Andre Nickatina
Fillmore District rapper who debuted as Dre Dog on In-A-Minute Records in 1993, then renamed himself Andre Nickatina in 1997 and built a long independent career in San Francisco.
Fillmore roots
Andre Lamond Adams was born in San Francisco on March 11, 1970, and grew up in the city's Fillmore District. He entered the Bay Area rap scene in the early 1990s under the name Dre Dog, recording for the independent In-A-Minute Records, the same label that issued Rappin' 4-Tay's 1991 comeback album.
The Dre Dog era
As Dre Dog he released “The New Jim Jones” in 1993, along with a 12-inch single for “The Ave.,” and followed it with “I Hate You with a Passion” in 1995. The second album reached number 79 on Billboard's R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart and number 7 on the Heatseekers chart, a strong showing for a regional independent release.
Becoming Andre Nickatina
In 1997 he retired the Dre Dog name and began recording as Andre Nickatina, issuing “Cocaine Raps” and “Raven in My Eyes” that year. He also founded his own imprint, Fillmoe Coleman Records, in 1997, and built a devoted underground following with “Tears of a Clown” (1999), “Daiquiri Factory: Cocaine Raps, Vol. 2” (2000) and “Conversation with a Devil” (2003). With San Francisco rapper Equipto he recorded “Midnight Machine Gun, Rhymes, and Alibis” (2002) and the “Horns and Halos” series of 2005 and 2006.
Later work and legacy
His later catalog includes “A Tale of Two Andres” (2008), a short tribute project with the late Mac Dre, “The King and Mr. Biscuits” with Smoov-E and an EP with The Jacka, both in 2010, and “Khan! The Me Generation” (2010), which reached number 40 on the R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart. His self-titled 2013 album peaked at number 46 on that chart and number 12 on Heatseekers. SF Weekly named him the city's best local hip hop legend in 2005, and he has kept releasing music independently into the 2020s.
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