The Brief

Unlike its New York origin story, no one can really say exactly when hip-hop hit the West Coast. But when it did, Alonzo Williams was there.

Known as the “godfather” of West Coast hip-hop, Williams has been working in the music industry here for more than 40 years. He’s been a DJ, music producer, former club owner, and member of the World Class Wreckin’ Cru with Dr. Dre, DJ Yella and artists like Michel'le.

His studio in Gardena is where West Coast hip-hop history was made.

An award for NWA's "Straight Outta Compton" album hangs in Alonzo Williams' studio.

(

Samanta Helou Hernandez

/

LAist

)

Alonzo "Lonzo" Williams, the Godfather of West Coast Hip-Hop, in his home studio.

(

Samanta Helou Hernandez

/

LAist

)

“This house is like the Motown House of West Coast hip-hop,” Williams says, recalling the first moments he recorded with collaborators. “It could be haunted with music.”

This is where Williams made the first Wreckin’ Cru record, the electro-funk group credited for pioneering West Coast hip-hop. He also recorded and produced hits for Dr. Dre and other hip-hop legends like Ice Cube and Eazy-E here.

“I wasn't trying to be the godfather,” Williams says, “I just was doing me.”

The studio’s musical history goes way back to when before hip-hop existed. Before Williams, it was previously owned by Johnny Otis — a singer, composer and record producer known as the “godfather” of rhythm and blues in the late '40s and '50s. Jazz icon Etta James, a mutual friend who lived right next door, also recorded much of her generation-defining music right there.

Disco and funk set the scene

It all started with disco.

“In the beginning it was all about partying,” Williams says. “It was all about dancing, it was all about having a good time.”

He recalls growing up in Compton and falling in love with the dance and club scene through his high school dances. “We didn’t have a lot of the luxuries kids have today, but it was a much better time,” he recalls.

Influenced by the disco groove, he later became a local DJ known as Disco Lonzo.

At the same time, the musical variety show Soul Train was blowing up in L.A., which featured Black musicians and dancers from L.A. (It first began to broadcast from Chicago, then moved here in 1971 when it was syndicated.)

“The show really made an opportunity for not only Black artists to get their music out, but for a presentation of Black dance and expression that the world had really never seen,” says historian of Black culture and museum curator Tyree Boyd-Pates.

“This is what I grew up on,” Wiliams says. “It was just an all around good time.”

Alonzo "Lonzo" Williams, the Godfather of West Coast Hip-Hop, in his home studio.

(

Samanta Helou Hernandez

/

LAist

)

Alonzo "Lonzo" Williams, the Godfather of West Coast Hip-Hop, in his home studio.

(

Samanta Helou Hernandez

/

LAist

)

But disco — known to be popular among queer, Latino and Black communities — died down toward the late '70s, due, many will argue today, to nationwide racism and homophobia.

The end was most visible in 1979, at Chicago’s Comiskey Park’s “Disco Demolition” night. That night, in a baseball promotion gone wrong, a popular DJ well known for being an anti-disco “discophobe” blew up disco records at a scheduled White Sox game. Hordes of people showed up, chaos ensued and the White Sox had to forfeit the game. Historical observers of that night are split about what exactly went down — some still view it a badly mishandled attempt to get people to the game while others saw it as a symbolic rejection of the genre and its supposed representation of queer culture.

But soon, a new kind of sound began to take the L.A. club scene by storm: funk music. Bands like KC and the Sunshine Band, The Sugarhill Gang and Brass Construction became the soundtrack at the hottest nightclubs.

Williams, who had recently opened the nightclub Eve After Dark in Compton, says funk, more so than disco, was truly the sound of L.A.’s Black community. “It was the sound of the young urban Blacks of the 70s,” Williams says. “Disco was cool, but it wasn't ours.”

Funk became the foundation for what would become the West Coast sound of a brand new genre that was, like disco, all about rhythm and movement.

“Funk is very repetitive,” Williams says. “It does the same thing every four bars for the most part, like James Brown is the master of repetition … He takes you high and brings you back down for the same 16 bars.”

Along with the advent of mechanical drum machines, funk’s repetition paved the way for the idea of sampling, reusing a portion of a song under a hip-hop beat, and ultimately, the West Coast hip-hop sound: “It became the basis of hip hop,” Williams says. “You could sit there and tap and make drum sounds. You can get a keyboard and sample, you could do almost anything.”

World Class Wreckin’ Cru

Playing around with funk samples, drum beats and flows in Williams’ studio soon became The World Class Wreckin' Cru — the first West Coast hip-hop group to be signed by a major label in 1983. Williams formed the group and brought in Dr. Dre, DJ Yella and Michel’le.

