West Coast rap — also called West Coast hip-hop, West Side rap or California rap — is the sound that came out of Los Angeles, Compton, Long Beach, South Central and the San Francisco Bay Area from the mid-1980s on. Ice-T and Too $hort laid the groundwork; N.W.A's Straight Outta Compton (1988) launched gangsta rap as a national force; and Dr. Dre's The Chronic (1992) defined G-funk — the slow, synth-and-funk-sample sound that ran the '90s.

The map keeps widening: Chicano rap from East LA (Kid Frost, Cypress Hill), the Bay Area's independent economy and the hyphy movement (E-40, The Federation), and a modern generation — Kendrick Lamar, Nipsey Hussle, YG, Mustard — carrying it forward.

West On My Back is a growing archive of it: West Coast rap music videos from the classics to new 2026 drops, the artist roster, and the DJs and producers who built the sound.