Back in ‘93, I heard Brotha Lynch Hung for the first time. I was 13 years old and got a ride home from one of my brother’s friends after playing in my youth hoops league on a Friday night. I always liked riding with this dude because he had the sick sound system in the whip and had a good ear for music. He pulled out a cassette from his Case Logic cassette tape holder and put it in his deck. He turned the volume up super loud and the rest was history.
The track was “Had 2 Gat Ya” off of the EP, 24 Deep and hearing the beat along with this Lynch’s voice and delivery mesmerized me. The drive from the rec center to my home was less than a mile but I wish I lived 30 miles away so I could have heard more of this cassette tape. The moment I hopped out of his whip, the only thing I could think about was Brotha Lynch Hung and his cassette tape, 24 Deep. The next day I went to The Wherehouse to go look for the tape. I looked through the “B’s in the cassette racks but couldn’t find it. I went up to the cash register and asked for it and they had to look it up… I honestly think it was a big yellow pages type book they looked in? Regardless, they had to place a special order for it to get it into inventory. They told me to come back in a couple of weeks…. I would go every few days and ask if the order came in yet… Yup, I was a fiend. Then one day… It had arrived. They handed me Brotha Lynch Hung’s 24 Deep and I bought it right then and there. Ripped off the packaging once outside and threw that cassette in my walkman. After the intro, “24 Deep” began…. whoa.
I listened to this cassette ALLLLLL OF THE TIME… At school, there were a few kids I could bond with about 90s gangsta rap music. My 24 Deep cassette and knowledge earned me quick street cred and let the real heads know that I was a real rap cat. So we would all try to put each other onto other rap that was dope. That’s when I got introduced to a rapper named C-Bo and his track, “Gas Chamber”. The album cover for his album, Gas Chamber was just as cool as Lynch’s for 24 Deep so it instantly caught and held my attention. This dude C-Bo would rap too… “Gas Chamber” was a smash.
Not too long after they put me on C-Bo, they told me I had to listen to this rapper named X-Raided. X-Raided was actually down with Brotha Lynch Hung but I had no idea. All I knew was that 24 Deep cassette but now that somebody told me that this dude X-Raided was down with Lynch I had to hear him. The first track I heard was “Still Shootin” and again… this dude could rap.
At some point, I learned that these 3 rappers were all from Sacramento, CA. Living in San Diego, I obviously knew about the 90’s Los Angeles Hip Hop Scene and of course I knew about the Bay Area Rap Scene but Sacramento? Brotha Lynch Hung, C-Bo, X-Raided… All dope… All from Sacramento… Then, in February of 1995, the new Brotha Lynch Hung album had arrived. Season of da Siccness was now in record stores and everybodyyyyy was talking about the track, “Rest in Piss”… Dre and Snoop of course got their love as well as E-40 and Spice 1 but Brotha Lynch was a totally different lane. He was an underground rapper with dope beats that he made and a rap delivery that was so damn cold. “Rest in Piss” got big at our school pretty quickly. All of my homies knew, “It’s EBK, everyday all day to the day I die...”
Then came “Locc 2 Da Brain” which again… everybody seemed to know. Who was that girl rapping on the first verse? Who was that dude rappin near the end? Lynch’s production was top notch and he had cats around him who could spit as well… Shout out to Zigg Zagg on that first verse which back then, was easily one of the best verses from a female rapper. And the dude with the deep voice near the end was Mr. Doctor.
I was in the 9th grade when Season of da Siccness dropped and this was around the time of some friends getting cars. You get in somebody’s car and you had a good chance of hearing this album smashing. Then a few months later, while watching Rap City in the afternoon on channel 41, I heard a new C-Bo track called “Birds in the Kitchen”… E-40 was on the track with C-Bo which I thought was super cool. Where I grew up in San Diego, C-Bo wasn’t as big as Lynch but the gangsta rap heads repped C-Bo pretty hard. His album Tales from the Crypt dropped in June of 1995. Like Lynch, C-Bo’s voice and flow was pretty much untouchable.
I was such a big fan of Brotha Lynch Hung at the time that I learned all about the record label he was on, Black Market Records. Back in the Mid90s, I was starting to see that there were record labels (Death Row, Sick Wid It, No Limit, Rap-A-Lot) where if you saw their logo and name on the back of the album, you knew the project would be good. Black Market became one of those labels as well so when they dropped Mr. Doctor’s debut album, you just knew to drop that $15 - $17 on the CD…. Setripn Bloccstyle thooooo??? Whoa… Yup, another one that we all bumped when it dropped in 1995. Lynch was behind most of the production so you knew the beats would be dope. And Mr. Doc’s voice was perfection. “Bloccstyle” was crazy then and is still crazy.
