Gangsta rap

Gangsta rap is a subgenre of hip hop that reflects the violent lifestyles of inner-city youths.^[1] Gangsta is a non-rhotic pronunciation of the word gangster. The genre was pioneered in the mid 1980s by rappers such as Schooly D and Ice T, and was popularized in the later part of the 1980s by groups like N.W.A.^[1] After the national attention that Ice-T and N.W.A created in the late 1980s and early 1990s, gangsta rap became the most commercially lucrative subgenre of hip hop. The subject matter inherent in gangsta rap has caused a great deal of controversy. Criticism has come from both left wing and right wing commentators, and religious leaders, who have accused the genre of promoting violence, profanity, sex, homophobia, racism, promiscuity, misogyny, rape, street gangs, drive-by shootings, vandalism, thievery, drug dealing, alcohol abuse, substance abuse and materialism.

Some commentators (for example, Spike Lee in his satirical film Bamboozled) have criticized it as analogous to black minstrel shows and blackface performance, in which performers – both black and white – were made up to look African American, and acted in a stereotypically uncultured and ignorant manner for the entertainment of audiences. Gangsta rappers often defend themselves by saying that they are describing the reality of inner-city life, and that they are only adopting a character, like an actor playing a role, which behaves in ways that they may not necessarily endorse.^[2]

Early Gangster themes

The 1973 album Hustler's Convention by Lightnin' Rod and Jaren Clark featured lyrics that deal with street life, including pimping and the hustling of drugs. The Last Poets member Jalal Mansur Nuriddin delivers rhyming vocals in the urban slang of his time, and together with the other Last Poets members, was quite influential on later hip hop groups, such as Public Enemy. Many rappers, such as Ice T and Mac Dre, have credited pimp and writer Iceberg Slim with influencing their rhymes. Rudy Ray Moore's stand-up comedy and films based on his Dolemite hustler-pimp alter ego also had an impact on gangsta rap and are still a popular source for samples. Finally, blaxploitation films of the 1970s, with their vivid depictions of black underworld figures, were a major inspiration as well. For example, the opening skit on Snoop Dogg's Doggystyle is an homage to the famous bathtub scene in the 1972 film Super Fly, while the rapper Notorious B.I.G. took his alias "Biggie Smalls" from a character in the 1975 film Let's Do It Again.

Origins: 1984-1990

Beginnings: Ice-T & Schoolly D

In 1986, Los Angeles based rapper Ice-T released "6 in the Mornin'", which is often regarded as the first gangsta rap song. Ice-T had been MCing since the early '80s. In an interview with PROPS magazine, Ice-T said:

Here's the exact chronological order of what really went down: The first record that came out along those lines was Schoolly D's "P.S.K." Then the syncopation of that rap was used by me when I made "6 in the Mornin'". The vocal delivery was the same: '...P.S.K. is makin' that green', '...six in the morning, police at my door'. When I heard that record I was like "Oh shit!" and call it a bite or what you will but I dug that record. My record didn't sound like P.S.K., but I liked the way he was flowing with it. P.S.K. was talking about Park Side Killers but it was very vague. That was the only difference, when Schoolly did it, it was "...one by one, I'm knockin' em out." All he did was represent a gang on his record. Ithat and wrote a record about guns, beating people down, and all that with "6 in the Mornin'". At the same time my single came out, Boogie Down Productions hit with Criminal Minded, which was a gangster-based album. It wasn't about messages or "You Must Learn", it was about gangsterism.^[3]

Ice-T continued to release gangsta albums for the remainder of the decade: Rhyme Pays in 1987, Power in 1988 and The Iceberg/Freedom of Speech...Just Watch What You Say in 1989. Ice-T's lyrics also contained strong political commentary, and often played the line between glorifying the gangsta lifestyle and criticizing it as a no-win situation.

Boogie Down Productions

Boogie Down Productions released their first single, "Say No Brother (Crack Attack Don't Do It)", in 1986. It was followed by "South-Bronx/P is Free" and "9mm Goes Bang" in the same year. The latter is the most gangsta-themed song of the three; in it, KRS-One boasts about shooting a crack dealer and his posse to death (in self-defense).^[4] The album Criminal Minded followed in 1987, and was the first rap album to have fire arms on its cover. Shortly after the release of this album, BDP's DJ, Scott LaRock was shot and killed. After this, BDP's subsequent records were more focused with the inadequate rationale removed.

