An Open Letter to DJ Quik and Celly Cel

Best West Coast producer ever

Best gangsta rap record you never heard

If you are or ever have been a fan of West Coast classic gangsta rap, you need to hear Celly Cel's Killa Kali. It's not particularly for Celly's mostly throwaway Misogynist-By-Numbers aesthetic, where he's mainly smackin' hoes and getting his hair twisted up in Shirley locks; it's alright but never really that memorable (never really understood that, by the way... all of the macho posturing in the G-rap culture, and half of the dudes from Cali have their hair styled after a six-year-old redhead child star... kinda weird).

No, the reason is because it's probably the best G-rap record I own, and that's counting Doggystyle and the original Chronic. Okay, so it probably isn't better than Doggystyle, but it's got everything that makes that type of record great: heavy kicks and handclaps, high-end melodies, buzzing, thumping bass, full, squelchy synths and just a smorgasbord of great beats to smash in the ride.

His follow-up, The G Filez, was fucking horrible, which brings me to my next tangent:

DJ Quik hasn't released a new record in quite some time, and I suppose I can probably be thankful for that. His work on Snoop's latest disc with Teddy Riley was pretty banging, but when it comes to his solo albums, I can only listen to gawddamn AMG act like the Micro-Machine Man so many times while he tries to pretend he's not just DJ Quik's weed-carrier. So much of Quik's great, laidback G-funk has been wasted on his hangers-on that I sometimes forget he's my favorite West Coast producer.

So this is my plea. Quik, get together with Celly Cel and do a collab for your next solo joint. And leave AMG, Suga Free and the fucking DeBarge family out of it this time.