The Vallejo City Council voted unanimously Tuesday, September 8, to rename Taper Avenue in North Vallejo after Andre "Mac Dre" Hicks. Per The Vallejo Sun (@thevallejosun), "Mac Dre Way" will run the full half-mile from Fairgrounds Drive to Taper Court. The intersection of Amelia and Taper is where Dre grew up and where the first Vallejo crews formed. The petition was filed in July by Michael "Miami the Most" Lott, a founding member of Thizz Entertainment.
## The room Council chambers were full. Mac Mall told the council that Dre helped start his career and "countless young people" got their first shot through him. Solano County Supervisor Cassandra James called it "a moment for hip-hop... a moment for Bay Area history." A high school coach talked about Dre showing up for youth sports. Artist Mike "K.O.B" Rosenthal put the argument the city needed to hear on the record: a street sign doesn't glorify anyone's past, it recognizes what the art did for the people who came after.
The city's own staff report used the word "pioneered." That's a government document saying the hyphy movement started here, with this man.
## The catalog behind the sign Dre debuted in 1989 with the Young Black Brotha EP and "Too Hard for the F--in' Radio," first performed at a Hogan High talent show. He did four years (1992-96) on a robbery-conspiracy case and recorded Back N Da Hood over the phone from Fresno County Jail and Lompoc, which is still one of the most inventive production stories in rap. He came home, built Thizz, defined the Bay's dance-floor sound through the early 2000s, and was shot and killed in Kansas City in November 2004 at 34. Twenty-two years later he's on the same honor roll as E-40, who got his stretch of Magazine Street three years ago, and Con Funk Shun, who got theirs in 2025.
## The ownership note Vallejo did this after a petition from Dre's own label partner, with his own artists in the room, for a street on his own block. Nobody at a major had to sign off, and nobody at a major is getting a check for it. The Bay has always run on that: own the master, own the label, own the block. Now the block has his name.
## Sources - The Vallejo Sun - Vallejo to name street after Mac Dre (Sept. 9, 2026): https://www.vallejosun.com/vallejo-to-name-street-after-mac-dre/ - The Vallejo Sun - Vallejo to name street in honor of E-40 (2023): https://www.vallejosun.com/vallejo-to-name-street-in-honor-of-e-40/