Ohio Is the West Coast Sound—No, Seriously

Article by Malik Perkins
Jun 12th, 2025

When people talk about the “West Coast sound” in hip hop, they picture palm trees, lowriders, and Dr. Dre in the studio building something smooth with a blunt in one hand and a platinum plaque on the wall behind him. And yeah, that image is iconic—but in this article we’ll cover an important detail that is often overlooked.

That sound? A lot of it started in Ohio.

I know—it sounds far-fetched. But hear me out. The funk, the soul, the bounce that made G-Funk what it is? It came straight off vinyl from Ohio artists who were laying down grooves long before hip hop was even a thought.

Lets start in Dayton, where the Ohio Players dropped their 1973 classic Funky Worm. This album contains high-pitched synths that are not only memorable, but historic as well. This one sound became the backbone of G-Funk and shows up in Dr. Dre’s Nuthin’ but a ‘G’ Thang, N.W.A’s Dopeman, and Ice Cube’s Ghetto Bird. It’s hard to believe at first, but that funky little worm wiggled its way from Dayton into the DNA of West Coast hip hop.

And yes—Dayton. The same place where you can grab a fish dinner at JJ’s and still make it home before your fries get cold. That Dayton.

Dayton also happens to be the city that gave us Roger Troutman and Zapp, who dropped More Bounce to the Ounce and basically gifted the world a bottomless sample pack. EPMD, Biggie, Snoop, and just about everyone else has used it. And of course, there’s California Love. It may as well be the ultimate West Coast anthem, but the hook, the talkbox, the whole vibe? That was Roger. From Dayton, bringing Ohio funk to the Cali sunshine.

Then we head down I-75 to Cincinnati, home of the legendary Isley Brothers. Their music has been sampled by every era of hip hop. Ice Cube’s It Was a Good Day, flips Footsteps in the Dark. Biggie’s Big Poppa is built on Between the Sheets. And Kendrick Lamar, on his Grammy-winning To Pimp a Butterfly, sampled That Lady for i. From laid-back West Coast anthems to modern rap classics, the Isleys are always in the mix. That’s what timeless soul does—it continues to find new life.

And then there’s the crown jewel—the most sampled beat in hip hop history, Funky Drummer. Played by the late, great Clyde Stubblefield, this drum break was recorded in 1969 at King Records in Cincinnati. As I write this, I wonder if Clyde knew back then that his groove would end up touching every coast.

Let’s run the receipts:

Public Enemy used it in Fight the Power.

Run-DMC in Run’s House.

LL Cool J on Mama Said Knock You Out.

Nas flipped it on Get Down.

Eric B. & Rakim in Lyrics of Fury.

Boogie Down Productions on South Bronx.

Common rode it on Soul by the Pound, and even Twista got in on it early.

It hit the West Coast, the East Coast, and of course the Midwest—everybody touched that beat. And it was born in a Cincinnati studio.

And no—this isn’t about taking anything away from the West Coast. California defined the look, the lifestyle, the laid-back flavor that made G-Funk so special. But a lot of the sound—the stuff that made heads jump and speakers thump—was Ohio-made.

We weren’t always on the magazine covers, but our music was always in the crates. The grooves that got sampled, the melodies that got looped, the beats that got chopped? They were cooked up in small Ohio studios and later served on platinum albums.

So the next time you’re vibing to a classic West Coast track, just know—Ohio was in the room. From Dayton to Cincinnati, from JJ’s to King Records, we’ve been shaping the soundtrack of hip hop from the shadows for decades.

California brought the cool.

Ohio brought the sound.

And together, we made magic.