N.W.A's Straight Outta Compton.

The first blockbuster gangsta rap album was N.W.A's Straight Outta Compton, released in 1988. Straight Outta Compton would establish West Coast hip hop as a vital genre, and establish Los Angeles as a legitimate rival to hip hop's long-time capital, New York City. Straight Outta Compton sparked the first major controversy regarding hip hop lyrics when their song "Fuck Tha Police" earned a letter from FBI Assistant Director, Milt Ahlerich, strongly expressing law enforcement's resentment of the song.^[5][6] Due to the influence of Ice T and N.W.A, gangsta rap is often credited as being an originally West Coast phenomenon, despite the contributions of East Coast acts like Boogie Down Productions in shaping the genre.

In the early 1990s, former N.W.A member Ice Cube would further influence gangsta rap with his hardcore, socio-political solo albums, which suggested the potential of gangsta rap as a political medium to give voice to inner-city youth. N.W.A's third album, Efil4zaggin (1991) (released after Ice Cube's departure from the group), broke ground as the first gangsta rap album to reach #1 on the Billboard pop charts.

Others

Aside from N.W.A. and Ice T, Too Short (from Oakland, California), Kid Frost, and the South Gate-based Latino group Cypress Hill were pioneering West Coast rappers. Above The Law also played an important role in the gangsta rap movement, as their 1990 debut album Livin' Like Hustlers, as well as their guest appearance on N.W.A's 1991 Efil4zaggin, foreshadowing the dominance of the genre in 1990s starting with Dr. Dre's The Chronic.

The Beastie Boys were one of the first groups to identify themselves as "gangsters", and one of the first popular rap groups to talk about violence and drug and alcohol use. According to Rolling Stone Magazine, their 1986 album Licensed to Ill is "filled with enough references to guns, drugs, and empty sex (including the pornographic deployment of a Wiffleball bat in "Paul Revere") to qualify as a gangsta-rap cornerstone." ^[7]

The Beasties' 1989 album Paul's Boutique included the similarly-themed tracks "Car Thief," "Looking Down the Barrel of a Gun," and "High-Plains Drifter." In their early underground days, N.W.A rapped over Beastie Boy tracks for songs such as "My Posse" and "Ill-Legal", and the Beastie Boys' influence can be seen significantly in N.W.A's early albums.^[8]

The New York rap group Run DMC is often credited with popularizing hardcore and confrontational attitudes and lyrics in hip hop culture, and were one of the first rap groups to dress in flashy, gang-like street clothing. Their stripped-down, rock-inspired beats were also important in establishing the early gangsta rap production style. The seminal Long Island-based group Public Enemy featured aggressive, politically-charged lyrics, which had an especially strong influence on gangsta rappers such as Ice Cube. East Coast rappers like Rakim, Kool G Rap, Big Daddy Kane, Slick Rick, LL Cool J, and EPMD also reflected the trend in hip-hop music in the late 1980s towards hard-hitting, aggressive, and politically-conscious lyrics, sometimes revolving around street violence, poverty, and gunplay.

Houston, Texas rap group, the Geto Boys came out around the late 80s and highly influenced by N.W.A, made songs with similar themes which included songs with violent braggadocio, lots of graphic descriptions of murder and even predating Mafioso rap music with the song "Scarface" centered around selling cocaine and killing rival gang members. The Geto Boys are also known for being the first rap group to sample from the movie Scarface, which became the staple for lots of mafioso rappers to sample from.

1990-Present

Ice-T

Ice-T released one of the seminal albums of the genre, OG: Original Gangster in 1991. It also contained a song by his new thrash metal group Body Count, who released a self titled album in 1992. The group attracted a lot of media attention for the Cop Killer controversy.

