This week on Tuesday Reviewsday, Oliver Wang from Soul-Sides.com shares some of his favorite hip-hop tracks from artists whose L.A. roots run deep.

Artist: MURS
Album: A Strange Journey Not the Unimaginable

Lo-Fi Nights 

https://youtu.be/Sr8BUvx04ws?t=26s

Midtown

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAxqZHMoavA

Oliver Wang says:

Midtown’s finest returns with his 18th solo album (29th if we include collaborations) and while “his most personal yet” sounds like a cliche, he gets into some real-life stuff on here including his divorce, his new wife, the stillborn child they had together. MURS' lyrical style has always been straightforward. I think of it as journalistic except it’s inwardly focused. He’s clearly not afraid of talking about his own life through a very candid lens. 

Artist: Snoop + B.Slade
Album:  Bible of Love

Pain

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuaA0me3rEs

Oliver Wang says:

When people heard Snoop was doing a gospel album, it invited snickers, primarily because it came from someone who just put out a reggae album as Snoop Lion a few years back. But this gospel album is really good.

This isn’t Snoop singing or rapping about the lord as much as it is him inviting incredible talents onto his album and acting as an executive producer. He’s the Quincy Jones here, not Michael Jackson. 

This song features B.Slade, who got his start in contemporary gospel and, in recent years, has branched off into R&B. For this project, however, Snoop managed to convince him to return to his roots. 

Artist: Thundercat + OG Ron C and the Chopstars
Album: Drank
Song: Drink Dat

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oj3wohpMfIg

Oliver Wang says:

Thundercat’s music already can sound surreal and a bit under the influence, but on this new remix project, his 2017 album, Drunk, gets the Houston chopped and screwed treatment via OG Ron C and the Chopstars. 

The new album is called "Drank," and it’s very much in the style of the late DJ Screw who pioneered the “screwed and chopped”  production style, where you take a song, slow it way down and then cut it up. It works really well.