Mobb Music

Mobb music refers to the earliest form of a uniquely West Coast Hip Hop sound developed in the San Francisco Bay Area, particularly the cities of Oakland and Vallejo. It is characterized by slowed down Funk samples modified with studio instrumentation to create a slow, pounding, and menacing sound centered around prominent second and fourth beat claps and frequent use of the Roland TB-303 basslines. Prior to its emergence, the West Coast was experimenting with Electro-inspired Hip Hop like on On the Nile. This would inspire the work of Too $hort, a then-unknown rapper who gained a name when the Oakland-based television station Soul Beat broadcasted his music, enabling him to produce and sell DIY mixtapes. In the late 1980s, he founded Dangerous Music where he debuted his fourth album Born to Mack which featured downtempo beats with a low, bassy sound repurposing funk riffs and long compositions driven by narrative rapping. These would become the foundational traits for subsequent forms of West Coast hip hop, with the track “Dope Fiend Beat” being particularly influential.