screenshot from Project Poppa's "Take Off" video
I’m an avid reader of YouTube comments. Most of the time they’re pretty useless - Internet gangbangers and trolls tend to take up the most space. But every now and then, the comments provide a service where professional critiques fall short, illuminating the context in a way that feels closer to the music itself. Recently, an argument about the origins of a sound that is growing in popularity has pervaded the YouTube comment sections of rap videos from Oakland and Detroit. The similarities between the rap music coming out of the two cities is undeniable, but the the development of the sound that has been popularized by artists like Doughboyz Cashout, Pablo Skywalkin, and Bandgang is more complex than a breakdown of regional barriers or a simple case of biting.
Despite its location some two-thousand odd miles west of the Motor City, Oakland is in many ways an unofficial part of the Rust Belt. Both cities saw huge influxes of Black migrants during the first and second Great Migration and both cities once had healthy economies that were based on manufacturing (the largest GM plant on the West Coast was located in Oakland until 1963). The closing of factories, urban renewal, and the War on Drugs damaged many American cities, but few were hit harder than Detroit and Oakland, with crime rates soaring and, in the case of Detroit, blight and population decline. Both cities have also contributed immensely to American popular culture: Motown had probably the single greatest impact on pop music in the 20th century, and Oakland acts like Sly & the Family Stone and Tower of Power helped to radicalize the genre of funk.Â
The rap connection between the two regions began in the early 1990s with MC Breed and DFC, a Flint, Michigan group who became the first Midwestern act to achieve any sort of commercial success with their 1991 single “Ain’t No Future in Yo Frontin’”. The track, which reached #66 on the Billboard Hot 100, is a G-funk record that’s built on the same portamento saw wave synthesizer lead as much of Dr. Dre’s early work. Breed moved to L.A. shortly after the release of his solo record 20 Below, where he linked up with D.O.C. and Dr. Dre who were in the process of recording The Chronic. Breed’s next album, which was produced by G-funk maestro Colin Wolfe, spawned the 2Pac-assisted hit “Gotta Get Mine”. But the highlights of his career came in 1995 after meeting Too $hort and becoming affiliated with $hort’s Dangerous Crew. Shorty B, the bassist and producer behind all of $hort’s 90s classics, appears in the credits for Breed’s highest charting album Funkafied. In a 2008 interview with DubCNN, Breed remembered, “[$hort] was the key to everything! $hort flew me down to Oakland, fed me a gang of dank, and we just took it from there.”Â
While Breed paved the way for Midwestern rappers to break out of the region, it wasn’t until a few years later that the Detroit sound as we now know it would begin to develop. The Street Lord’z - a westside 7 Mile rap crew composed of more than ten members that included Blade Icewood, K-Doe, and Street Lord Juan - dropped the street classic Platinum Rolees Don’t Tic Toc in 1999. The album draws heavily from the Bay Area mob sound and features verses from Too Short, B-Legit, and Spice-1. Sonically, Street Lord’z bear many similarities to Mob Figaz, whose debut album came out the same year. Neither Platinum Rolees nor C-Bo’s Mob Figaz include many distinct samples; instead the production relies on syncopated bass lines, synth and piano melodies, and an emphasis on trunk-rattling drum patterns. The rappers share the mic generously, bragging about recent successes and focusing intently on their respective come-ups.Â
In the early 2000s, Detroit’s underground rap scene was dominated by Street Lord’z and, a group from the other side of the city, the Eastside Chedda Boyz. The Chedda Boyz were a similarly styled collective who had generated local momentum based off of their 2001 album Makin’ Chedda On the Eastside. The album boasted Bay Area guest spots of its own from B-Legit, Richie Rich, and Mac Shawn as well as two verses from MC Breed. Eastside Chedda Boyz sound combined the same elements of Bay Area mob music with New Orleans’ bounce-influenced production style. The two groups were friendly, and even featured on each other’s songs, until jealousy over local success and an argument about the true origin of the name “Chedda Boyz” caused a beef that claimed the lives of Blade Icewood and Eastside Chedda Boyz leader Wipeout. Both groups produced Detroit street anthems that would serve as blueprints for the future of Detroit rap and paved the way for Doughboyz Cashout to expand beyond the city’s limits with a similar sound.Â
What has transpired in the last decade is a little more difficult to parse. The Hyphy Movement came and went with little commercial success, but the sound echoed back into the mainstream through DJ Mustard and singles like Yo Gotti’s “Act Right”. Artist’s like the Jacka, J Stalin, and, more recently, HD and Mozzy have kept the mob sound very much alive in Northern California. Doughboyz Cashout continued where early 2000s Detroit crews left off, but have found more national success than their predecessors. The Internet has allowed for regional collaboration in an entirely different capacity: Detroit artists like Pablo Skywalkin and BandGang have huge followings in the Bay Area and have shot videos in Oakland and recorded with up-and-coming Oakland rap acts like Project Poppa and Trill Youngins. These Detroit artists have found more viral success on YouTube than their counterparts in the Bay, but the sound is almost identical. Perhaps this is a case of young Bay rappers trying to emulate the online successes of Detroit artists, but it seems only right that this decades-long trend should continue.Â
