MOUNT WESTMORE

Indisputably a supergroup, Mount Westmore consists of <a href="spotify:artist:4sb7rZNN93BSS6Gqgepo4v">Too $hort</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:3crnzLy8R4lVwaigKEOz7V">E-40</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:3Mcii5XWf6E0lrY3Uky4cA">Ice Cube</a>, and <a href="spotify:artist:7hJcb9fa4alzcOq3EaNPoG">Snoop Dogg</a>, icons of West Coast rap -- and hip-hop at large -- with well over 40 gold and platinum albums between them. The four MCs had recorded together in varying combinations dating back three decades before they debuted as a group in 2021. Their first album together, an expectedly brash and funky set known as both Bad MFs and Snoop Cube 40 $hort, followed the next year.

The first commercially released collaboration between future Mount Westmore members appeared in 1990, when <a href="spotify:artist:3Mcii5XWf6E0lrY3Uky4cA">Ice Cube</a> appeared on <a href="spotify:artist:4sb7rZNN93BSS6Gqgepo4v">Too $hort</a>'s Short Dog's in the House. Among many subsequent collaborations were <a href="spotify:artist:3crnzLy8R4lVwaigKEOz7V">E-40</a>'s 1996 Top 40 crossover hit "Rapper's Ball," featuring <a href="spotify:artist:4sb7rZNN93BSS6Gqgepo4v">Too $hort</a>, and a pair of albums by those two Bay Area legends, released in 2012, that reached the Top Ten of Billboard's rap chart. Formed in 2020, Mount Westmore was conceived by <a href="spotify:artist:3crnzLy8R4lVwaigKEOz7V">E-40</a>, who first invited <a href="spotify:artist:3Mcii5XWf6E0lrY3Uky4cA">Ice Cube</a>, banking on the involvement of the <a href="spotify:artist:4EnEZVjo3w1cwcQYePccay">N.W.A</a> pioneer as a means to attract the other members. After <a href="spotify:artist:4sb7rZNN93BSS6Gqgepo4v">Too $hort</a> and <a href="spotify:artist:7hJcb9fa4alzcOq3EaNPoG">Snoop Dogg</a> were added to the mix, the quartet made their first appearances in 2021, first on the soundtrack of American Skin (the pro-Black "Step Child") and then the <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Def+Jam%22">Def Jam</a> compilation Snoop Dogg Presents Algorithm (the irreverent "Big Subwoofer"). Their first full-length project was originally issued in mid-2022 as an NFT titled Bad MFs. For wide release, the album was reconfigured as Snoop Cube 40 $hort, which appeared in December 2022. ~ Andy Kellman, Rovi