POP MUSIC : L.A.--The Second Deffest * City of Hip-Hop

“I New York” may have been a catch phrase a few years ago, but the words ring hollow to Russ Parr.

The popular Los Angeles-based rapper, comedian and morning air personality on KDAY-AM shuddered when he recalled the hostility he faced two years ago when performing in New York, the capital of rap.

Booked into the Roxy, a key hangout for the Big Apple’s rappers, Parr had no idea that New Yorkers regarded rap--and the entire hip-hop subculture of beat-box rhythms, “scratching,” graffiti art and street dancing--as their exclusive turf.

“I made the mistake of saying I was from L.A.,” said the California-born Parr, 30, who performs under the name of Bobby Jimmy & the Critters. “To them, no one west of the Hudson River had the right to rap. In unison, they all turned their backs on me. It was like it was planned. . . . It was vicious.”

New York is still the home for that swaggering, rhythmic and distinctly urban phenomenon called hip-hop. The most popular and critically acclaimed rap and deejay “crews”--Run-D.M.C., Whodini, L.L. Cool J, the Beastie Boys, the Fat Boys, Public Enemy, Full Force, Salt & Pepa, Afrika Bambaataa, Kurtis Blow, Mantronix, U.T.F.O., et al.--were spawned on that city’s streets. (See adjoining interview with Public Enemy.)

Still, other communities are starting to give New York a run for its Adidases in what is one of the fastest-growing areas of modern music.

Since the style break danced its way to the world stage in the late ‘70s, home-grown hip-hop has taken root in Philadelphia, Miami, Detroit, Seattle, Houston, Britain and Australia. Yet one of the most active, if still underexposed, scenes is right here in the Big Orange.

Though saddled with an inferiority complex and a rep for producing only slick and safe R&B;, Los Angeles is, in fact, clearly New York’s closest rival.

In five years, Macola Records, an independent label, has mushroomed from a back room to a half-block of office and warehouse space on Santa Monica Boulevard, thanks to best sellers from such local artists as the L.A. Dream Team and Berkeley’s Timex Social Club, both of which went on to major crossover success.

Streetsounds, a British label, recently released a 23-track compilation of Macola material for the European market called “The Best of West Coast Hip-Hop.” A junket for European writers is being planned to introduce them to Macola artists in person.

Last year, when L.L. Cool J sought producers for his latest album, the double-platinum “Bigger and Deffer,” he turned his B-boy gaze westward to the L.A. Posse, a.k.a. Darryl Pierce, Dwayne Simon and Bobby Erving.

Simultaneously, New York-based Sire Records--best-known for rock/pop stars like Madonna, Depeche Mode and Talking Heads--signed its first rap act, Los Angeles’ Ice-T. His debut LP, “Rhyme Pays,” has sold more than 300,000 copies, according to a Sire representative.

There are even some suggestions around town that Ice-T, 27, and his half-Bolivian manager, Jorge Hinojosa, 24, are the City of the Angels’ answer to Russell Simmons and Rick Rubin, the young, interracial entrepreneurial masterminds of New York’s Def Jam hip-hop empire (Run-D.M.C., the Beasties, Public Enemy, etc.).

The West Coast pair has formed a production team, Rhyme Syndicate, and is the driving force behind a Warner Bros. compilation album of the same name featuring mostly Angeleno rap acts. They are negotiating for a production deal whereby new acts they find would get major label distribution.

Meanwhile, the L.A. Dream Team, signed to MCA Records, has formed a new organization, West Coast Distribution, to handle a network of small, local labels.

And in the competitive world of rhyming and beat-boxes, where braggadocio is elevated to high art, Los Angeles can boast something that New York can’t: KDAY, a 24-hour radio station devoted mostly to hip-hop.

The scene isn’t restricted to a handful of enthusiasts. Newcomers such as Eazy-E, NWA, King Tee, the Mixmasters and Tone Loc (short for Tony Loco) are making noise in the hip-hop and dance club underground.

A few rooms, such as La Casa downtown, Skateland in South-Central Los Angeles and World on Wheels in Compton, offer live exposure and can hold up to 2,000 fans. Even New York’s Village Voice newspaper, which usually trumpets only its own scene, took note of all the Southern California activity.

Nelson George, the New York-based black-music editor of Billboard magazine, acknowledges the growth of L.A. hip-hop. “In the early 1980s, New Yorkers considered Los Angeles ‘too soft’ to be a factor in hip-hop,” he wrote. “But the tone and, as a result, the image of that city’s street culture have changed profoundly.”

“Nineteen eighty-eight will prove to be a turning point,” said Greg Mack, the 28-year-old KDAY music director who has guided the station from the R&B; mainstream to the hip-hop cutting edge. As if to back up his faith in the music form, he’s started his own label (Mack Daddy Records) and opened a record store, the Rage.

“There are so many guys who are finally getting a break,” he said. “A lot of the L.A. people are starting to get respect out there. A lot of the New York labels are looking out here now.”

