bloods - compton crip - piru - crip - mafia crips - hoover crips - latin kingz - underground crips - eastside - killaz - westside - westcoast - blood killaz - bk - victory - crip killa South Los Angeles, often abbreviated as South LA, is the official name for a large geographic and cultural portion lying to the southwest and southeast of downtown Los Angeles, California. The area was formerly called South Central Los Angeles, and is still widely known as South Central by its residents. It borders the Westside on the northwest, and Downtown LA on the northeast.[1] In 2003, the city of Los Angeles changed the area's official name from South Central Los Angeles to South Los Angeles in hopes of removing the associations of urban decay and street crime with which the name "South Central" had become associated. The Los Angeles Times uses both the old and new names to describe the area. Some residents of the Los Angeles area (including residents of South Los Angeles) still use the old name. Prominent figures from South Los Angeles, such as Ice Cube, also continue to refer to the area as South Central Los Angeles. South Los Angeles is considered the forefront for gang warfare and poverty in the city of Los Angeles. Gang violence and crime in South Central were the main themes in songs such as NWA's "Straight Outta Compton", "Gangsta Gangsta" and "The Dayz of Wayback", Ice Cube's "Dead Homiez" and "How to Survive in South Central", and Compton's Most Wanted's Hood Took Me Under ...