KCRW's ever-illuminating Guest DJ Project, which this year alone has featured Danny Boyle, Zach Braff and Sara Vowell, among others, this week offers the LA Weekly's Pulitzer-Prize-winning food editor and former music editor Jonathan Gold, who picks five tracks to share with listeners.

In an interview with Garth Trinidad, Gold shares stories on seeing the Germs for the first time, and spending time with N.W.A and Snoop during the peak of the G Swing in the early 1990s.

Garth Trinidad: This was when you were really writing a lot about that music during that time.

Jonathan Gold: Right, I wrote the first big piece on NWA back in '89. I used to spend a lot of time going to Skateland in Compton to hear the jams, which is completely unlike anything I had ever heard. LA Hip Hop was great, but nobody ever heard it, everybody just heard the New York stuff. And Dre was the guy who figured out how to slow it down. LA Hip Hop had all been like very fast. Like pop pop pop pop. Stuff for the girl in the disco and he was the guy who like slowed it down and made it gangsta. “Chronic,” I think, was the total break through album. It crossed over to the bouncing cars to hanging out barbequing in the park. It was less about bang bang bang and it was more about 'this is a neighborhood you live in and you're enjoying it and y'all are invited to the party.' And there's something beautiful about that.

Listen to it here:

Also, do you like to drink? Don't miss Jonathan Gold's current cover story, “The New Cocktailians,” and be sure to check out photos from Sunday's Gold Standard Food and Wine Event at Smashbox Studios.

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