Considered one of the pioneers of the region's hyphy movement, Mac Dre constantly hyped the Bay Area. The Vallejo, California, native built a sprawling empire called Thizz Nation, which released comedy videos and bobblehead dolls in addition to a seemingly bottomless pit of records by Dre himself and his many signees. Although every indication is that he had abandoned a crime-ridden past that included recording his first record from a jailhouse phone, the man who proclaimed himself "too hard for radio" was shot to death, victim of a likely hit, on a highway outside Kansas City in 2004. ~ Jason Thurston