Hood Surgeon

In the middle and later years of the 2000s, rappers based in New York and California grappled with restoring their coasts' prominence on urban and mainstream airwaves amid the South's grip on both formats. Compton MC Hood Surgeon, who styled himself a West Coast revivalist, already held an edge as the offspring of hip-hop's most revered West Coast architect, Dr. Dre. Curtis Young entered the world in Paramount, California, during December 1981; he and his mother moved to Compton during his early elementary years. Though he spent his childhood in the same city as his father, Young remained unaware that Dr. Dre was his parent until age twelve. Thereafter, nothing could divert him from pursuing a career as a rapper, a resolve that only strengthened once he met the icon at twenty-one. Echoing his father's path, he founded the independent So Hood Records and promptly signed multiple emerging artists to its roster. He also began producing tracks himself and mastered various recording engineering techniques without outside instruction. After issuing several local mixtapes, Hood Surgeon gained notice in 2006 from national outlets and websites—occasionally alongside Eazy-E's son Lil' Eazy-E—which publicized both his lineage and his youthful likeness to Dr. Dre. The next year, the singles "Paradise" and "All I Need" paved the way for the summer arrival of his first independent full-length, The Autopsy of Curtis Young.