How the Bay Area became a rap incubator with a chip on its shoulder
As it celebrates its 50th birthday, we are mapping hip-hop's story on a local level, with more than a dozen city-specific histories of the music and culture. Click here to see the entire list.
The first song on 's seventh album is a plea for recognition. "Why They Don't F*** Wit Us," from 2002's , finds the multiplatinum Vallejo rapper airing a bevy of grievances — he's been stolen from, slept on, eternally underrated. "They never put me on the cover of " If you've talked to a certain type of Bay Area rap fan — or artist, for that matter — in the decades since, you might be familiar with this sentiment. 40 was speaking in the singular but representing for an entire class of perpetually aggrieved rap listeners, whose cries of "quit hatin' the bay!" would get so loud by the early '10s that the phrase became the name of a popular mixtape series. There's some truth in those complaints, though, even if