His next album, Home Invasion, was postponed as a result of the controversy, and was finally released in 1993. While it contained gangsta elements, it was his most political album to date. After that, he left Warner Bros. Records. Ice-T's subsequent releases went back to straight gangsta-ism, but were never as popular as his earlier releases. He had alienated his core audience with his involvement in metal, his emphasis on politics and with his uptempo Bomb-Squad style beats during a time when G-funk was popular. He published a book "The Ice Opinion: Who Gives a Fuck?" in 1994.

G-funk and Death Row Records

In 1992, former N.W.A member Dr. Dre released The Chronic, a massive seller (eventually going triple platinum) which showed that explicit gangsta rap could hold mass commercial appeal just like more pop-oriented rappers such as MC Hammer, The Fresh Prince, and Tone Lōc. The album established the dominance of West Coast gangsta rap and Dre's new post-N.W.A label, Death Row Records (owned by Dre and his former bodyguard Marion "Suge" Knight), as Dre's album showcased a stable of promising new Death Row rappers. The album also began the subgenre of G-funk, a slow, drawled form of hip hop that dominated the rap charts for some time. Extensively sampling P-Funk bands, especially Parliament and Funkadelic, G-funk was multi-layered, yet simple and easy to dance to. The simple message of its lyrics, that life's problems could be overcome by guns, alcohol, and marijuana, endeared it to a teenage audience. The single "Nuthin' but a "G" Thang" became a crossover hit, with its humorous, House Party-influenced video becoming an MTV staple despite that network's historic orientation towards rock music. Another G-Funk success was Ice Cube's Predator album, released at about the same time as The Chronic in 1992. It sold over 5 million copies and was #1 in the charts, propelled by the hit single "It Was a Good Day", despite the fact that Ice Cube wasn't a Death Row artist. One of the genre's biggest crossover stars was Dre's protégé Snoop Doggy Dogg (Doggystyle, 1993), now known as Snoop Dogg, whose exuberant, party-oriented themes made songs such as "Gin and Juice" club anthems and top hits nationwide. In 1996, 2Pac signed with Death Row and released the multi-platinum double album All Eyez on Me. Not long afterward, his shocking murder brought gangsta rap into the national headlines and propelled his posthumous The Don Killuminati: The 7 Day Theory album (released under the alias "Makaveli") (which eerily featured an image of 2Pac being crucified on the front cover) to the top of the charts.

Mafioso rap

Mafioso rap is a hardcore hip hop sub-genre founded by Kool G Rap in the late 1980s.^[9] It is the pseudo-Mafia extension of East Coast hardcore rap, and is considered the counterpart of West Coast G-Funk rap. Mafioso rap is characterized by lavish, self-indulgent, and luxurious subject matter, with many references to famous mobsters, organized crime, materialism, drugs, and expensive champagne.^[10] Though the genre died down for several years, it re-emerged in 1995 when Wu-Tang Clan member Raekwon released his critically acclaimed solo album, Only Built 4 Cuban Linx.... 1995 also saw the release of Doe or Die by Nas' protégé AZ. These two albums brought the genre to mainstream recognition, and inspired other East Coast artists, such as Nas, Notorious B.I.G. and Jay-Z, to adopt the same themes as well with their albums It Was Written, Life After Death and Reasonable Doubt. Though Mafioso rap declined in the mainstream by the late 1990s, it has seen somewhat of a revival in more recent years with Ghostface Killah's Fishscale, Jay-Z's American Gangster, Rick Ross's Deeper than Rap, and Raekwon's Only Built 4 Cuban Linx II. Similarly, in recent years, many rappers, such as T.I., Jadakiss, Jim Jones, and Cassidy have maintained popularity with lyrics about self-centered urban criminal lifestyles or "hustling".

