Rapping for a little West Coast respect

Ice Cube looks weary. The rap star is sitting with fellow Westside Connection members Mack 10 and WC around a dinner table in a luxurious Westwood penthouse hotel suite. They’re winding up a full day of interviews and photo shoots to promote their new album, “Terrorist Threats,” which comes out Tuesday on Hoo-Bangin’/Priority Records.

The trio is notoriously reclusive, so the rappers are stepping out of character by supporting the release with this kind of commitment. But they have a good reason: In many ways, the fate of West Coast hip-hop depends on the success of the Westside Connection album, which arrives at a precarious time for the genre.

Once the rap standard-setter, the West Coast today can boast only two across-the-board hip-hop stars: Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg.

It’s true that the region’s influence is evident in the music of such rappers as Jay-Z (who regularly incorporates West Coast slang in his lyrics) and 50 Cent (an artist influenced by Oakland’s 2Pac, who releases records through Eminem, a protege of Dr. Dre). But it’s the New Yorkers, and Southern rap acts such as OutKast and Ludacris, who are drawing the nation’s attention these days, shifting it away from the land that was once hip-hop’s epicenter.

Ice Cube says that the Westside Connection album “puts light on the West for other groups to shine. It says it’s OK to keep it gangster, basically.”

Adds Mack 10, “The West Coast is missing right now because I think for a while -- and this ain’t to dis nobody -- but nobody had represented the West Coast, made it a movement and kept it so gangster like us in years.”

Westside Connection has both history (the group’s first album, 1996’s “Bow Down,” sold nearly 2 million copies) and momentum (the new “Gangsta Nation” is one of the most played songs on L.A. rap radio station KPWR-FM [105.9], a Top 10 single at stations in Chicago, Detroit and Las Vegas, and a Top 20 single in Louisville and San Francisco) on its side. The group was formed in 1996 when Ice Cube joined forces with longtime friends and regular collaborators Mack 10, a solo artist and the owner of Hoo-Bangin’ Records, and WC, a veteran Los Angeles rapper who launched Coolio’s career in the 1990s.

The goal was to make relevant hard-core hip-hop in an era when gangster rap was being heavily criticized in the media. It was the kind of music pioneered by Ice Cube, whose work with N.W.A in the late 1980s redirected rap’s course from braggadocio to incendiary.

Seven years later, the three artists remain focused and intense, both in person promoting their agenda and in their respective solo recording and film careers. They represent the best of West Coast rap, a style identified by mid-tempo, bass-heavy, funk-inspired instrumentation and chilling depictions of the gang-saturated streets of California.

Other old-school California artists such as Ice-T, Compton’s Most Wanted, DJ Quik and Spice 1, all once-successful major-label acts, continue to release albums, but now they do so independently and with little fanfare.

In fact, in the years since the group formed, rappers from the West Coast have become increasingly scarce. Westside Connection blames conservative record executives.

“Right now, a rapper has got to be from New York, the biggest-selling guy in rap or the biggest-selling cat down South before they’ll put an artist out,” Mack 10 says. “They don’t even let rappers from the West Coast be born no more. It’s like everybody got to get an abortion or something. They can’t even come out. [The labels] won’t even give you a shot.”

Adds WC, “I think the West Coast has really been needing something other than Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg on the radio 24/7. It’s not like I don’t want to hear them, but we need some people other than them to help support what they’re doing.”

If the album doesn’t succeed, it won’t be for lack of effort on their part. The trio will appear on at least eight magazine covers in the next few months, as well as on CNN and a host of MTV and BET programs.

They’ve also made a compelling album. Over bone-crushing beats from Fred Wreck (Snoop Dogg, Kurupt), Sir Jinx (Ice Cube, Xzibit) and others, the group has something to say and makes convincing arguments.

Highlights include the humorously snide “So Many Rappers in Love,” in which Cube, Mack 10 and WC each berates rappers who showcase their sensitive side on records. Elsewhere, they lament the correlation between violence and rap success (the somber “Superstar [Double Murder=Double Platinum]”) and encourage fans to believe in themselves (the reflective “You Gotta Have Heart”).

“People are looking for more substance in the music, but just anybody can’t give it to them,” Ice Cube says. “They only respect a certain few, and some of those artists are choosing not to go there. That’s why I like this Westside Connection record. It’s gangsterism, but it’s still intelligent to a point where it’s provoking new thoughts and new ideas.”

As Westside Connection prepares to wrap up its duties for the day, Mack 10 is asked what “Terrorist Threats” means to West Coast rap.

“Everything,” he says bluntly. “If the Westside Connection record is successful, it makes the West Coast visible once again.”