Song In My Head: “Vato” + the “Just Eat” Commercial — Snoop Dogg

What Snoop Dogg, the British aristocracy, and Cardi B have in common

Snoop Dogg is fond of saying “West, West, y’all” — a reference to, all at once, the West Coast rap game (known as versus the East Coast rap game, traditionally,) more generally to his Californian home (he was born in Long Beach), and arguably signalling a loyalty that began and ended with his youthful affiliation with the Rollin 20s Crips gang of Eastside, Long Beach.

Unusually for a West Coast person, possibly because I spent so long, admittedly, living nearer the East Coast of North America (certainly embedded within that East Coast aesthetic), I have always been personally in favour of the classic East Coast rap style, which I would argue is much more firmly planted in the context of the jazz tradition, borrowing much of its late 80s through mid 90s sonic hallmarks directly from classics of that genre. This style, populated by many jazz-sampling groups such as Digable Planets, Large Professor, Wu-Tang Clan, The Fugees featuring Lauryn Hill, and many others, unquestionably is…