East Coast Hardcore Rap and the East Coast-West Coast feud

Meanwhile, rappers from New York City, such as Wu-Tang Clan, Onyx, Mobb Deep, Nas, The Notorious B.I.G., and the The L.O.X, among others, pioneered a grittier sound known as East Coast hardcore hip hop. Wu-Tang Clan, B.I.G., and some of Bad Boy Records artists paved the way for New York City to take back chart dominance from the West Coast. In an interview for The Independent in 1994, the Wu-Tang Clan's GZA commented on the term "gangsta rap" and its association with his group's music and hip hop at the time:

Our music is not 'gangsta rap'. There's no such thing. The label was created by the media to limit what we can say. We just deliver the truth in a brutal fashion. The young black male is a target. Snoop (Doggy Dogg) has gone four times platinum and makes more money than the president. They don't like that, so you hear 'ban this, ban that'. We attack people's emotions. It's a real live show that brings out the inside in people. Like I said, intense.^[11]

—GZA

It is widely speculated that the ensuing "East Coast/West Coast" battle between Death Row Records and Bad Boy Records resulted in the deaths of Death Row Records' 2Pac and Bad Boy Records' The Notorious B.I.G. Even before the murders, Death Row had begun to unravel, as co-founder Dr. Dre had left earlier in 1996; in the aftermath of 2Pac's death, label owner Suge Knight was sentenced to prison for a parole violation, and Death Row proceeded to sink quickly as most of its remaining artists, including Snoop Dogg, left. Dr. Dre, at the MTV Video Music Awards, claimed that "gangsta rap was dead". Although Puff Daddy's Bad Boy Entertainment fared better than its West Coast rival, it eventually began to lose popularity and support by the end of the decade, due to its pursuit of a more mainstream sound, as well as challenges from Atlanta and New Orleans-based labels, especially, Master P's No Limit stable of popular rappers.

Southern and Midwestern gangsta rap

After the deaths of Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls and the media attention they generated, gangsta rap became an even greater commercial force. However, most of the industry's major labels were in turmoil, bankrupt, or creatively stagnant, and new labels representing the rap scenes in new locations sprang up.

Atlanta already featured established acts like Goodie Mob, OutKast and Ludacris, all of whom would achieve their greatest popularity in the late 1990s and early 2000s. More recently, Atlanta has produced successfully rappers like Gucci Mane, T.I. and Young Jeezy. Jermaine Dupri, an Atlanta-born record producer and talent scout, got his break in the music industry when he discovered youthful pop rappers Kris Kross (Totally Krossed Out, 1992) performing at a mall, and would go on to establish a large roster of commercially successful acts on his So So Def label which, although mostly weighted towards pop-rap & R&B, included rap artists such as Da Brat (Funkdafied, 1994), and Dupri himself.

Master P's No Limit Records label, based out of New Orleans, also became quite popular in the late 1990s, though critical success was very scarce, with the exceptions of some later additions like Mystikal (Ghetto Fabulous, 1998). No Limit had begun its rise to national popularity with Master P's The Ghetto Is Trying to Kill Me! (1994), and had major hits with Silkk the Shocker (Charge It 2 Da Game, 1998) and C-Murder (Life or Death, 1998). Cash Money Records, also based out of New Orleans, had enormous commercial success beginning in the late 1990s with a similar musical style and quantity-over-quality business approach as No Limit.

Memphis collective Hypnotize Minds, led by Three 6 Mafia and Project Pat, have taken gangsta rap to some of its darker extremes. Led by in-house producers DJ Paul and Juicy J, the label became known for its pulsating, menacing beats and uncompromisingly thuggish lyrics. However, in the mid-2000s, the group began attaining more mainstream popularity, eventually culminating in the Three 6 Mafia winning an Academy Award for the song "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp" from Hustle and Flow.

Midwest gangsta rap originated in the mid 1990's and rose to major prominence in the 2000s. Midwest Hip Hop was originally distinctive for its faster-paced flow. This is evident in the styles of the earliest Midwestern rappers to release albums, Chicago's Twista and Cleveland's Bone Thugs-n-Harmony. Bone Thugs, known for their fast, harmonizing vocals coupled with an ultra-quick rap delivery, would achieve major success with their critically-acclaimed 1995 album E 1999 Eternal, which featured a major hit in the Grammy-winning "Tha Crossroads".

Houston first came on to the national scene in the late 1980s with the violent and disturbing stories told by the Geto Boys, with member Scarface achieving major solo success in the mid-90s.

