Try another. We love it even if traffic makes us anxious, even if we don't have a football team, even if we're so spread out we can barely meet up with a friend in town, and even when last call is at 1:30am and bars aren't supposed to close until 2. So sit back, relax and strap on your seat belt as we turn to page FREAK, because this is Complex’s 100 Best L.A. Rap Songs. 1. We're pretty sure it's the latter, but either way, this must be the most-referenced song in the city, at least on sidewalks or while running for one's life during inexplicably short crosswalk lights. This isn’t your typical beach bum anthem, but we suppose this track from Smith’s landmark debut, Horses, sets the tone for the laid back but sometimes distant beach city.—Michael Juliano, Referred to as the “Chicano National Anthem” by LA native George Lopez, this 1975 song by War pays homage to LA’s low rider car culture. The chorus is still ambiguous as ever (“I’m going back to Cali, I don’t think so”: Are you or aren't you, Cool J?) Doughty told the LA Times in 2007 that he feels no connection to the song now, having become frustrated with constantly being associated with LA when he was in fact a New Yorker. “Don’t step on Greta Garbo,” he warns, but “stand close by Bette Davis.” Davies both idolizes and humanizes the actors—a refreshing point of view for both tourists traversing the Walk of Fame in awe as well as locals who trample the stars daily. That the animated track came less than a year after the colossal 2003 firestorm only adds to the imagery of when “Malibu fires and radio towers conspire to dance again.”—Michael Juliano, Leave it to Colin Meloy to fill a musically jaunty ode to LA with polite, old-timey wordsmithing about burnt cocaine and streetwalker style. Given that Skee-Lo reportedly measures in at five-foot-eight, might we suggest a game of 1-on-1 with Prince?—Michael Chen, At first listen, Everclear’s catchy 1995 ode to the oceanside city sounds pretty nice. It pours, man it pours," Hammond croons, imparting the tale of a musician who moves to LA with high hopes of fame and fortune, only to end up hungry and lost, begging a friend not to “tell the folks back home” of his failure. Tillman considers this "consummation" of his grandfather's death and the resulting song as a sort of memorial, and the weird fucked-up-ness of that makes this tune all the more intriguing.—Amanda Montell, Maybe it was the imminent chaos of Y2K talking, but Beck got real experimental on his 1999 multi-genre album, Midnite Vultures. "I'm asking questions to find out how you feel inside," he raps. Share This Story. It keeps our mojo rising and earned our number two spot.—Amanda Montell, It may not be the most, ah, complex composition, but Randy Newman's 1983 anthem has a simple message you can't mess with—overwhelming love for the city (while having a shitload of fun). Shawn Mullins’s scratchy, spoken verses tell the story of a woebegone LA native with famous parents and child stars for friends. Also, this is the song we all sing on our way home from road trips, when the sprawl of city lights comes into view and the inevitable traffic jam is still a twinkle of red taillights in the distance. Chart Peak: No. 36 Songs Full of 'La La's, 'Na Na's, and Other Nonsense Syllables. In a 2006 Los Angeles Times interview, lead singer Michael Stipe explained that LA was the ideal backdrop for this song because "nowhere seemed more perfect than the city that came into its own throughout the 20th century." A group i didn't recognse! © Complex Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved. It also featured a woman, any help would be good! © 2021 Time Out America LLC and affiliated companies owned by Time Out Group Plc. Der Gangsta-Rap in Deutschland hat seine Wurzeln in den 1990er Jahren und stellt seit 2003/2004 ein erfolgreiches Sub-Genre des deutschen Hip-Hop dar. —Adam Lehrer, Is there a cuter song out there about our fair city? (It also has a pretty incredible music video, culminating in a chicken-and-waffles food fight outside of Roscoe's.) Tiger, bear, whatever). After dropping that line, Fif went on to bag Vivica Fox, Ciara, and Chelsea Handler. —Danielle Nedivi, This tender Kinks fan-favorite from 1972 finds frontman Ray Davies namedropping iconic Hollywood stars left and right, trying to understand their successes and tribulations by putting himself in their shoes as he walks down the iconic boulevard. Doc D Planetory Destruction. Find your favorite music event tickets, schedules and seating charts in the Los Angeles area. Does the LA tourism board know about this song?? It’s gritty and real—just like X, and Los Angeles.—Gillian Glover, No, this classic LA tune was not conceived while Tom Petty was riding the old Freefall coaster at Magic Mountain. 