On the strength of a lot of the vallejo artists mentioned having major record label deals, the size of the place, the staying power of 40-Water and the fact they had a 2 page article on the V in The Source in '99... I'd like to go with Vallejo but Oakland might have to clinch it on the extent of worldwide exposure and how long that was for. Artist from there did move big from '89 and into the 00's. Couldn't tell ya how that looks now tho.
Baby Bash, E-40 were by far the biggest and were the main prompters of TBIB for a while aside from a couple Richmond and Fairfield heavy contributors, so the V definitely get that accolade.
All the rappers from the V who were signed to Atlantic for 4 years (YBB, Rated-Z sub-labels), Lightyear (Romp, Rated-z), Jive (Sic Wid It) and Virgin/Noo-Trybe (Sic Wid It), Priority (Lil Italy),
The thing about Frisco is that the best bit of pushin they got was some stuff through Priority when Get Low had their foot in. That was a short-lived 2 year stint though. You could count SMG releases at a push cause they did get over to the UK. But one thing I REALLY did never see, was an in-a-minute release ova here. You slice out a chunk of bay legends when that disappears. However, you could argue that Master P's seminal West Coast Bad Boyz comp had a SHITLOAD of SF rappers and that was Priority distro'd in the end... I think that compilation did a lot to blow up Frisco rap. The only other majors I can think of outta SF was 4-Tay & RBL. As much as I love the rest of them. Edit - also like to add that most of Dogday's catalog was available over here which does make me wonder if City Hall did get stuff ova here! Like I said though, never saw an in-a-minute release.
Oakland, man that's vast. All the labels/big-time distributors above at least had 1-10 of em for the O. Who wasn't on a major? Who was? Short Dog, 2Pac, Ant Banks DU, Heiro, Souls, Coup, 415, APG Crew, Off Da Hook, Askari-X, Conscious Daughters, Goldy, Coz, Kool Rock Jay (J-Dubb), Raw Fusion, Father Dom, EL Dogg, Gold Money, Passion, Bad-N-Fluenz, Whoridas, Saafir, TWDY, Ant Banks, Dru Down, Richie Rich, Seagram, Dangerous Dame, Steady Mobb'n, 3xKrazy,
Edit - oh yeah Pooh-Man (Funky As I Wanna Be) Judgement Day and The B.U.M.S. was on a major too. Pooh-Man being on Jive/Scarface (Paris/Conscious Daughters) (priority)
And also, Rake It Up just sampled Freaky Tales man. I love the guy buy anyone covered a 40-Water song for the charts with a Nicki Minaj feature? Also the UK the first person they got to speak about the Hyphy movement was 2Wice (off da hook), i remember musta been '03 in an interview with DJ Semtex....
From A Cali perspective i'd be thinkin SF (all the early in-a-minute stuff and Get Low really shaped it), Oakland Vallejo but from the UK it did not look like that. It looked more Oakland, Vallejo, SF.