“We just took the elements that we'd already had, and basically rap was nothing but poetry to a beat,” he says.

Members of the World Class Wreckin' Cru — Alonzo Williams is at far right.

(

Courtesy of Alonzo Williams.

)

Considered the first West Coast hip-hop group, but technically “electro-funk,” Wreckin’ Cru was the first group on the coast to rap over a sampled beat, to create what is now the distinctive West Coast sound. Williams says these specific ingredients — the rapping, the sampling, the drum machines — opened the door for many Black people with a story to tell to express themselves with music.

“Growing up in Compton, I always wanted to be a Temptation,” Williams recalls, laughing. “I knew I couldn’t sing, but I could write.”

Roots in revolution 

Beyond the influences of disco and funk, Williams emphasizes the true origins of hip-hop go back far before the inception of those genres. It’s all about storytelling, he says.

Black Americans have used spoken word over music to tell stories from their community for centuries. Tracing it back to the 1800s, Williams refers to the songs enslaved Black people would sing in the fields on the plantations as a tool to both process and communicate their experiences.

“All those stories of people's lives that were put to music,” he says. “Hip-hop is just another vehicle used to tell the stories of our community.”

(

Samanta Helou Hernandez

/

LAist

)

“Hip-hop, especially in the West Coast, is rooted in revolution,” Boyd-Pates says, nodding to the influence of poetry and spoken word among L.A.’s Black population during the 1965 Watts Rebellion.

Groups like the Last Poets in New York and the Watts Prophets in L.A. rose out of the Civil Rights movement to fuse the sounds of jazz and funk and spoken word to chronicle Black life in America, Boyd-Pates says. A 1965 radio broadcast by the Afro-American Association featured Black voices set to a beat, documenting the Watts Rebellion. It was titled: The Uncensored Version of The Los Angeles Riots.

“You’re gunna hear an analysis of Los Angeles that you won’t hear on the news,” one of the speakers says. “Los Angeles, it’s not a riot, it’s a war.”

“They used their poems and their words accompanied with sound to serve as a clarion call to Black conditioning here, particularly in South Los Angeles,” Boyd-Pates says of the artists of that time.

That gave rise to what came to define hip-hop and rap in its early days — the work of Dr. Dre, Eazy-E and NWA and albums like Straight Outta Compton. “It gave the whole world, especially through gangsta rap of the 1990s, a journalistic view of what it meant to be Black in L.A.,” Boyd-Pates says. “And you had movies like Boyz n the Hood that paralleled that same experience.”

Enter: Gangsta rap

This West Coast hip-hop renaissance lasted a few years, giving rise to regional giants like Dr. Dre, Eazy-E, Ice Cube, Ice-T and Snoop Dogg — “it was the golden age of hip-hop,” Williams says. “We were partying on the weekend and in the studio during the week.”

But then — much due to crack cocaine and other drugs hitting the streets on L.A. — the texture of the scene drastically changed.

Eazy-E photographed on Feb. 12, 1989.

(

Steve Grayson

/

LA Public Library/Herald Examiner

)

“It was basically overnight,” Williams explains. “Suddenly everyone was a gangster, and you could hear it in the music.”

Lyrically, as the music shifted from love, romance and dance to a much more explicit tone of gun violence, drugs and sex, so did the energy at the clubs and in the streets, Williams says. This was the era that belonged to NWA, Tupac, Too Short; East Coast v. West Coast beef hit a high point (though many say this was purposely stoked by the media).

“Gangster rap killed electro funk,” Williams says, “The dance floor was no longer an option.”

Though this was a troubling time for the hip-hop scene in general — that included the shooting murders of hip-hop legends Tupac and Biggie Smalls — gangster rap was an influential musical element to the development of not just the genre, but hip-hop’s service for the journalism and preservation of Black culture in America.

Ice Cube performs with N.W.A. at Anaheim's Celebrity Theater on March 27, 1989.

(

Grayson Steve

/

LA Public Library/Herald Examiner Collection

)

“The music industry changed after Dr. Dre dropped The Chronic,” says Boyd-Pates. “The industry was never the same and gangsta rap was ushering in Death Row Records, Snoop Doggy Dogg and naturally Tupac who took it to heights the world had never seen … and all of that has ties to L.A.’s culture at large, especially Black culture.”