90s Sacramento Gangsta Rap was so dope. Everything I heard was crazy… and then X-Raided’s new album, Xorcist dropped at the end of ‘95 and it was over a pay phone from jail? What?!??! He was in jail where he was implicated for a murder because of lyrics in his ‘92 album, Psycho Active. When he claimed innocence in tracks like ”Deuce 5 to Life”, I believed every word he said because he sounded so sincere in his delivery. But X-Raided over the pay phone from jail again had everyyyyyyyyybodyyyyyyyyyy talking at school.
In early 1996, I went over to my homie George’s pad and he had a new CD of a rapper named Hollow Tip I had never heard of. Hollow Tip?? Yup… Another rapper out of Sacramento, CA. And I’ll never forget George and his little brother Jerry making me sit with them so they could play “No More Brains” and “Warlocc (R.I.P)” for me. Sacramento just wasn’t losing from the years of ‘92 - ‘96 and Hollow Tip had something to say about who was the best rapper out of Sacramento in the 90’s. The ‘96 album, Takin No Shortz is great. Many of yall probably don’t know it but you need to… Hollow Tip. “No More Brains”… Here you go.
With 90’s rap out of Sacramento having so much buzz, we were all in a rush to try to find other rappers from the 916 that we didn’t know about. Sicx was Lynch’s brother and he had an album that was really hard to find called Dead 4 Life. Sicx had a dope feature on Season of da Siccness and was also on Xorcist but how did I not know he had dropped Dead 4 Life on Black Market Records?!?! This came out in 1995 too? The song “Momma Crack” is one that really hit me… I’ll end here on Sicx for reason you may or may not know but I can’t write an article about 90’s Sacramento and not include the Triple Sicx Bounty.
And then we got Gangsta Dre… GANGSTA DRE… If you build a Mt. Rushmore of Sacramento rappers, Gangsta Dre is on there for sure. And the fact that he dropped Gang Banging Poetry in ‘95 too is crazy. “I Do My Dirt All By My Lonely” was so legit… So was “Mandatory Murder” and “Sacramento Summertime”… Gangsta Dre’s flow was right there with Brotha Lynch, C-Bo, X-Raided, and Mr. Doctor. But Gangsta Dre had beef with Black Market Records and Lynch. A damn shame too because Lynch and Gangsta Dre recording with each other back then would have been crazyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy.
You also had other groups like Cold World Hustlers and rappers like Be Gee, Young Joker, Marvaless, Lunasicc, First Degree, and Homicide out of Sacramento. And I know I’m missing a bunch too because Sacramento was that loaded in the mid-90s. SO MUCH TALENT OUT OF SACRAMENTO IN THE NINETIES! I just had to write an article about the subject because I wanted to do some research myself.
In 1996 it seemed like the mainstream was starting to finally recognize to Sacramento’s greatness which is why it was so great seeing C-Bo get those features on 2Pac’s All Eyes on Me Album. I read that 2Pac was a big fan of C-Bo which comes as no surprise. Here’s “Ain’t Hard to Find” and “Tradin’ War Stories” if you haven’t heard them it in a minute.
1997 was the last notable year of Sacramento Hip Hop in my opinion. And while I know Gangsta Dre dropped Inner City Poet in ‘98 and Hollow Tip had his follow up around ‘99 I just don’t think Sacramento had the luster it once did in the Mid90s. But in 1997, it was fitting that both Lynch and C-Bo dropped dope albums to sign off an amazing era in gangsta rap history all from a town where nobody expected it from. Who knows what would have happened if Brotha Lynch and Black Market / Cedric Singleton were able to get along. I still remember going to Fam Mart aka Fam Bam back in 1997 to go get Lynch’s album, Loaded a few days before it dropped. Loaded was a dope album too! Lynch and Phonk Beta’s production was super dope… Lynch had matured with the delivery and lyrical content which was a great evolution to see. But why couldn’t there be any music videos? As a whole, why does Lynch only have 1 or 2 music videos from this era? The rap game dropped the ball with Lynch.
While 90s Sacramento Gangsta Rap will always have a cult following, these artists deserved more. Put some of these guys in the Bay or L.A. and they would have had more spins. I know Lynch got love outside of Cali but can the same be said for C-Bo? Gangsta Dre? Hollow Tip? Mr. Doctor? No way… The Memphis Rap sound gets love still to this day by people outside of Memphis… Why doesn’t the same happen with 90’s Sacramento Gangsta Rap? Oh well… It’s our special moment of time to listen to whenever we need to go back. This article was super fun to write and I know I’ll continue to look for more Sacramento rappers to listen to. I know I didn’t even mention Loki and he is another one who was too damn nice on the mic. It’s funny how one day hopping into my brother’s friend’s car and having him play a Brotha Lynch track for me could have led me here… But here I am…
and here is the 90’s Sacramento Gangsta Rap playlist for yall to listen to. Please drop other rappers in the comments that I missed!