Beyond Boundaries pt. 1: The History of SD Street Gangs and Gangsta Ern’s Political Raps

June 13, 2011 by SDRaps.com Guest 2 Comments


Here’s something a little bit different for you this week. Mychal Odom is currently a professor of history at the University of Texas Pan American. However, hailing from Long Beach and spending 11 years in San Diego (he obtained his bachelors and masters degrees at USD), his primary research interest is the history of Southern California gangsta rap. He recently composed a lengthy essay entitled “Beyond Boundaries: The History, Culture and Politics of San Diego Gangsta Rap.” We’ll be looking at three two select excerpts from his essay this week.

The first excerpt details the history of street gangs in San Diego and examines the socio-political aspects of Gangsta Ern’s music. The second excerpt available here talks about Complex of the E-Mortal Gang and his critique of police brutality. If you’d like to read the rest of the essay, you can download the entire essay by clicking here.

… the proliferation of local Bloods and Crips gangs—as well as out of town cliques from Los Angeles—formed the impetus for San Diego gangsta rap. According to Perry, drug dealing (and gang banging) as metaphor reflected an actual category of human existence as well as providing a symbolic method of communicating a kind of power within the hood, an overwhelmingly powerless context, and an exploitation of the power created by fear of the ghetto by outsiders (thug mimicry).

Street gangs are just as much a part of San Diego’s recent history as it is Los Angeles County’s. While San Diego street gangs and party crews existed before the 1970s, the first Crips and Bloods appear in the early 1970s. The East San Rapper and East Dago Mob Crip Lil CS explained that gangs are nothing new to San Diego in an interview he stated:

Muthafuckas underestimating Daygo, we got some heat out here, you know, muthafuckas been on that gangsta shit out here for the longest, you know people ain’t heard about Daygo that much besides Jayo [Felony] but they don’t really know how it is, you know what I mean? But there’s been Bloods and Crips out here almost as long as L.A. had em, you know L.A. started like in the late 60′s, Daygo’s first gangstas was prolly like 72, 73 or so, so we grew up in that shit just like they did.

The first gangs in San Diego were mostly Crips, while Blood gangs began to appear later on. Gangs appeared in San Diego via a Los Angeles County Probation Department effort titled “Operation Transfer.” Read more of this post

Filed under Features Tagged with

Throwback Raps: Gangsta Ern’s 2 The Hard Way on Youtube

January 31, 2011 by Quan Vu 2 Comments

Gangsta Ern had another cassette before Up Against It called 2 The Hard Way. Youtuber lamont61975 just recently uploaded some tracks from there onto Youtube. Check out a couple more after the jump. Read more of this post

Filed under Throwback Raps Tagged with

Interview: ICB of Vicious Beat Posse talks SD Rap History, pt. 3

July 17, 2010 by Quan Vu 4 Comments


In part 3 of our talk with ICB, member of old school San Diego rap groups DBX and Vicious Beat Posse, ICB speaks on his work in the local San Diego scene in the 1990s, working with the likes of Gangsta Ern, Orko Eloheim, Damu and Black Mikey. If you missed either of them, check out part 1 and part 2 of this interview. After you’re done, move onto part 4 to find out what ICB has been up to since.

SDRaps.com: You were doing work behind the scenes. How long did that go on? Are you still doing work now?
ICB: The last work I’d say took place in 1994. And that was pretty much it. I had gotten behind in the scene after the Vicious Beat Posse thing. Local people know this but I was extremely instrumental–one of the key players–in Gangsta Ern’s project. I remember: Ern and them, they were never into the hip-hop. Ern and them was pop-locking, but that was in the early ’80s, ’83, ’82. Because Ern was like 6 years older than myself. So they were pop-locking and whatnot. But when ’88 came or ’89 when we was doing our thing, they saw us and was like, “Check out these little young niggas. Check ‘em out, they trying to be rap stars … ” You know, kinda poking fun at us in a little way. But they were full-fledged out there in the streets. And they came to me asking, “Wassup with the studio?” Because at the time in the late ’80s, we were the only cats in real studios working at the studio. It wasn’t one of those “somebody got an SP-1200 and an 808 and a cassette player with the Record button with the microphone tilted toward the speaker.” None of that stuff, we were in the full-fledged, animated boards, we’re mastering our drums. I mean, we’re doing it big. And they wanted us to bring them to the studio.

