Investigative journalist Ben Westhoff’s timely, provocative, and fact-based amalgam Original Gangstas strikes a bull’s-eye on numerous approaches, particularly as a historical document. He begins by taking Compton/South Central Los Angeles’ sociopolitical temperature in the Eighties, rap’s rise accompanying gang warfare and crack cocaine exploding across America. Police tensions at an all-time high throughout that decade and the next, time and place proved a powerful platform for a new range of culturally relevant voices emerging through the tear gas and hail of bullets. Though the histories of Tupac Shakur and N.W.A. take up most of the ink, Westhoff ensures that critical figures – former Ruthless co-head Jerry Heller and Suge Knight, specifically – are documented through links previously unmade. Even knowledgeable hip-hop scholars will come across abundant “aha” moments, such as oft-forgotten early Ruthless Records signee Above the Law’s 1993 album Black Mafia Life being the original G-funk record – not Dr. Dre’s top-selling The Chronic. Dre (Andre Young) is cast in a dark light as the book proceeds, Westhoff detailing his history of violence against women, which is often swept under the proverbial rug by fans and mainstream media. The book also runs down timelines such as Eazy-E’s and theories surrounding the death of the Notorious B.I.G., who was dispatched in a senseless coastal rap war. Original Gangstas pushes aside cheap rumor for five years of research.
Original Gangstas: Dr. Dre, Eazy-E, Ice Cube, Tupac Shakur, and the Birth of West Coast Rap
by Ben WesthoffHachette Books, 421 pp., $16
This article appears in June 16 • 2017.
