Roach Gigz’s scrubby, pestilent moniker betrays him. Unpolished and more than a little wily, the twenty-three year old rapper doesn’t immediately jump out as the figurehead for an entire movement—until you remember that he’s from the Bay Area, a place that finds its heroes amongst the hardscrabble.

The San Francisco native kicks off a 12-date Northwest tour March 30 at Avalon Ballroom that will take him up to Montana before finishing in Oakland.

“How does Snow White got a star on the Hollywood Boulevard?” Gigz tweeted during a late night stroll on the famed Los Angeles avenue. “That bitch ain’t even real.” Since 2008, Roach, born Orlando Campbell, has tried to located his own star. He’s chartered a course through previously unnavigable waters—determined to emerge from a ferociously proud and independent rap scene into the limelight—on a stage historically shared by only a handful of enterprising Bay Area rappers, most of whom are now in their 40s, or dead. But where persistence and insistence were their moors, borne from schlepping trunk loads of mixtapes from show-to-show, Gigz put his schemes online.

Not that he could help it, or knew of a different option. With only a few mixtapes to his name, Gigz rode the Internet all the way to New York, appearing on MTV2, reviewed in the New York Times, and later, drunk onstage at Austin’s SXSW festival.

And then last year, something a little more interesting happened.

Toronto-based producer Jeremy Rose, very recently outed as the true architect of gothic R&B act The Weeknd, remixed a Roach Gigz song. Currently working under the name Zodiac, Rose walked away from his brooding brainchild because of creative differences with partner Abel Tesfaye, just weeks before rap superstar Drake would cosign the group, giving them, or rather just Tesfaye, the publicity of a lifetime. Given Rose’s success for both gauging and masterminding a new sound, his appreciation of Roach Gigz bodes well for the rapper’s chances at branching out of the Bay.

Tyga, the Compton rapper and youngest signee to Lil Wayne’s Young Money crew, will make an appearance in San Jose this Saturday at Fiesta Nightclub.

Scheduled to perform in Santa Cruz earlier that night, it’s unclear which variant of “Rack City,” Tyga’s strip-club ballad, the San Jose crowd will be treated to—the dubbed out karaoke in which Tyga mumbles the chorus as the crowd auditions for him, or will he do his best to transform the remote suburban venue from club to cabaret? You’ll have to see for yourself.

Tyga stops in at Fiesta Nightclub on March 24. Tickets and info available here.

Is the Oakland-based rapper Kreayshawn an Internet conspiracy or an absurdist comment on the state of popular culture? With a penchant for warped beats, chirpy hooks, and colorful baubles that combine Harajuku with the hood, the 22-year-old born Natassia Zolot has confounded the same Internet that gave birth to her. She performs Saturday at Studio 8’s Anniversary Party.

The surrealist asexual swagger that she traffics in has drawn lame comparisons to Nicki Minaj, Lil Wayne, even Lady Gaga. She also shares the criticism that she’s being “weird for weirdness’s sake,” and if that’s not enough—alert the authorities—she’s white.

In the video for “Gucci Gucci,” a wonky, fiendish rebuttal to exhausted brand names and simple minds, Kreayshawn and her crew of delinquent white girls strut through West Hollywood, pointing accusingly and mouthing cuss words. Adorned in what can only be called ‘cartoon couture,’ Kreayshawn dazzles in a Minnie Mouse headband and a blinged-out Indian head hanging from a waist-length chain. Her waif in crime, ‘Lil Debbie,’ bops in the foreground wearing a jean jacket and thick, square glasses—prescription unlikely. It’s as if someone animated the entire line of Polly Pocket and fed them a steady diet of hallucinogens and rap music.

But it’s not her fashion sense, or senselessness, that’s got the world in a fix. Her rap sheet reads thusly: an accomplice, Vanessa “V-Nasty” Reece, liberally peppers sentences with” the N-word.” Nude photos of a supposedly underage Kreayshawn were leaked on the Internet, right after a very public and very comic spat with heavyset rap-don Rick Ross. Also did we mention she’s white?

The thing is: Kreayshawn isn’t embarking on a quest to’save hip hop. It’s not clear if that’s even her genre. Hyper-referential, flippant and a little darling, it’s ridiculous to watch as hip-hop purists launch a series of missives against what’s really just hyphy junior—unthinking sure, but fun, dammit, fun. Cindi Lauper fun.

Kreayshawn performs February 25 at Studio 8’s anniversary party. The party starts at 9pm.