The Best Of Westside Connection

There are a lot of good decisions and plenty of great music on Priority's 2007 release The Best of Westside Connection, but it's worth dishing out strong words of caution while recommending it. First of all, Westside Connection had only made two albums up to this point, something the folks at Priority try to swerve around by offering up solo tracks by the group's members, but only solo tracks where the other two guest star. In other words, "Cheddar" is a WC cut featuring Ice Cube and Mack 10. While these aren't necessarily Westside Connection numbers in everything but name — the trio made a conscious effort to sound like a crew when flying that banner — it's an interesting idea, one that would work much better if great tracks like Terrorist Threats' "Call 9-1-1" weren't sacrificed. Otherwise, the comp does a good job of picking the group's highlights, and a great job of telling their story in the booklet thanks to the liner notes written by author Soren Baker. Newcomers thinking they might have a predisposition to Westside Connection's cold, West Coast brand of hip-hop are better starting with the excellent first album, Bow Down, then getting around to the very good Terrorist Threats when they can. If you end up buying both of those and this comp, the overlapping will be unbearable.