Rap Radar

dark sound, blazed a new trail for West Coast rap. The producer’s

sample-heavy, New York-influenced beats made the group’s first two

album hip-hop classics, and before long he was one of the genre’s most

in-demand beatmakers, working with heavyweights like Ice Cube and

mentoring newer Soul Assassins artists like Funkdoobiest, House of Pain

and a young Alchemist. The rise of the West Coast underground scene in

the ’90s owes a massive debt to Muggs’ unorthadox work, which proved

that music that was decidedly not g-funk could still represent Cali

correct. I compiled a grip of must-have Muggs classics for this week’s

but one guy that deserves to be mentioned in the same breath is Kevin “DJ Battlecat” Gilliam.

This dude is g-funk in the flesh. Amazing. Originally a radio DJ at

KDAY, he blew up as a producer in ’93 with Domino’s huge hits “Getto

Jam” and “Sweet Potato Pie,” adding a cooled-out, jazzy R&B flavor

album. From what I know, this is one of the reasons that sparked a

small beef between T.I. and Ross for a little while (I could be wrong

because that’s hearsay) because T.I. eventually ended up snatching the

beat. Either way, I remember this song got leaked on a DJ EFN mixtape

- and I remember that Slip-N-Slide was fuming and mad that the song

leaked a little prematurely. And also, you hear in the song “99 Jamz

show me some love.” This was at a time when Ross and 99 Jamz were at

odds and had a little bit of a scuffle over airplay issues and if I

remember correctly, 99 Jamz made it a point to NOT play any Ross

records at time. Later that changed as “Hustlin’”, Ross’ breakthrough

single, was debuted on 99 Jamz via DJ Khaled’s nightshow and the rest