West Coast hip-hop forever 

Today’s L.A. legends like Kendrick Lamar and Nipsey Hussle, Tyler the Creator, Inglewood Sir, each carry forth the elements of this West Coast sound. You can hear its collective history — the disco, the funk, soul, gospel, and gangster rap — in music today.

Hip-hop may have started in New York years before it really reached L.A., and the East Coast sound may have reigned in the beginning. But the hip-hop sound established here was its own. It made an impression and it persisted, Williams notes.

“One thing about L.A. that made L.A. so great in so many ways is that it was spread out,” says Williams. “L.A. County is huge and everyone wanted their own recognition so when Compton made its stamp on hip-hop, Long Beach had to follow, Pomona had to follow, Inglewood followed and it created a competition but helped anchor the West.”

“Then Northern California did their thing,” Williams adds, “and just between California alone you gotta a whole lotta hip-hop. And most of it sounds totally different. That is the beauty of the West Coast.”

Michael Gates, a former deputy assistant attorney general, produced a letter Friday that he said confirmed he was not fired for cause, but rather resigned from the Civil Rights Division of the federal Department of Justice.

The Orange County Register last week reported that Gates had been fired for cause, citing an anonymous DOJ source who said Gates repeatedly referred to women colleagues by derogatory and demeaning names and had complained about the department employing a pregnant woman. The Register also published a government employment form, which was undated, that they said showed that Gates was fired for cause.

Gates told LAist the allegations were “100% fabrication.” Then on Friday, he shared a screenshot of a Nov. 21 letter from John Buchko, director of operational management at the DOJ, stating that the department “has accepted your voluntary resignation” and “will remove from your personnel record any previous reference to your termination.”

LAist reached out to Natalie Baldassarre, a DOJ spokesperson, to confirm the letter, sharing that screenshot. She responded by email: “No comment on personnel matters.”

Michael Gates provided this letter. A spokesperson for the department said they would not comment on personnel matters.

(

Courtesy Michael Gates

)

Back to Huntington Beach

Gates told LAist earlier this month that he was resigning from his job with the federal government because he missed Huntington Beach and his family. On Friday, the Huntington Beach City Council confirmed Gates has been hired back as chief assistant city attorney. He starts Monday.

Gates is both loved and loathed in politically contentious Huntington Beach. He has been an outspoken supporter of President Donald Trump and his policies and a continuous thorn in the side of Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat who is one of the most prominent critics of the president.

Gates was first elected city attorney in 2014 and has won re-election twice since then, with wide margins. Huntington Beach is among a minority of cities in California that elects rather than appoints a city attorney.

Gates' track record

As city attorney, Gates sued the state over housing mandates and the right to implement voter ID. He also marshalled the city into the center of culture war battles. While he was city attorney, his office sued California over the state’s sanctuary law, as well as a law prohibiting schools from requiring teachers to inform parents of a child’s request to change pronouns or otherwise “out” them as LGBTQ.

Many Huntington Beach residents support his work. But Gates has also faced heavy criticism and legal penalties, for some of his actions. In 2021, the city paid out $2.5 million total in a settlement with one former and one current employee who alleged age discrimination while working at the city under Gates. The city did not concede to any wrongdoing under the settlement.

And last year, Gates helped broker a controversial settlement over the pandemic-era cancelation of the city’s annual airshow, which will cost Huntington Beach taxpayers millions over the coming years.

What’s next?

Gates told LAist he’s looking forward to, once again, heading up the city’s litigation, including a scheduled trial against an effort to force Huntington Beach to adopt by-district elections. He said he plans to run again for city attorney in next year’s election.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Georgia Republican who rose to prominence as one of President Donald Trump's biggest defenders and recently became one of his biggest critics, is leaving Congress.

Greene's announcement late Friday that she would resign effective Jan. 5, 2026, is the latest escalation of months of clashes with the president over his second term agenda — including the release of the Epstein files.

"Standing up for American women who were raped at 14, trafficked and used by rich powerful men, should not result in me being called a traitor and threatened by the President of the United States, whom I fought for," Greene wrote in a lengthy statement shared online.

The third-term Congresswoman also said it would not be fair to her northwest Georgia district, one of the most conservative in the country, to have them "endure a hurtful and hateful primary against me by the president we all fought for," while noting that "Republicans will likely lose the midterms."

Greene is one of a record 40 House members and 10 senators who have indicated they do not plan to return to their seats after the 2026 election, joining a number of lawmakers who are retiring or running for a different office.
Copyright 2025 NPR

Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman filed a motion Friday in Superior Court to dismiss manslaughter charges against two Torrance police officers who fatally shot a Black man in possession of an air rifle in 2018.

