Compton's Most Wanted

Compton's Most Wanted, often abbreviated CMW, was an American hip hop group from Compton, California, formed in the late 1980s and fronted primarily by MC Eiht alongside Tha Chill, DJ Slip, and other members over the group's run. They emerged alongside acts like N.W.A as part of the wave of West Coast gangsta rap that turned Compton into a defining setting for the genre, delivering vivid, unflinching narratives of street life, gang culture, and police conflict over hard-hitting funk-and-soul-sampled production typical of early G-funk.

The group built its reputation through albums that captured the harsher, more grim end of West Coast rap, with tracks such as «Growin' Up in the Hood», «Def Wish», its sequel «Def Wish II», «Hood Took Me Under», and «One Time Gaffled 'Em Up» becoming staples of the era's gangsta rap catalog. «Growin' Up in the Hood» in particular gained wider exposure through its inclusion on the soundtrack to the film Boyz n the Hood, helping introduce the group to audiences beyond the West Coast rap scene.

MC Eiht went on to become the group's most visible member, building a prominent solo career and appearing as an actor, notably in the film Menace II Society, while remaining closely identified with Compton's Most Wanted's legacy as one of the foundational acts of West Coast gangsta rap.