Original Gangstas: The Untold Story of Dr. Dre, Eazy-E, Ice Cube, Tupac Shakur, and the Birth of West Coast Rap

Westhoff (Dirty South) has written another captivating chronicle in his ongoing analysis of rap and hip-hop history. This work opens with the story of Eric White, in 1985 a 21-year-old drug pusher from Compton, CA, and on his way to a career as the renamed Eazy-E. From there it's a roller-coaster ride as Westoff introduces us to Dr. Dre, Ice Cube, Tupac Shakur, Suge Knight, and a panoply of artists, players, and hangers-on in the gangsta rap scene. Central to Westhoff's research are original interviews with key figures balanced with the author's efforts to frame the music as a piece with the surrounding social and political upheaval of the time. Hip-hop may have arrived in the cultural mainstream, and it has certainly proved itself to be a huge financial success, but the process to make it so has included more than the usual amount of ambition, greed, destruction, and controversy. It's to the author's credit that he doesn't flinch in providing a rounded picture of the history of the genre, in which the danger wasn't confined to the music.