Chanel West Coast Says Hip-Hop Is Sending Kids the Wrong Message as She Turns to Country Music

Chanel West Coast grew up with hip-hop in her house, learned to dance to it as a child and watched her DJ father work behind turntables. Now the rapper and former “Ridiculousness” personality says the music that helped shape her sounds far different from the rap she admired growing up.

West Coast said she believes rap has become too “ratchet,” pointing to Lauryn Hill, Missy Elliott and Eve as women who represented something different to her. AllHipHop reported that the 37-year-old artist wants her own music to carry a more positive, refined side of the woman she has become.

“I think rap’s went in a little bit of a different direction,” West Coast said. She described herself as still having a “bad girl side” but said motherhood has brought another part of her personality into her music.

Criticism of today’s rap became more personal when she described overhearing children near a pool discussing robbing a vending machine. West Coast said they appeared to be about 8 years old, leaving her wondering what they had watched or heard that made stealing part of their conversation.

The encounter fed West Coast’s belief that some rap is reaching young listeners in ways she finds troubling. Rather than abandoning music, she has increasingly turned toward sounds she also heard during her youth.

Music came from two very different places during West Coast’s early life. Her father exposed her to hip-hop while working as a DJ in New York City, while time spent with her mother’s family in Ohio introduced her to country.

Those influences are now meeting in her recordings. West Coast has argued that rap and country have more in common than listeners might assume because both rely heavily on rhyme and poetry.

During a February interview with TMZ, she said she still considers herself a poet even when she is singing instead of rapping. The crossover became more tangible as she began recording songs drawing from both sides of her musical upbringing.

“Down to the Filter,” issued May 8, pushed West Coast further into country. The record grew partly from her cover of Jelly Roll’s “Need a Favor,” which attracted millions of views and caught the notice of Rob Ragosta, one of the writers behind Jelly Roll’s hit.

Ragosta later worked on “Down to the Filter” with producer Shane “Sheux-Bear” Bauman, Grey Zeigler and West Coast. She said Bauman sent her the track with a hook and first verse already in place before she wrote the second verse, turning an unexpected connection into another step outside straight-ahead rap.

Motherhood is shaping the change, too. West Coast, whose daughter Bowie was born in 2022, has spoken in interviews about wanting listeners to meet a softer side of Chelsea Chanel Dudley alongside the larger personality associated with Chanel West Coast.

For a performer raised around turntables who built much of her identity around rap, singing country does not erase where she started. It brings another piece of her upbringing into the music she is making now.