9. The CoupKill My Landlord

I was in high school. I saw The Coup’s video on BET’s Rap City. It might have actually been the video for ‘Kill My Landlord’. They were great beats; Boots [Riley] had a really interesting style. The other dude, E-Roc, provided more like, regular West Coast style of the time, and Boots was the musing philosopher voice. I just dug it immediately. It was all just really dope. It was political. It was smart. There were a lot of references to things I’d grown up around. In terms of Black revolutionary, socialist, communist type stuff. I fucked with that record immediately; the overt politics, mixed with what felt like dope West Coast hip hop. It wasn’t like Dre, but Dre wasn’t the only style of West Coast hip hop at that time.