MC Eiht
Aaron Tyler has spent thirty-five years writing first-person Compton crime narrative with almost no variation in approach and almost no drop in quality. He is a specialist and has never pretended otherwise.
Early life and Compton's Most Wanted
He grew up in Compton, California, and formed Compton's Most Wanted in the late 1980s. The group's records — It's a Compton Thang, Straight Checkn 'Em, Music to Driveby — arrived alongside N.W.A but were bleaker and less concerned with spectacle.
Solo career
We Come Strapped (1994) reached the top of the R&B albums chart, and he has released steadily since, including Death Threatz, Last Man Standing and later work with the producer Brenk Sinatra. Which Way Iz West, produced largely by DJ Premier and released in 2017, was widely treated as a late-career high point.
Menace II Society
He played A-Wax in the Hughes brothers' 1993 film, a performance frequently named among the better acting turns by a rapper, and contributed to the soundtrack. For a great many people that film is where they encountered him.
What he is known for musically
Narrative discipline and the "geah" ad-lib, which is his signature. He writes in scene and consequence rather than boast, and his delivery is flat and unhurried in a way that makes the material land harder than shouting would.
The DJ Quik feud
His conflict with DJ Quik ran across records for most of the 1990s and was rooted in real neighbourhood affiliation. It is one of the few rap feuds of that era that neither party manufactured for attention.
Compton's Most Wanted
The group released four albums between 1990 and 1992, of which Music to Driveby is the most highly regarded. They worked in the same territory as N.W.A but without the theatricality, and the records have aged better than their sales at the time would suggest.
We Come Strapped and the solo run
His 1994 solo debut topped the R&B albums chart and remains his commercial high point. He has released consistently since, mostly independently, without altering the approach.
Working with DJ Premier
Which Way Iz West, released in 2017 with substantial production from DJ Premier and DJ Premier's own endorsement, was treated by critics as a late-career return and introduced him to listeners who knew him only from Menace II Society.
Acting
Beyond Menace II Society he has appeared in television and film, and voiced a character in the Grand Theft Auto series, which reached a larger audience than any of his records. He is one of a small number of rappers whose acting work is genuinely regarded rather than tolerated.