

camp, or from more established names at the time, like King Tee and Ice T, or taking it a step further, as Bay Area legends like E-40 and Too Short. Most of the demo would later get rewritten and reworked into his 1991 debut album Quik Is The Name, where it swiftly gained critical and commercial respect as some of the highest quality rap music to emerge out of L.A., easily equal in quality of the material coming out of the N.W.A. Let's start at the beginning, naturally, with the infamous Red Tape, Quik’s demo from 1987. And frankly, if you’re talking about some of the greatest rappers of all time? DJ Quik should be right up at the top of anyone’s list, if you were familiar.

As one of the first people to put, not only Los Angeles, but the entire West Coast, on the map for hip-hop- both as an MC and as a producer- to say he’s a legend would be putting it lightly. For the past 30 years, DJ Quik has been an artist who has engaged, entertained, inspired and infuriated with equal ability. Previously, one of our writers made the case for Ice Cube. Today, we're going to bat for DJ Quik.ĭavid Marvin Blake, the man who later become known as DJ Quik, once taunted his audience by calling himself “America’s Most Complete Artist.” This nature is particular to DJ Quik, he’d make a big deal out of his status as a musical artist before making the brags your typical rapper might profess, ones about material items or criminal achievements. The more obvious choices (such as André 3000, Lil Wayne, Eminem, Jay-Z, Nas, Biggie, 2Pac) will be ignored in favor of artists who tend to get overlooked these days, for one reason or another.


In this series, we'll be making the case for specific rappers to be included in "greatest of all-time" discussions.
