MOUNT WESTMORE

Indisputably a supergroup, Mount Westmore consists of Too $hort, E-40, Ice Cube, and Snoop Dogg, icons of West Coast rap -- and hip-hop at large -- with well over 40 gold and platinum albums between them. The four MCs had recorded together in varying combinations dating back three decades before they debuted as a group in 2021. Their first album together, an expectedly brash and funky set known as both Bad MFs and Snoop Cube 40 $hort, followed the next year. The first commercially released collaboration between future Mount Westmore members appeared in 1990, when Ice Cube appeared on Too $hort's Short Dog's in the House. Among many subsequent collaborations were E-40's 1996 Top 40 crossover hit "Rapper's Ball," featuring Too $hort, and a pair of albums by those two Bay Area legends, released in 2012, that reached the Top Ten of Billboard's rap chart. Formed in 2020, Mount Westmore was conceived by E-40, who first invited Ice Cube, banking on the involvement of the N.W.A pioneer as a means to attract the other members. After Too $hort and Snoop Dogg were added to the mix, the quartet made their first appearances in 2021, first on the soundtrack of American Skin (the pro-Black "Step Child") and then the Def Jam compilation Snoop Dogg Presents Algorithm (the irreverent "Big Subwoofer"). Their first full-length project was originally issued in mid-2022 as an NFT titled Bad MFs. For wide release, the album was reconfigured as Snoop Cube 40 $hort, which appeared in December 2022. ~ Andy Kellman, Rovi