Born and Raised in Compton—DJ Quik

#365Songs: July 13

The archetypical hometown relationship is generally a bittersweet one. We reserve the right to savage our hometowns because they’re where we came from, but we’re simultaneously the first to get our hackles up if someone else dares talk trash.

This dual-natured relationship has found an apogee of a kind in the rap world, and no hometown has had more trash talked about it nor been more staunchly defended than Compton, California.

Now everybody wants to know the truth about a brother named Quik
I come from a school of the sly, wicked and the slick
A lot of people already know exactly where it’s at
’Cause it’s the home of the jackers and the crack
(Compton) Yeah, that’s the name of the hometown

At this point in our cultural history, Compton is probably more mythology than reality, but we nonetheless must remember that it’s very much a very real place where people are born, grow, and die — too many, too early, as is too often the case.

The list of rappers from Compton reads like royalty: Dr. Dre, Eazy-E, and MC Ren, of course, as well as MC Eight, The Game, Tyga, Kendrick Lamar, and many more.

DJ Quik, for reasons not understood by me, doesn’t seem to get mentioned — or listened to — anywhere near as often as he ought to.

Admittedly, he hasn’t released a proper album under his own name since 2014, and his debut release happened back in 1991. A long time ago, by contemporary standards.

All the same, 1991 was an incredible year for rap music. That may, in fact, be part of the issue. In what was a boom period, Quik may have just gotten lost in time’s interminable shuffle. Albums released that same year include Ice Cube’s Death Certificate, The Low End Theory from A Tribe Called Quest, and the eponymous debut from Cypress Hill. Naughty by Nature also debuted, as did Tupac, whose 2Pacalypse Now had the distinction of being singled out for condemnation by none other than Vice President Dan Quayle, who stated, “There’s no reason for a record like this to be published. It has no place in our society.”

Some of it may have to do with Quik’s refusal to indulge in the myth-making. Unlike Tupac, for example, who makes it all seem like a Vegas fever dream …

Now let me welcome everybody to the wild, wild west
A state that’s untouchable like Eliot Ness
The track hits your eardrum like a slug to your chest
Pack a vest for your Jimmy in the city of sex
We in that sunshine state where the bomb-ass hemp be
The state where you never find a dance floor empty
And pimps be on a mission for them greens
Lean mean money-making-machines serving fiends
I been in the game for 10 years making rap tunes
Ever since honeys was wearing Sassoon
Now it’s ’95 and they clock me and watch me
Diamonds shining, looking like I robbed Liberace
It’s all good, from Diego to the Bay
Your city is the bomb if your city making pay
Throw up a finger if you feel the same way
Dre putting it down for Californ-i-a

Quik seems to call it out for what it really is:

Now Compton is the place where the homeboys chill, you see
But then I found that it wasn’t no place for me
’Cause way back in the day somebody musta wanted me to quit
Because they broke in my house and cold stole my shit
They musta thought that I was gonna play the punk role
Just because my equipment got stole
But I ain’t going out like no sucker-ass clown
They found they couldn’t keep a dope nigga down
So here’s some bass in your face, motherfucker silly sucker-
Ass clocker, now you’re ducking, ’cause you can’t stop a brother
Like the Quiksta, because I’m true to the game
You’re lame, and things ain’t gon’ never be the same
’Cause a nigga like the Quik is taking over
I really don’t think I should have to explain it
Oh yeah, I’m a dog, but my name ain’t Rover
And I’m the kinda nigga that’s feeling no pain
Sometimes I have to wear a bulletproof vest
Because I got the CPT sign written across my chest
A funky dope brother never ceases to impress
My name is DJ Quik, so you can fuck the rest
I’m coming like this, and I’m coming directly
’Cause suckers get dain-bramaged if I’m doing damage quite effectively
Rhyming is a battle zone, and suckers have no win
’Cause I’m a veteran from the C-O-M-P-T-O-N

Don’t get me wrong. The cut was a hit. It’s just that, while Ice Cube is pocketing coin shilling for Cheetos, and Snoop Dogg is providing color commentary for the Olympics, and Dr. Dre is putting billions in the bank from Beats and having his name affixed to USC arts academies, DJ Quik is, well, not doing any of that. Which is curious, because when he first got signed, it was reportedly for one of the bigger advances going around at the time.

DJ Quik was a bit unusual in another way as well — he went on record early saying joining a gang had been a mistake:

“Joining the gang Tree Top Piru, that was the dumbest shit. I couldn’t enjoy movies. When Menace II Society came out, I was on the soundtrack. I was scared to death in the theater, like “I’ma get shot in the theater’.”

Probably more so than any other reason, the reason DJ Quik isn’t more well known today is that he’s just basically laid pretty low. For example, did you know he did the percussion for the 50 Cent monster hit “In Da Club?” No, you didn’t. Did you know he produced on Jay-Z’s Black Album? No, you didn’t. Do you remember when he performed live with The Roots on Jimmy Fallon? No, you don’t.

The truth of it is, there are many Comptons — as many as the stories people want to tell about it. But despite the mythologizing, one truth you can’t dispute is that a lot of music has come out of the people who came up there, and like jazz is to New Orleans and the blues are to Chicago, there’s a case to be made that rap is the same to Compton, and if that’s the case, then it’s equally safe to say that DJ Quik, by virtue of having stayed consistently close to the music even as the times and lives have changed around him, is a kind of favorite son who never strayed too far from the tree that gave him life.

~

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