In the early 2000s Houston, also known as the "3rd coast", exploded into the forefront of Southern hip hop, with commercially successful acts like Mike Jones, Slim Thug, Lil Flip, Chamillionaire and Paul Wall. UGK now calls Houston home although they are originally from Port Arthur, Texas. UGK, which consists of Bun B and Pimp C (deceased), are considered Texas underground legends and have been enormously influential on southern hip hop since the 1980s.

The Chopped and Screwed genre was developed in Houston, Texas which remains the location most associated with the style. The late DJ Screw, a South Houston DJ, is credited with the creation of and early experimentation with the genre. DJ Screw began making mixtapes of the slowed-down music in the early 1990s and began the Screwed Up Click. This provided a significant outlet for MCs in the South-Houston area, and helped local rappers such as Big Moe, Lil' Flip, E.S.G., UGK, Lil' Keke and Z-Ro gain regional and sometimes national prominence.

Mainstream era

Before the late 1990s, gangsta rap, while a big-selling genre, had been regarded as well outside of the pop mainstream, committed to representing the experience of the inner-city and not "selling out" to the pop charts. However, the rise of Bad Boy Records, propelled by the massive crossover success of Bad Boy head Sean "Puffy" Combs's 1997 ensemble album, No Way Out, on the heels of the media attention generated by the murders of 2Pac and The Notorious B.I.G., signaled a major stylistic change in gangsta rap (or as it is referred to on the East Coast, hardcore rap), as it morphed into a new subgenre of hip hop which would become even more commercially successful and popularly accepted. The earlier, somewhat controversial crossover success enjoyed by popular gangsta rap songs like "Gin and Juice" gave way to gangsta rap's becoming a widely-accepted staple on the pop charts in the late 1990s. For example, between the release of The Notorious B.I.G.'s debut album Ready to Die in 1994 and his follow-up, the posthumous Life After Death in 1997, his sound changed from a darker, tense production, with lyrics projecting desperation and paranoia, to a cleaner, more laid-back sound, fashioned for popular consumption (though the references to guns, drug dealing and life as a thug on the street remained).

R&B-styled hooks and instantly recognizable samples of well-known soul and pop songs from the 1970s and 1980s were the staples of this sound, which was showcased primarily in Sean "Puffy" Combs's latter-day production work for The Notorious B.I.G. ("Mo Money, Mo Problems"), Mase ("Feels So Good"), and non-Bad Boy artists such as Jay-Z ("Can I Get A...") and Nas ("Street Dreams"). Also achieving similar levels of success with a similar sound at the same time as Bad Boy was Master P and his No Limit label in New Orleans, as well as the New Orleans upstart Cash Money label.

Cash Money artists, The B.G. and Lil Wayne, popularized a catch phrase in 1999 that captures the main focus of much mainstream hip-hop since the late 1990s: "Bling-Bling". Whereas much gangsta rap of the past had portrayed the rapper as protesting urban squalor, by the late 1990s mainstream gangsta rappers seemed focused on projecting an image of extreme affluence, materialism, and hedonism, with fancy jewelry, clothes, liquor, and women becoming frequent themes in gangsta rap lyrics and videos. Many of the artists who achieved such mainstream success in the 2000s, such as Jay-Z, DMX, then 50 Cent and G-Unit, originated from the gritty 1990's East Coast rap scene and were influenced by hardcore artists such as The Notorious B.I.G, Wu-Tang Clan, and Nas. Mase and Cam'ron were typical of a more relaxed, casual flow that became the pop-gangsta norm. By contrast, other rappers like Eminem and DMX enjoyed commercial success in the late 1990s by rapping about ever-more macabre tales of death and violence, maintaining commercial relevance by attempting to be controversial and subversive, growing on the Horrorcore rap style born in the mid-1990s.

New artists, such as M.I.M.S, T-Pain, and Soulja Boy, have made the line between Gangsta Rap and Pop Rap much more visible within the last 2–3 years, based on lyrics and hooks that generally are meant to appeal to children and young teenagers. Some gangsta rappers such as 50 Cent and G-Unit attempt to appeal to both the pop rap and gangsta rap audiences.

See also

• List of gangsta rap artists

References

External links

• Keepin' It Unreal — by The Village Voice
• Gangsta rap regional south