And see in my mind, I was like, “Man, it’ll be good to bring the homies to the studio.” But I’m thinking if we bring the homies to the studio, they finna rob the joint. It ain’t gonna be no more studio after that. Read more of this post

Filed under Features, Interviews Tagged with , , , , , ,

Throwback Raps: Gangsta Ern – Up Against It

May 27, 2010 by Quan Vu 10 Comments


Gangsta Ern “Up Against It”
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Gangsta Ern “Dedication”
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Gangsta Ern “I’m That Nigga”
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Gangsta Ern “The Battle”
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Let’s say this is the first footnote to part 1 of the Black Mikey interview. According to Black Mikey, Gangsta Ern was one of the first rappers out of San Diego to put something out on tape, way back in 1989 (though possibly not THE first; Steven Flex dates DBX’s “The Money” back to 1988 when speaking on his incredible San Diego History Mix). This is a maxi single, with two full songs, a freestyle, and a hilarious skit. It’s full of solid beatdown raps with a strong, early West Coast g-funk flavor, naturally. Unfortunately, Gangsta Ern was killed only a few years later and we’ll never know what he could have become.

RIP Gangsta Ern.

Filed under Throwback Raps Tagged with

Interview: Black Mikey & San Diego Rap History, pt. 1

May 26, 2010 by Quan Vu 18 Comments

Black Mikey is an OG in the San Diego rap game with roots going back before anyone even knew that San Diego rap existed. Having recently gotten out of jail, he’s now risen from the grave and seems as ready as ever to rejuvenate the San Diego rap scene. Thankfully, Black Mikey took some time out first to school us on San Diego rap history. When you’re done, continue on to part 2 of the Black Mikey interview here.

SDRaps.com: How’d you get into hip-hop yourself?
Black Mikey: Honestly, I didn’t get into hip-hop, it got into me. I won’t even actually say what song. It was a number of songs that I could point you to that started me in that direction. But it was music in general that fascinated me from the gate. I didn’t even know anything about rap music until …… Fuck it, if we’re gonna be honest, I’m like a grandaddy in this shit anyway. 1978: “Rapper’s Delight” came out. I was like 8-9 years old. When it came on, I was like, “I could do that shit.” I started doing it and then evolved as it evolved.

But back then, we didn’t give a fuck about no record deals, contracts. All we cared about was fucking a motherfucker up in the hallways who had the hottest 16. Whether you could beat on your chest and spit your verse or if you read it off paper, you had to do away with your foes in the hallways and then it got talked about it and it exploded out into the streets after school. And then we were doing dances like the Jackie Robinson. All the YMCA’s and Boy’s Clubs in the area. A lot of us that are gang members now were breakdancers and pop-lockers and DJs, spray painting on walls and all kinds of shit, first. Everybody’s neighborhood got breakdancers, pop-lockers, DJ’s, beatsmiths, emcees, graffiti artists that’s still from their hoods and reptable. Hip-hop has kinda ingrained itself into the underbelly of Southeast San Diego as well.

SDRaps.com: You’re from San Diego right? Because I think most rappers not from New York got up onto it later.
Black Mikey: In all actuality, a lot of us used to try to say we were from New York. When we were younger, we used to try to watch the “Wildstyle” videos. Prince Whipperwhip used to come through here. It’s a military city. So a lot of dudes from the East Coast was from the military and was related to a lot of dudes that was in the game on the East Coast, from Chicago, from Down South. So with San Diego being a military city, we was open, directly networking with these type of people by nature.

Because we had 4-5 Park. Back in the days, DJ’s used to call my boy, Silky C–a blind DJ–they used to come DJ. They’d have booths, they used to sell food, dance contests, everything used to go on at this park. But by this being the place where a lot of people in the military hung out, it was all walks of life running through here. People from the East Coast, the West Coast, Down South, from outside the United States–it was like a conglomerate. And it circulated. So we got all of the music–the BLS, KIIS 98.7 tapes–from back then with Chuck Chillout, Red Alert, Mr. Magic’s Rap Attack. A lot of that shit was going on, we was getting that shit. When Faizon Love wasn’t Big Worm, when he was just Faizon with the kangol on and the fake “Faizon” name belt, rocking the Lee jeans.

And it was fun! We used to play the game, “Yeah, I’m from New York, son!” A lot of used to do it and we used to emcee like them. And then …… a new dawn came. And we started saying, “Shit, well maybe we can sound like ourselves.” Read more of this post

Filed under Features, Interviews Tagged with , , , , , ,