Over the course of his 20-plus-year career, Compton rapper MC Eiht has been the neighborhood’s straight-talking watch leader. Under the dark of night, amid the wail of police sirens, he’s the lookout in a city where crooked cops and gang members can kill you all the same, where too much flash makes you a target. There’s a voyeuristic approach to his flow, a feeling that he’s seen some shit and doesn’t want you treading that same road. Twenty-four years ago—on 1993’s “Streiht Up Menace,” Eiht’s breakout single—the rapper weaved a cinematic portrayal of a young man growing up in Compton, whose father was killed and mother struggled to make ends meet. Ultimately, the character—loosely based on the protagonist in the film Menace II Society—joins a gang and dies while protecting his block. It’s the type of dismal narrative that would partially influence someone like Kendrick Lamar, whose rhymes are set on the same Compton-based cautionary tales. Now, MC Eiht is a veteran in West Coast rap, and he’s still telling you about the hustle, about the daily struggles of merely existing in South Central Los Angeles. He’s still ducking one time, all with a smirk and a “geah.”
Five years after his riveting verse on Lamar’s “M.A.A.D. City,” Eiht is back with his first album in 11 years, Which Way Iz West, an all-in recording executive produced by DJ Premier and featuring a who’s who of 1990s rappers: WC, the Outlawz, Kurupt, the Lady of Rage, Xzibit, Big Mike, B-Real (of Cypress Hill), and Freddie Foxxx (aka Bumpy Knuckles). With that lineup, West is the kind of album that could work well or not work at all. For whatever reason, rappers aren’t often allowed the space to age; once they get into their 40s, they’re considered too old to release music with any large-scale effect. For the most part, though, Eiht and company sound rejuvenated here, sans an awkward Kurupt verse on “Gangsta Gangsta” that feels ill-prepared and doesn’t fit (“Ready or not, here I am/Katrina is my bitch, I’m breaking levees and dams”). Elsewhere, on the menacing “Heart Cold,” the Lady of Rage turns in a fluid, battle-ready verse that plays equally well in any era—whether in 1998 or 2017. “She’s aight, but she’s not Rage,” she proclaims. “Sheit, neither is he though/I’m ill, I need chemo.”
Eiht is a no-frills MC whose cadence and topical concepts haven’t changed one bit. Even as gangsta-rap gathered steam in the early- to mid-‘90s, Eiht’s blend remained especially dark, which helped him earn a cult following, but he never quite rose to the levels of popularity enjoyed by Cali contemporaries like Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, and Ice Cube. Instead, he’s lived in a weird purgatory: his name rings out, but it doesn’t resonate as loudly as it should. “Fuck the radio, ban me, they can’t stand me/Never winnin’ a Grammy, still gon’ jam…,” Eiht quips on “Got That,” an album highlight. “...Tryin’ to make that shit that make ya feel good/Never commercial, ain’t real hood.”
At this point, it’s clear Eiht makes music for the love of it. He’s not tethered to any sort of fame or notoriety; instead, Which Way Iz West is an album for nostalgic rap heads who want to relive the so-called golden era of ’90s hip-hop, where gritty beats and complex rhymes took precedence over booming 808 drums. As good as Eiht sounds on West, he benefits from a bright soundtrack largely produced by frequent collaborator Brenk Sinatra and overseen by DJ Premier. Throughout the LP, Sinatra and Premier split the difference between West Coast G-funk and golden-era boom bap, arriving at a sound that caters nicely to Eiht’s rhymes. He’s keeping you on the straight and narrow, whether you know it or not.