Don MacMillan looks like someone who still thinks chillin’ has something to do with refrigeration or that def refers to the hearing impaired.

The 53-year-old president of Macola Records doesn’t exude a street sensibility, but this Canadian immigrant is credited with being one of the brightest sparks of the local scene.

“We started five years ago as a custom pressing plant, and these kids from the Compton area were having records pressed and selling 5,000 to 10,000 units just among themselves by word-of-mouth,” he said. “I was talking to some of these guys and said, ‘Fine, we’ll go ahead and put it out and set up a network of independent distributors and see if we can get it going that way for you.’ ”

The record executive, who had spent most of his career at the blues-oriented Cadet label, where he worked with artists like B.B. King and Big Joe Turner, was now dealing with a whole new generation of acts with names like Egyptian Lover, the World Class Wreckin’ Cru and Knights of the Turntable.

MacMillan knew he was on the right track when the label’s first release, Egyptian Lover’s “Egypt, Egypt” 12-inch single, reportedly sold nearly half a million copies. “I still don’t know what we did right,” he said with a laugh. “And this stuff will move by itself. The kids have discovered the telephone and they’ll tell their cousin in Florida or Texas, ‘Have you heard this new record by so-and-so?’ ”

While some have grumbled about MacMillan’s dominance in the field--it seemed for a time as if every hip-hop record that came out of Los Angeles bore the Macola stamp--others credit him with taking a chance on a form of music the New York trend-setters and major labels were ignoring. “He gave (local rappers) something nobody else would give them: a chance,” said Jorge Hinojosa.

Through Macola, the major labels started to take notice of California hip-hop. After the success stories of the Dream Team and Ice-T, Timex Social Club’s Sacramento-based producer, Jay King, went on to production deals with Warners and RCA.

These stories have prompted others to try their luck. Rap fan Matt Dike, 25, a former deejay at trend-conscious dance clubs such as the Rhythm Lounge and Power Tools, has started his own label, Delicious Vinyl. The initial 12-inch single release by Tone Loc, “On Fire,” has performed well on the dance-club circuit. Now word is out that Dike is a potential star maker.

“A guy called me up this morning at 8:30, some guy I didn’t even know,” he said, slightly aghast. “He starts rapping to me on the phone. I just put the phone on the pillow. I thought I was having a nightmare.”

Despite all this activity, the Los Angeles hip-hop contingent is faced with serious obstacles: not being taken seriously by the important New York market, lack of exposure and what some feel is an unsubtle brand of racism.

Macola’s MacMillan said he has trouble selling records in New York because of the lingering anti-L.A. bias.

But you don’t have to leave the city to find those who think L.A. hip-hop will always be imitative and second-rate. Even some of the style’s most ardent fans believe that the stimuli of urban desolation, unemployment, close living quarters and foul weather--all of which contributed to New York’s being a hip-hop hothouse in the ‘70s--are absent in Los Angeles, where races and classes are sometimes separated by miles of freeway.

“This kind of music, hard-edged and urban, breeds in close quarters,” said Steve Ivory, editor of Black Beat magazine and West Coast contributor to Billboard. “If I was in New York and at the equivalent of Sunset and Vine and I went out to lunch, I would hear three or four rappers on the corner. Here, I’d have to go to South L.A. or, if I’m lucky, the boardwalk in Venice. When I go to New York, you see rappers on the street. Here, everyone drives. Even the thugs drive Mercedeses.”

Rudy Pardee, half of the L.A. Dream Team, said his records don’t please the New York crowd, and he doesn’t even like to call his band’s music hip-hop.

“Our music is much different from the East Coast,” he said. “It’s more musical, more up-tempo. It’s not as hard a life. We do have street violence, but the New York life is harder than that of sunny Southern California and Hollywood.”

Others say that merely because L.A. hip-hop is different, it’s not necessarily inferior. “It’s just a different style of rap,” said Louil Silas Jr., the A&R;/artist development senior vice president at MCA, a label that has moved heavily into the hip-hop area with New York’s Heavy D & the Boyz, Eric B. & Rakim, L.A. Dream Team and Mixmasters.

“Where it originated will always have more respect, and I don’t know if L.A. rap will ever be as big. A lot of rap is about life style. When you’re living it, it makes it better somehow. It’s environmental.”

“(L.A. hip-hop) will sound its own way,” Dike said. “It’s like Van Halen sounds different from Boston’s Aerosmith.”

Others remain convinced that hip-hop, some of which is modern-day protest music, can survive outside its native environment.

Said Ivory: “We’ve got ghettos and people starving, but it’s still easier when you’ve got palm trees and good weather. Hard times for folks in L.A. are different from New Jersey or New York. What some people call hard-edged is just limp compared to a guy in the Bronx with no water and it’s 30 below. There, you’ve got one dude who’s mad.”