100% unabhängig. There are one-liners aplenty in this track, but you can't be just any geek off the street to pull 'em off. The lyrics tell the story of a woman beaten down by "Hell-A" who begins to lash out at others—a telling commentary about the city’s diversity and the intolerance it can breed. To this point, Stipe conjures up images of silver screen stars of bygone eras—Martin Sheen, Steve McQueen, James Dean: larger-than-life heroes to embody when looking out from high above in the Hollywood Hills. He started first to release on YouTube humoristic videos in 2016 like “La météo du sale” (= The dirty forecast) but people start to consider him as a rapper with the excellent rap song the “Freestyle Du Sale” a few months later, the same year. Facebook page opens in new window Twitter page opens in new window Instagram page opens in new window TripAdvisor page opens in new window But this isn’t a sob story; Seger pushes the narrative forward with a locomotive rhythm and shout-it-from-the-hilltops chorus. The song is very much open to interpretation—especially when you’re high as hell and feeing chatty with your Petty buddies. COMPLEX participates in various affiliate marketing programs, which means COMPLEX gets paid commissions on purchases made through our links to retailer sites. Viele moderierte Shows. To borrow from the chorus, "if we can't go to Heaven, let us go to LA"—hallelujah.—Kate Wertheimer, When the Santa Ana Winds begin to blow and fan the wildfire flames, Angelenos start to lose their minds. Herein is a selection from the rap ecosystem’s first 30 years with equal consideration given to the pre- and post-Jheri-curl eras. A collection of hip hop and rap tier list templates. In typical loud-quiet fashion, Black wrestles with LA’s multiple personalities and historical oddities in this 1993 track that’s as spacey and confused as the city it depicts.—Michael Juliano, Before he started wooing ladies with romantic ballads, LL Cool J was a pioneering crossover rapper. See more. Déjà vu! We're pretty sure not. Ice-T's song Race War from his 1993 solo album Home Invasion addressed the riots and the potential for further disturbances. Here in Los Angeles, we … Check.) Our editorial content is not influenced by any commissions we receive. Absolutely nothing, except for the fact that without them there would be no such thing as L.A. rap. In the words of William Mulholland, the man who brought water to Los Angeles: “There it is. "Dance for me, I'll keep you overemployed," Neil Veil shrieks in this 1987 hit. Tropicana, The Body Shop and Seventh Veil are just a few of Mötley Crüe's local hot spots for finding gorgeous women in nothing but a smile. Dig in, listen up and let us know what we got right and wrong (or missed completely) in the comments section. If LA songs are to be judged—and they should be—by how uplifted we feel when we crank them up in our cars and sing along at the top of our lungs (see Maguire, Jerry), "Free Fallin'" rises to the top. But if you do live here, you know your geography—we hope—and the archetype of an elderly driver in an overpowered car. The song is named for a drug deal that took place under a bridge Downtown, which Kiedis considered to be a low point in his life. Crow’s fun-loving chorus is all her own, though, as is the song’s Santa Monica Boulevard setting.—Gillian Glover, With its opening line still setting off crowds at parties, this ‘92 West Coast gangsta rap classic never goes out of style. 13142 2. But even in 1937, lyricist Johnny Mercer was already lodging enduring complaints about Midwestern transplants, phonies and short-lived fame. Hence, the band's name.—Kate Wertheimer, Best Coast’s saccharine, sunny love letter to LA has all the subtlety of a romcom—seriously, just imagine the song playing over a movie intro with Amanda Seyfried jogging through palm tree-filtered sunlight. The easy, reggae beat belies the 1975 tune’s painful story of a lovers’ quarrel turned suicide. It's a … And we love it!—Michael Juliano and Kate Wertheimer. It will take you back nearly a decade with its piano-driven ballad and laid back melody, made famous as the theme song of LA’s hit show, The OC.Native to Hollywood, the indie rock band perfectly depicts a timeless energy of the city, from ‘driving down the 101’ to ‘driving in the sun.’ The in-your-face racial lyrics were a reflection of the time and early punk scene in LA. As his electric guitar wails against a backdrop of brass, BB King serenades our relentless town, reminding us that in the same breath, LA will "do you so wrong" and then "do you so right." Greg Graffin and company are no stranger to the seasonal “murder wind," and the Valley-based punk veterans draw on the perennial inferno as a metaphor for our own deluded reality and media-induced paranoia. Gibson in hand, the icon started off this white-hot track from his '91 album, There Is Always One More Time, crooning "From Hollywood and Vine to the Sunset Strip, there's so much goin' on, you can lose your grip." Lee moved to Los Angeles at the age of 17 and was discovered while working at the Doll House in Palm Springs—where, instead of singing loudly over the crowd to get their attention, she perfected a sultry purr that would eventually make her famous, as in this 1962 hit. Rather, "Free Fallin'" nostalgically recalls a childhood sweetheart in Petty's home state of Florida whom the singer left behind when he moved to Los Angeles to pursue rock & roll stardom. By Lucy Blodgett. So infectious is the track's signature guitar riff that we'll forgive the throwaway line about the frisky girls in old 'Frisco. The story behind the 1987 song is basically this: When the band was first forming back in the '80s, Farrell rented a group house in Hollywood (convincing his landlord he was a gay interior