La Coka Nostra

As white, blue collar kids started creating their own style of boisterous hip-hop in the 1990s, House Of Pain were at the forefront of the trend, scoring the massive hit Jump Around and selling millions of albums. With the band on hiatus in the mid-2000s front man Danny Boy was hanging out with Ill Bill from hardcore rap group Non Phixion and producer/MC Slaine when they naturally began creating a hard-edged form of old skool hip-hop. Everlast, DJ Lethal and a host of friends also got involved in the project, and they took the name La Coka Nostra from a Sicilian mafia organisation before releasing debut A Brand You Can Trust in 2009. Snoop Dogg, B-Real and Q-Unique all made guest appearance on the album that was a mix of socially conscious gangsta raps with a fog of smoke and strutting aggression. That style continued on Masters Of The Dark Arts in 2012 before 2016's To Thine Own Self Be True became a more personal, therapeutic release of emotion and was notably more worldly and cathartic in tone. Everlast was forced to stop working with the group to care for his daughter, who suffers with cystic fibrosis, but the band completed a major European tour and remain well-respected, fatherly figures in the world of hip-hop.

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