Twenty years ago this year, I published a book called Westsiders, a book about the some of the stories behind the West Coast hip hop that had come out of Los Angeles in the 90s. I’m really pleased to say it’s coming out again as an e-book to celebrate the anniversary.

I’d spent about fifteen months in LA hanging out with the young African American men who lived in South Central Los Angeles.

At the time, it was really well received.

Q Magazine picked it as one of the 50 best books ever written about music.

‘Brutally lucid…A focused, cold-headed portrayal of an ungovernable world’

Rolling Stone

The story began when I was interviewing a lot of the hip hop artists of the time and the penny dropped that what the new generation of narrative artists – the so-called gansta rappers – were talking about wasn’t just a kind of dystopian fantasy, this stuff was really happening in the cities they lived in.

‘If you care about hip-hop and its roots you should read this book.’

Hip Hop Connection

The violence they were talking about in their lyrics wasn’t just a story. This was often about stuff that had really happened to them. Twenty years on, this sounds naive, but at the time, living in London, much of what was being put on vinyl was being regarded as the same kind of fantasising that heavy metal artists played with.

I remember talking – of all people, to Coolio – a rapper who had grown up in South Central’s Compton, when he started listing all the people he’d seen murdered.

‘As definitive a portrait of contemporary hip hop and young black lifestyles as has been written… A shockingly readable report from America’s front line.’

The Times

Social and economic change, the growth of the drugs economy and Ronald Reagan’s social welfare cuts had had devastating impact on American inner cities.

I was talking to these hip hop stars in record company offices or in plush hotels, yet the stories I was hearing about had happened on the streets where they lived. The point was that making it in the music industry was a route to escape that life.

So I decided to go to the streets where they lived and meet those people who hadn’t made it yet. That’s what I spent my time in South Central doing, and the stories I found, some grim, some murderous, many amazing, were what made the book.

‘Halfway between plain, conscientious reportage and something like the spectral novel hip hop has yet to produce. A rap era version of Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49.’

The Wire

It also features appearances from – and interviews with – many of the big figures in hip hop, from Kool Herc, the man who is the genre’s ground zero, through to Eminem who I saw for the first time as a relative unknown, who’d travelled from Detroit to take part in a talent show in Inglewood.

I spent some time with Tupac before he was murdered, met the violent Svengali figure of Suge Knight at CanAm studios… loads of stories, really; towards the end of my time there I became fascinated with the story of Orlando Anderson, the man who was accused of killing Tupac.

It was an intense time. I’m proud to be republishing it now. Please spread the word if you can.

Win this print: a very special giveaway for members of my email list. 

The artist Paddy Hamilton has lived and worked at Dungeness for around 20 years, drawing inspiration from this changing landscape and its people. I love his work. This is an artist’s proof from a series of linocuts called Twister, which records the slow collapse of one of the winch sheds that contained the engines that local fishermen used to haul their boats up the shingle with. 

Dungeness is, of course, the spectacular setting of my DS Alex Cupidi books. I picked it up recently on a visit to Paddy’s studio down there and I’ll be giving it away to one subscriber from my email list in my next mail shot.

Details of how you can win it will be in my next email. Sign up here.