Hollywood, Calif. -- The gangsta rap super group Westside Connection was formed in 1993 by West Coast rappers Ice Cube, WC and Mack 10. 18 of the platinum-selling group&apos;s best tracks have been collected for the first time for The Best Of Westside Connection: The Gangsta, The Killa And The Dope Dealer, to be released December 4 by Capitol/Priority.
Released in 1996, Westside Connection&apos;s first album, Bow Down, reached #2 on Billboard&apos;s Top 200 Albums chart and #1 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop chart, fueled by the massive, chart-crossing radio and club success of the album&apos;s title track and its second single, "Gangstas Make The World Go Round."
"Bow Down, the first one, was a record out of necessity," Ice Cube recalled in a 2003 biography. "The industry needed somebody to stick up for the West Coast because we were starting to get disrespected on every level. So, in &apos;96 we started a movement that swept all across the world, really, with the &apos;W,&apos; the Westside, people finally having something to identify with on the West Coast. Then, people all over the country started to respect the Westside. It&apos;s a beautiful thing. We&apos;ve got Westsiders in Japan, South Africa and they&apos;re pumping it. It was a big deal."
Following a seven-year hiatus, 2003&apos;s gold-certified Terrorist Threats debuted at #16 as the week&apos;s highest new rap entry on Billboard&apos;s Top 200 Albums chart, and also hit #3 on the Rap/Hip-Hop Albums chart.
The album&apos;s lead single, "Gangsta Nation" (with Nate Dogg), made the Top 10 on both the Rap and Rhythmic Top 40 charts. "It&apos;s a salute to what I call the &apos;Gangsta Nation,&apos; which is people who like it hard-core who do it in their own way," Ice Cube said of the track. "Everybody knows what gangsta represents out here. It ain&apos;t always a criminal thing. It&apos;s just somebody that won&apos;t conform, somebody that doesn&apos;t want to do it the way the plan is laid out. They want to do it their own way, so we&apos;re saluting them."
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