area dude. In fact, if you watch the video version, Tupac's verse is replaced by one from Celly Cel, presumably because Pac was locked up at the time. Goes to show, you don't know what you got 'til it's gone.

38. IMP f/ Cellski, Dre Dog & Chuey "Frisco"

Year: 1993
Produced By: T.C.
Album: Back in the Days
Label: In-A-Minute Records

Another posse cut, this time on the nicer side of the Bay, San Francisco. The Ill Mannered Posse (Cougnut and C-Fresh), out of SF's Lakeview neighborhood, released two of the most slept-on early '90s gangsta rap albums of all time, 1993's Back in the Days and 1995's Ill Mannered Players. This ode to the City by the Bay includes fellow Lakeview residents Cellski and Chuey, as well as Filmore's Dre Dog. You might think it doesn't include any rappers from Sunnydale because of the long-standing beef between Lakeview and the Swampy D, but it's actually because there are no good rappers from Sunnydale. Sorry.

37. "11/5" "Killahoe"

Year: 1995
Produced By: T.C.
Album: Fiendin' 4 Tha Funk
Label: Dogday Records

Bay Area rap has never been known for being fair to the fairer sex. This song is no exception, though it should be noted that 11/5, from SF's Hunters Point, doesn't mean it in the literal sense. This, like Captain Save-a-hoe, is just one of those phrases that stuck around in Bay Area rap longer than anyone would have guessed. Gloria Steinem would probably sing along with that hook, it's so catchy.

36. The Coup "Fat Cats, Bigga Fish"

Year: 1994
Produced By: Boots
Album: Genocide and Juice
Label: Wild Pitch Records/EMI

Oakland Marxist-rap duo, The Coup, are proof that revolutionary rap doesn't have to be boring. This tale of petty hustles leads up to a party where our narrator, Boots Riley, encounters the true hustlers of the world: politicians and corporate fat cats. It's powerful without being preachy. The Coup made waves when the album art for their third album, Party Music, was an image of Boots blowing up the World Trade Center. Its release date? Late September 2001. The album art was finished in June of the same year.

35. Casual "I Didn't Mean To"

Year: 1994
Produced By: Casual
Album: Fear Itself
Label: Jive

Even Bay Area backpackers were not immune to the East Bay's pimp mentality. Over a jazz saxophone solo, Casual provides a half-assed apology for banging your girl. English students: pay attention to Casual's effective use of the passive voice on the hook.

34. Lil B the Based God "Pretty Bitch"

Year: 2009
Produced By: Beat Flippaz
Album: 6 Kiss
Label: Permanent Marks

Internet phenomenon Lil B the Based God is rarely placed in the larger Bay Area context, perhaps because he collaborates and emulates other Internet-popular acts. But his self-published, self-distributed business model is a sort of update of the '90s model, just without the cassette tapes and the Cutlass to sell them out of. In "Pretty Bitch," B turns Bay Area rap misogyny on its head, sort of. B free associates about how many, and what sorts of, bitches are on his dick. But—and here's where he gets you—he's the pretty bitch, not the girls.

33. Too $hort "I'm A Player"

Year: 1993
Produced By: Dangerous Crew
Album: Get in Where You Fit In
Label: Jive

A deep, funky bassline, and Too $hort waxing philosophical about being a player. This song is somewhat despair-inducing, as fun as it is. You listen to Too $hort make a compelling case for leaving the square life behind, then you remember that you aren't Todd Shaw, and therefore, are a lame. But it sounds so good!

32. Digital Underground "Freaks Of The Industry"

Year: 1990
Produced By: The Underground
Album: Sex Packets
Label: Tommy Boy

"Freaks of the Industry" is an apt moniker for Shock G and Money B, from Oakland's Digital Underground. They weren't quite joke rap; they weren't quite sex rap; and they definitely weren't backpack rap. They were something different. And they were definitely freaks, judging from this song. The song's most famous lines come from Shock G's verse, and provide a sort of sex multiple choice test where it turns out that you're never right. In true Digital Underground fashion, this song about fucking ends with a piano solo.

31. Young Lay f/ Ray Luv and Mac Mall "All About My $Fetti"

Year: 1996
Produced By: Khayree
Album: Black 'N Dangerous
Label: Atlantic
 

Young Lay is one of the lesser-known rappers from the Crestside of Vallejo, but this song, featuring Crestside resident Mac Mall and Santa Rosa native Ray Luv, was a certified hit. Khayree's unique brand of NorCal G-Funk provides a perfect backdrop to a relatively feel-good track dedicated to the almighty dollar. Young Lay's life would not go as well as this song suggests; he was shot in the head during a botched robbery in '95, and it's a miracle he can still rap today. As the saying goes, more fetti, more problems.

