Efil4zaggin is released

Why it matters

Efil4zaggin (the title is "Niggaz4Life" spelled backwards) came out May 28, 1991, on Ruthless. It is NWA's second studio album and the first one made without Ice Cube, who had left in 1989. The remaining lineup was Eazy-E, Dr. Dre, MC Ren, DJ Yella, and the D.O.C. (uncredited on the album as a writer). Dre produced everything. The album hit #2 on the Billboard 200 in its first week and then #1 in its second, becoming the first explicitly gangsta-rap LP to ever top the chart. The whole industry took the hint. After Efil4zaggin, the major-label gates around explicit West Coast rap basically came down. The album itself is uneven (Dre's production was getting better but the lyrical content without Cube was thinner) and is mostly remembered now as the album Dre walked out on Ruthless right after making. By the end of 1992 Dre would have The Chronic on shelves, recorded entirely under the new Death Row banner. You can hear, on Efil4zaggin, the producer leaving the room. The next room had a different name on the door.