Hochman argued in court documents that prosecutors can’t meet the legal standard of proof needed for the officers to be convicted of a crime.

The court has not yet ruled on the matter.

The details

Officers Matthew Concannon and Anthony Chavez were indicted in 2023 in connection with the killing of Christopher Deandre Mitchell, 23, who was suspected of stealing a car.

As the officers approached the car, they saw what was later revealed to be an air rifle between Mitchell’s legs. When Mitchell appeared to reach for the rifle,the officers opened fire, according to police.

The backstory

Former District Attorney Jackie Lacey declined to file charges against the officers in 2019, saying they reasonably believed Mitchell had a gun. Her successor George Gascón, elected in 2020 on a platform of police accountability, assigned a special prosecutor to review the case. The special prosecutor sought the criminal indictment.

When Hochman took office in 2024, he appointed a new special prosecutor, who recommended the charges be dropped.

“We cannot move forward in good faith with prosecuting these two officers because we cannot prove beyond a reasonable doubt with admissible evidence that the officers unreasonably believed they were in imminent danger when they saw what looked like a sawed-off shotgun or rifle between Mr. Mitchell’s legs and his hands moved toward the weapon just before the officers shot,” the statement read.

The courts

Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Sam Ohta did not immediately make a ruling Friday on the motion to dismiss the charges, saying the state Supreme Court is also considering the case.

The state Supreme Court is considering an appeal filed by one of the officer’s attorneys after Ohta rejected an earlier motion to dismiss by the defense.

As the Palisades Fire was still burning in January, residents saw an eye-grabbing headline: the Santa Ynez reservoir, perched directly above the Palisades, was offline for repairs and empty.

The reservoir’s closure frustrated residents and spurred Gov. Gavin Newsom to announce a state investigation into whether the reservoir being full of water would have made a difference fighting the deadly fire.

After months of analysis, California agencies including the state’s EPA, Cal Fire and the Department of Water Resources issued a report confirming the explanations given by local officials and experts in the aftermath of the fire: the water supply was too slow, not too low — and even a functioning reservoir likely wouldn’t have done much in the face of an unprecedented natural disaster.

Why the hydrants stopped working

The report found that not even a full reservoir positioned uphill from the Palisades Fire could have maintained water pressure and stopped the devastation.

“The water system lost pressure, not due to a lack of water supply in the system, but because of an insufficient flow rate,” the report states.

A reservoir perched at a high elevation, such as the Santa Ynez, can serve an important role in maintaining water pressure for hydrants throughout the system. As water gets used downhill, water from the reservoir flows to towers that maintain water pressure. Because of gravity and physical limitations on flow rates, the pressure towers can't be refilled at the same pace as they are drained and eventually dry up.

In the case of the Palisades Fire, the report states, a full reservoir would have helped keep water pressure up for only a short time.

The report noted that some data points on the demand on the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power’s system were missing.

However, investigators found that based on experiences with other fires, the high demand across the system meant it was “unlikely that [the reservoir] could have helped maintain pressure for very long.”

The system’s design

The report found that the closure of the Santa Ynez Reservoir was in line with the primary purpose of L.A.’s water infrastructure: maintaining a clean drinking water supply. The reservoir repairs were prompted by a damaged cover. The repairs, the report notes, were required by federal and state laws on drinking water safety.

More broadly, municipal water systems like L.A.’s weren’t built to fight wildfires, as LAist reported in January.

“This report confirms what we and others have been saying more broadly regarding water system expectations and capabilities, but does so completely independently and with new details specific to the L.A. fires,” Greg Pierce, the director of UCLA’s Human Right to Water Solutions Lab, said in an email to LAist.

What’s next

The report makes two major recommendations: continue to follow the California Wildfire and Forest Resilience Action Plan, and make sure firefighters in the state are positioned for year-round fires.

The state stopped short of recommending any changes to L.A.’s municipal infrastructure. Water experts like Pierce say massive amounts of water and a very expensive redesign of L.A.’s water system would be needed to keep fire hydrants working during large urban conflagrations.

For their part, researchers and others have been looking into other solutions, including putting more utility lines underground and redistributing water across the system.

The report about the reservoir comes on the heels of a separate report from the Fire Safety Research Institute about the timeline leading up to and during the January firestorm. That report, which was commissioned by the California governor's office, contains a detailed account of the Palisades and Eaton fires' progressions and emergency services' responses on Jan. 7 and 8.

As for the Santa Ynez Reservoir, the repairs to fix its broken cover and make it usable again are slated to begin in June and finish by May 2027.