Spider Loc represents 50 Cent's best effort to replace the Game with a West Coast G-Unit affiliate. Sounds pretty good on paper, but the result is not so great. Spider sounds like a Tone Loc retread (is that where he got the name?) and thus far has produced very few memorable tracks or verses (the best probably being his guest appearance on Lloyd Banks' Rotten Apple bonus track "Life"). I can't imagine him being a major part of the West Coast rebirth, let alone righting the G-Unit ship.
Hood Surgeon is also known as Curtis Young, son of Andre Young, aka Dr. Dre. So he's got the pedigree. However, as mentioned above, we have yet to see how this whole legacy thing plays out. Hood Surgeon is taking a unique approach (by choice or by necessity?) to his rap career, building from the ground up. He is the founder and CEO of So Hood Records and has a pretty solid mixtape floating around titled The Autopsy. He claims to be going at this alone, yet everything about him seems derivative of Dre, from his themes to his name to his "monster" sound as a producer. It will be interesting to see if the general public gives him a chance.
Eastwood is a talented artist that was formerly a member of Death Row, where he sat on the shelf for years before being liberated by Game, who signed him to Black Wall Street and made him part of the group M.O.B. which combines Eastwood with rappers Problem (hailing from Compton) and Techneic (a Mac 10 protege) and looks to position itself as a new age Dogg Pound. But can Eastwood really fill the Snoop Dogg role in that scenario? I doubt it.
Crooked I is another rapper that got put on ice for a few years at Death Row but now looks to emerge as a West Coast force. The Long Beach artist is known in certain circles as a talented ghostwriter with some real ability. He recently floated a song called "Say Dr. Dre" that appears to be a track originally destined for Dre's Detox album, since all Crooked I's verses are delivered as if he himself were Dre. The message seems to be, "Hey, this is yet another hit I wrote but since it might not see the light of day, I'll go ahead and throw it out there." The only problem? Dre's not much of a rapper, but I would have definitely preferred this track coming from the good Doctor, regardless of who wrote it. That doesn't bode well for Crooked I.
Article comments
1 - Brian Raney
I definitely agree that Bishop Lamont is going to be the best up and comer. I would put Crooked I up there behind him. I know Crooked has been around for quite some time, but his debut cd should come out this year and hit strong. In my mind, Crooked I is the best lyrically. It's frustrating that all he has dropped is mixtapes. I think Glasses Malone is pretty overrated, but that production might help him out. Can't believe all those producers that Bishop claims he has. That should be unbelievable.