30. RBL Posse "Don't Give Me No Bammer"

Year: 1992
Produced By: Black C
Album: A Lesson to be Learned
Label: In-A-Minute Records
 

Bammer means bad. Northern California doesn't do bad weed, and Hunters Point duo RBL Posse—Black C and, confusingly, Mr. C—want to make that clear. This song's hook was originally "don't give me no bammer joint, we don't smoke that shit in Hunters Point," but Black C and Mr. C made it city-wide, and created a classic, which virtually everyone who grew up in San Francisco and ever smoked weed is familiar with. Ironically, people from San Francisco aren't against smoking "nade," which makes bad weed "good" by dusting it with bug spray.

29. Mistah FAB f/ E-40, Turf Talk "Super Sic Wit It"

Year: 2005
Produced By: Droop-E
Album: Son of a Pimp
Label: Thizz Ent
 

Mistah FAB is actually a backpack rapper. He put down the backpack when he recognized hyphy's potential, joined Mac Dre's Thizz Ent, and eventually became one of the Bay's biggest stars. If it ever seems like Mistah FAB is just stringing together a bunch of hyphy-sounding things he's heard other people say, it's probably because he was doing just that. That, of course, wouldn't stop him from making this banger, along with many others. Here, he teams up with Sic-Wid-It's hottest prospect, Turf Talk, and its godfather, E-40, over a schizophrenic Droop-E beat.

28. Messy Marv "Get On My Hype"

Year: 2005
Produced By: Droop-E
Album: Bandanas, Tattoos, and Tongue Rings
Label: Scalen Muzik
 

Few Bay Area artists have seen more ups and down than San Francisco's Messy Marv, AKA the Boy Boy Young Mess. Since a brief stint in jail, Messy Marv has shed his Bay Area affiliations for The Bloods, and a mountain of cocaine. But, in 2005, Mess was down with hyphy music, even if he wouldn't admit it now. Between his nihilistic growlings, and Droop-E's almost-perfect hyphy track, this song serves as another reminder of how much fun the music was in this particular era. Also, a reminder of just how many different kinds of ecstasy there were.

27. The Pack "Vans"

Year: 2006
Produced By: Young L
Album: Skateboards 2 Scrapers
Label: Jive/Zomba Records
 

Out of nowhere, with a sound like nothing else going at the time, these skate rats from Berkeley made serious waves with this ode to Vans slip-ons, earning them a co-sign and a record deal from Oakland legend Too $hort. Now every other rapper looks like a skater, but this song came out when Dem Franchize Boyz and Mike Jones dominated the airwaves. Of course, because Bay Area rappers are cursed to wither in obscurity, MTV massacred the hook, so that they didn't offer any free advertisement to Vans.

26. Mac Dre "Feelin' Myself"

Year: 2004
Produced By: Sean T
Album: Ronald Dregan: Dreganomics
Label: Thizz Ent
 

In July 2004, Mac Dre released two albums on the same day, Genie of the Lamp and Ronald Dregan: Dreganomics. A few months later, he would be killed while on tour in Missouri. This track, along with "Get Stupid" really were the high point for Mac Dre's ecstasy-influenced hyphy sound. When Dre says he's feeling himself, he means he's on a shitload of ecstasy. In the '90s, when that drug was associated with glowsticks and JNCOs, who could have imagined that one man, Mac Dre, would introduce the drug to the world of sideshows, fifths of Hennessy, and Backwoods blunts?

25. Cellski "Livin in the Bay"

Year: 1995
Produced By: Cellski
Album: Mr. Predicter
Label: Inner City Records
 

On this banger, off his classic debut, Mr. Predicter, Cellski shows off his chops both as MC and producer. Over a sampled Spice 1 line, an eerie X-Files-esque whistle, and a chunky bassline, Cellski makes a case for how hard "San Franpsycho" can be, despite what you've heard. While quite popular locally, Cellski never got much recognition outside of the Bay Area, except for a one-second cameo is Lil Flip's video for "Sunshine," and, strangely, when he witnessed an air terror scare shortly after with the "Underwear Bomber," and his twitpics were circulated by all sorts of media organizations.

24. Spice 1 "Trigga Got No Heart"

Year: 1993
Produced By: E-A Ski
Album: 187 He Wrote
Label: Jive
 

While not as famous as another song on the soundtrack, MC Eiht's "Streiht Up Menace," Spice 1's "Trigga's Got No Heart" does just as good a job encapsulating the defiant and reckless feel of Menace II Society. In classic early '90s fashion, the East Bay Gangsta gets his fake Patois on for the cold-blooded hook. This song would later be reprised as "Killa Kali," the lead single off of Yukmouth and C-Bo's Thug Lordz album.