THE EVOLUTION OF HIP HOP & THE 420 WORLD
PART I – ARNOLD “BIGGA” WHITE
that many of these perspectives
become removed from their
context, so we decided to take a
different approach. We’re bring-
ing you the diverse perspectives
of the hip hop icons that defined
a genre, in their words, to trace
the connection between the
music and the context that it
was born of.
We decided the best way to
start was to go directly to the
source. So, we packed a carry-
on and headed straight to the
streets of Compton, California.
For the uninitiated, Compton
is the birthplace of West Coast
Rap, NWA and the Eazy–E leg-
acy.
We started by meeting up
with BiggA, a Compton OG
known to tell it how it is. He
graciously agreed to be our
10 NUGL Magazine
host on this adventure and help
guide us, and our readers, on
this journey through the history
of hip hop.
We asked BiggA to take us
back to the 1980’s and give us
an idea of what hip hop and the
420 scene looked like then. He
began by making an important
distinction: East Coast hip hop
and West Coast rap were very,
very different entities back then.
“At that time, Afrikabam-
batta and that house stuff from
the East Coast is what we called
‘hip hop,’” he says. “Our type
of music on the West Coast
was considered Gangsta Rap.
We was dark, we were real. We
weren’t all hoppy. It was real-
ity, ‘bang bang, shoot ‘em up,’
youknowwhatimean?”
Then, he shifts his focus to
the relationship he and other
creators had with cannabis. “As
OGs, we looked down on any-
thing that was other than smok-
ing that Chronic. That is where
your creativity came from. It was
flowing.”
He paints a picture of the
drug scene during that era: “Dur-
ing that time in Compton, heavy
drug use was rampant. What we
saw growing up was drugs like
PCP, angel dust, sherm sticks,
and crack cocaine was every-
where. As far as weed went, we
were smoking that brick weed.
The dry, red hair kind, full of
seeds. It wasn’t until years later
that we saw weed like Acapulco
Gold, Maui Wowie, and Colom-
bian Red ‘Fire’”