Patien Waitintgly When the hyphy movement surfaced around 2003 a handful of the Bay’s new generation of rappers dubbed themselves the “New Bay,” particularly those from Oakland, basically writing off everyone that came before them. In hindsight they created a sound catered for the hyperactive A.D.D. generation, but what artists like Too $hort, Richie Rich and MC Hammer created during the 90s was a movement. Oakland reigned musically during that era as groups like 3XS Krazy, The Luniz, and Digital Underground continued the push as major labels kept them in the national spotlight. Even though The Delinquents (aka G-Stack and V-White) didn’t receive as much national attention, they were still major factors in the city’s musical history. “Most of us came from a family member putting your record out or a very close friend, or putting our own record out,” G-Stack explains now, 16 years deep in the game and counting with the release of his ninth album (eight with The Delinquents), the solo prequel My Purple Chronicles in preparation for this summer’s Purple Hood. “JT The Bigga Figga, A.W.O.L., all of us came from the struggle,” he remembers. “They just kinda rode the wave of something cats established. I would never call Too $hort or E-40 ‘old.’ I would call them ‘legends.’”
Since then, the music scene has changed, as local stations like 94.9 and 106.1 pick and choose which Bay artist’s bandwagon they want to ride. But for G-Stack, that passive attitude “is irrelevant” compared to a new movement he’s leading with The Heem Team and Dot of the Mekanix. “Radio is irrelevant, even though I need them,” he says with a hint of resentment. “They’re becoming irrelevant and I’m structuring my material, my movement, and my records around it. If I do get radio that’s a bonus, but it’s frustrating. The way consumers [think] now, if you’re not on the radio, theythink something’s wrong with you. I’m tryin’ to do my thing so that if I don’t get radio, people will wonder what’s wrong with them, not what’s wrong with me.” Right now G-Stack is heading up the purple movement (if you don’t know what it means, ask somebody), and for his new position as leader please refer to him as the Purple Mane from Purple City. “People ask me why I’m not putting, ‘Formerly of The Delinquents’ on my CD,” he says. “It’s because I don’t wanna follow nothin’. I wanna set another trend. I want them to follow me and bite me. If people put purple on their CD cover now, cats are callin’ me like, ‘They bitin’ you.’ No, they’re not. Purple is a color, but I’m building it like a movement. I want people to appreciate that I can be original, even though I know purple has been done before, but not in the way that I am doing it.” - Words by Kay T. Newell // Photos by Piankhi
OZONE WEST // 17