Ironically, despite Los Angeles’ soft-core musical image, the rap scene has been associated with violence--largely due to the gang brawl that erupted at a 1986 Long Beach Run-D.M.C. show in which 40 people were injured. More recently, it was reported that gunshots were fired at a Hollywood Palladium U.T.F.O. show, though witnesses insist that there were only two fistfights and no shots.

Said Moss Jacobs, general manager of the leading area concert promotion firm, Avalon Attractions, “We’ve had no problems with any of the rap shows we’ve done--Run-D.M.C., U.T.F.O. and L.L. Cool J.”

The specter of violence, real or imagined, has hurt the growth of local hip-hop.

“After that Long Beach thing, everybody’s scared,” said Gary Tovar, head of Goldenvoice Productions, Avalon’s co-sponsor of the U.T.F.O. Palladium show. “The media overblow the bit about rap violence, and it does hurt attendance. A lot more people like it than go to the shows.”

Some contend the image of violence exists not because of any actual incidents but because, despite the increasing multiracial tint at area shows, the bulk of hip-hop fans are black teen-agers.

“A lot of it has to do with prejudice. People don’t want to deal with blacks, and every stereotype you can think of comes into people’s minds,” said Tovar, who has had similar experiences with negative stereotyping in booking hard-core punk shows. “There’s still that scare factor.”

Another problem is that there are relatively few live showcases that book hip-hop on a regular basis. “On the East Coast, blacks have more outlets,” said Black Beat’s Steve Ivory. “Here, the kids have to go to the Greek Theatre to see rap, which is ridiculous.”

Yet even the genre’s most fervent supporters say that hip-hop, which harshly and realistically deals with urban street life, attracts some people who inhabit the margins of straight society.

Brendan Mullen, who books Hollywood’s Club Lingerie and downtown’s Variety Arts Center, brought many of the first generation of New York rappers to Los Angeles in the early ‘80s. Yet he said he’s a bit shy about booking many rap acts.

Rodger Clayton, head of Uncle Jam’s Army, a promotion firm that co-sponsored the infamous Long Beach Run-D.M.C. show and acts as a consultant for other promoters booking rap, was up-front about the gang element sometimes drawn to hip-hop. He used to sponsor large funk-music dances but said it’s no longer safe to do so.

“It’s just too dangerous because of the gangsters,” he said. “Ninety-nine percent of the kids are good, but just one kid with a gun can ruin everything. (But) the media has blown it all out of proportion. They look for little things. You have fights at AC/DC (rock) concerts but no one says anything.”

From first impressions, rapper Ice-T fits mainstream society’s definition of tough guy . The former Crenshaw High School student shares his Hollywood apartment with a pit bull named Felony, and a large poster of Arnold Schwarzenegger as the Terminator hangs on his wall.

He wears a golden replica of a gun around his neck and his lyrics on tracks such as “6 in the Morning” and “Squeeze the Trigger,” from the album “Rhyme Pays,” contain some of the most harrowing images of modern American urban society ever put on vinyl.

Ice-T has little to do with the bragging beat-box tomfoolery of L.L. Cool J or the Beastie Boys. Yet he discounts the notion that he is senselessly glorifying violence.

“You can listen to my lyrics and say, ‘Ice, this (criminal life style) sounds good,’ but if you analyze it, I’m just a rapper. I’m not doing that. It’s like when I used to read the Iceberg Slim books, I’d say, ‘Well, they’re pimping, they’re jumping.’ But if you analyze the book, he’s writing it out of jail, so how much fun could it be?

“I’m going to teach kids it’s not the smartest thing to do. My philosophy is tell them straight out: You sell drugs, you could get shot in the face, your parents could get killed--or you could get rich, but the odds are against it.”

Despite the perplexing problem of being perceived as simultaneously too soft-core and too violently hard-core, L.A. hip-hop continues to expand.

Jorge Hinojosa quit his job in promotion at Island Records four years ago to manage Ice-T and he said there were some rough times. Ice was rapping at a trendy downtown club called Radio. “It wasn’t all black kids. It was white kids, and David Lee Roth, Billy Idol and Madonna were all there,” he said.

But that didn’t pay the bills. Major labels and radio stations were definitely not interested. Now, Hinojosa can relax just a little. The doors to the major labels are a bit easier to push open these days.

“You have to realize that L.A. has things New York wishes it had, like a radio station that programs rap heavily,” he said.

As Ice-T sees it, Los Angeles is also helped along because it is fresh territory. “The thing about the West Coast is they have a chance to get bigger than New York because it’s all new,” he said.

Uncle Jam’s Rodger Clayton sees radio--the last obstacle, according to some--as finally changing and the animosity between the two coasts lessening.

“ ‘Push It’ is on KIIS-FM,” he said, pointing to mainstream radio’s acceptance of Salt & Pepa’s rap song. “That helps all the other rap groups. New York and L.A. are on different coasts but they are like sisters. L.A. looks to New York and New York looks to L.A.”

But Russ Parr can still feel the cold shoulder given him by his New York crowd. What if he were asked to play there? “I would not look forward to doing it,” he said with a laugh.