decorator rather than a punk rocker), and had a housemate, Jane, who fell in love with a heroin dealer, Sergio (of course) and couldn't kick her habit. Covering more than four decades, here are the 100 greatest rap songs of all time: —Ramona Saviss, "Let me serenade the streets of LA," raps 2Pac—and serenade us he does. 101 Rap Lyrics: ¿Dónde está la biblioteca? But as singer Bethany Cosentino rattles through her list of SoCal’s finest features (Ocean? We count down the top tunes about Los Angeles—hear them all and have your say. This feature was originally published on July 1, 2015. All rights reserved. Wenn deine Rap Aufnahme fertig ist, willst Du diese natürlich auch als kompletten Song auf deinem Computer speichern. We’ll let Kendrick have the last word on this: "What more can I say? Lead singer Charles Miller (who grew up in Long Beach) is the deep voice behind the catchy beat—with lyrics reflecting the souped-up, hydraulic cars that cruise the streets of LA—and sang this timeless ode to Cali’s hot rods long before rim sizes were rapped about. Phantom Planet’s ‘California’ is the ultimate throwback song. Though an uneventful composition by Zappa standards, his daughter Moon Unit elevates the song into stardom with Valspeak squeals like “grody”, “barf,” and “bitchin’”; her excessive use of “like”; and musings on the pronunciation of “Andrea.” Good luck pinpointing the origin of all the Valley hate, but something was clearly already brewing by ‘82: “But I live, like, in a really good part of Encino so it’s okay.”—Michael Juliano, We love steel drums, we love Perry Farrell and yes, we definitely freak out when Jane's Addiction ends their live shows with this crowd-pleaser. The song avoids the despairing pitfalls of immigration politics—an unsettlingly real issue thirty years later—thanks to Cheech’s sheepish fear of Tijuana and innocent love of the Eastside. As he dismisses the Frank Sinatra anthem towns of New York and Chicago, a crunchy synth kicks in—‘80s production be damned—and a nasally proclamation that “we was born to ride” inspires a sense of, dare we say, pride in LA, Santa Anas blowing and all. We already have this email. https://www.timeout.com/los-angeles/music/the-50-best-la-songs They make us smile, laugh, cry, think, and shake what our mama (or papa) gave us. The tinny hi-hat ticks and shock lyrics in the 1988 hit sound tame today—and Compton itself isn’t quite the AK-filled ‘hood that N.W.A. The best hip-hop songs of all time are the songs that touch our souls. Eventuell möchtest Du auch nur einzelne Spuren exportieren um diese an jemanden zu schicken oder einen Remix erstellen. Rolling Stone has named the track #89 in their 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, and it’s been covered by everyone from the Beach Boys to Alvin and the Chipmunks—even Meat Loaf got in on this action. The most famous rendition of the song, recorded in 1964 by the Rivieras, became a surf rock classic that surely inspired impressionable teenagers across the country to pack their bags and head out West. —Amanda Montell, Warren G and Nate Dogg's hard-edged 1994 hip hop hit reps LA as a town full of girls and guns—from Long Beach to the Eastside, the rap duo find themselves facing firearms, thievery and hot babes. described—but there’s still a legitimate thrill from that opening, “Straight outta Compton, crazy motherfucker named Ice Cube.” The group packs so much raw personality and attitude into four minutes that it’s no wonder the song blasted a previously ignored region and culture of LA onto the national mainstage.—Michael Juliano, Soul Coughing front man Mike Doughty was actually living in downtown Manhattan, attending Eugene Lang College, when he came up with this ode to LA in '94. Many are love songs, some are full of more vitriolic verse and others still are die-hard, head-banging anthems: No matter how you feel about the City of Angels, there's a song for that. Dein neues Hip-Hop-Radio aus Hamburg. 's 1996 farewell salute to the 20th century. 50 Cent turned the tables on "21 Questions," which takes the form of a relationship interview. Offering a more humorous and self-deprecating take on life in the concrete jungle than its mid-'90s Death Row counterparts, the 1995 Grammy-nominated single basks in a sun-tinged sample of Bernard Wright's "Spinnin'" behind Skee-Lo's rapid recitation of his genie lamp desires: "I wish I was a little bit taller, I wish I was a baller, I wish I had a girl who looked good, I would call her." First featured in the 1937 film Hotel Hollywood with lyrics by Johnny Mercer, Hooray For Hollywood is the best song ever written about what makes Los Angeles Los Angeles. How very punk rock. The song became a hit and a RHCP classic, earning itself a spot in our top 20.—Gillian Glover, “You are now about to witness the strength of street knowledge.” And so began LA’s reign as the stronghold of West Coast gangsta rap. But we digress: The song’s ultimate staying power owes a bit to cars, but much more to the straight-faced “Go granny, go,” harmony and Dean Torrence’s soaring falsetto intro.—Michael Juliano, While Frank Zappa may have intended “Valley Girl” to be a takedown of well-off, Galleria-haunting ‘80s teens, the song instead created a nationwide lexicon of Valley girl slang—whoops.