Andre Nickatina - Fillmoe (divshare)
Andre Nickatina - Killa Whale (divshare)
Andre Nickatina - Cobra Status (divshare)
From 2000's "The Daiquiri Factory":
Andre Nickatina - The Daiquiri Factory (divshare)
Andre Nickatina - Rumppa Bum Bum (divshare)
From 2003's "Conversation With a Devil":
Andre Nickatina - A Yo (divshare)
The first time I'd ever heard of San Francisco's Andre Nickatina/Dre Dog was when I moved to the Bay Area in 2000. We were staying at a house in San Rafael and on one of my first days there I rifled through a stack of CDs to find that I didn't recognize at least half the artists, who were all Cali-based: I knew Del and DJ Quik but E-40, Keak da Sneak, and JT the Bigga Figga sounded like totally made-up names for a movie about fictional rappers. "Who's Dre Dog?" I asked. "Is that like, poor man's Dr. Dre?" The owner of said CDs just looked at me with a mixture of pity, confusion, and reproach like I didn't know anything about anything.
And that's what genuinely excites me about the East Bay hip hop scene: As corny as I find so much of it to be, it's this completely successful subculture. The kids there go crazy bananas for rappers that most of the country has never heard of, and some of them even break out eventually. I don't find most of the talent to be half as compelling as the energy that surrounds them though, the main exception being Nickatina. I feel like he has an unabashed lyrical creativity that a lot of those who have had their heyday after his lack (and by 'unabashed' I mean even when it's weird and all over the map it's still great that he went there) and his production is generally interesting too. West syeeeed.
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