Gangster / Gangsta Rap, A Hip-Hop Music

Rap is a genre in music that consists of rhyming or being poetic over a certain unique beat. The origin of rap is significantly different from any other form of music. The flow, change, subject of the music, and the instrumentals behind the rapping has all changed with time. Most people would underestimate the complexity of the music and the evolution it has undergone. The real roots of rap music began in the late 1980’s with the “Golden Age.” It was innovative and mostly based around the party scene. Gangsta Rap followed the Golden age and was very impactful on the young culture. After the Gangsta Rap era came the time in rap referred to as Crunk Rap which combined the country sound with the party lifestyle. Conscious

N.W.A (an abbreviation of Niggaz Wit Attitudes)[1][2][3] was an American hip hop group from Compton, California, widely considered one of the seminal acts of the gangsta rap and west coast hip hop sub-genres, sometimes credited as the most important group in the history of rap music.[4] Active from 1986 to 1991, the rap group endured controversy due to the explicit lyrics that many considered to be disrespectful to women, and glorifying drugs and crime. The group was subsequently banned from many mainstream American radio stations. In spite of this, the group has sold over 10 million units in the United States alone.

In the year of 1988, a song called “Fuck Tha Police” was published and publicly released to the world by the famous rap group N.W.A. on August 9th. The song is an ultimate form of protest. Not only did it reveal racism and police brutality towards African Americans, but it was a real eye opener for the whole world to see how Caucasian people treated people of color back then. The song transcended into a slogan and is now a movement in pop culture all over the world today, you see it on posters, billboards, and even t-shirts. The song hits all three categories of ethos, logos, and pathos. It demonstrates credibility/trust, logic/reason/proof, and emotions/values.

The success the N.W.A group artists consists of avoiding being taking advantage of by managers who do it because artists know less about paperwork, transactions and which type of business to do at the right point of time. O’shea Ice Cube Jackson got into a financial dispute between him and the N.W.A manager, Jerry Heller. The dispute was settled in-court in 1990. After the fact, Cube continued a successful solo career. After that the N.W.A continued working on the same path, despite of the obstacles by being criticized by politicians, Ban of sales from few retailers because it was the purest form “Gangsta Rap” full of violence, misogyny, but also a lot of humor, and pathos. Politicians spent amounts of energy to stop it from being something, it was simply wild. The politicians might take the side that says this specific type of music influence young African Americans to do crimes and do what gangs do as described in the songs yet, the beauty of it is that it’s purely honest, and making Compton visible on the world

Nelson George states that “Gangsta rap is direct by- product of crack explosion. Unless you grasp that connection nothing else that happened in the hip hop’s journey to national scapegoat will make sense. This is not a chicken-or-the-egg riddle —first came rocks, then gangsta rap” (136). To prove his point he examines the connection between drug culture of the inner city areas and the hip hop music. The money collected from illegal drug deals spent on recordings of gangsta rap music. George says “Suspicion of women, loyalty to the crew, adoption of a stone face in confronting the world, hatred of authority—all major themes of gangsta rap-owe their presence of lyrics and impact on audiences to the large number of African-American men incarcerated in the ‘90s” (138). I agree with his statement that gangsta rap is a directed by- product of crack explosion, because social and racial issues for instance drug dealing influencing the lyrics of music and this explosion of heroin and crack in communities gave birth to gangsta rap.

Since gangsta rap was first introduced by the group N.W.A., this type of rap music has sold more albums than any other form of rap. Gangsta rap in some ways glorifies violence, drugs, and easy money. N.W.A. wrote a song about killing cops that created a firestorm of controversy. As a result of several such controversies, the Parental Advisory Explicit Lyrics labeling system was enacted in 1985 (Lommel 68). This system required the music industry to label songs that have explicit language and limit the sale of these albums to adults.

N.W.A (Niggaz Wit Attitudes) was a hip-hop group out of Compton known for its controversial yet influential rap lyrics. One of their most popular songs was “Fuck The Police.” This is song was an explicit expression of their feelings toward law enforcement during these unsettled times. Ice Cube rapped, “A young nigga got it bad ‘cause I’m brown.” This simply illustrated the rampant nature of profiling the African American male. Sadly, this hasn’t changed even to the present day. Just a few weeks ago, my twin brother, Malcolm Allen, experienced a racial profiling incident right here in Palo Alto. While waiting for our names to be called outside of a local restaurant, a police drove slowly in front of us. The officer summoned Malcolm and said, “You with the hoodie, come here. You fit the description of a suspect who was carrying a knife.” Numerous young black men from Trayvon Martin to Michael Brown have been brutally killed by law enforcement simply for being black. In other words, they were profiled as threats due to their skin color. This illustrates the idea of history loops itself. Though it has been constant, the intensity of the profiling and police brutality looped from the early 90’s to the present day. As a result, this song was a depiction of the times and a manifestation of what N.W.A wanted to do to the cops. Something this violent and blunt was especially unheard

Hip-Hop and rap resurfaced in the Bronx, in the 70’s, around this time people in Bronx were going through, poverty, unemployment, increased crime, etc. Which caused them to have freedom of expression through rhyming; creating the meaning rap. Although the meaning of the word “Rap” original meant to strike or blow. Which in my opinion fits perfectly because they are striking mentally with words instead of physically. This genre is basically a form of

b. Gangsta Rap was created in the 1990’s and was made popular by groups such as NWA.

Gangsta rap is a form of music that is enjoyed by everyone and there should be no stereotypes attached to it. It has been debated if Gangsta Rap harms Black Americans; it is a heavily criticized art form since its inception. The Encyclopedia Britannica defines “Gangsta rap: a form of hip-hop music that became the genre’s dominant style in the 1990s, a reflection and product of the often violent lifestyle of American inner cities afflicted with poverty and the dangers of drug use and drug dealing. The romanticization of the outlaw at the center of much of gangsta rap appealed to rebellious suburbanites as well as to those who had firsthand experience of the harsh realities of the ghetto. “

From 1986 - 1991 N.W.A had some of the most controversial gangster rap lyrics of the times. The group was lyrically ruthless, they were raw and uncut with the messages they were delivering making sure to touch on racism and police brutality. In the movie Straight outta Compton the hip hop group N.W.A is portrayed as being one of the most influential and iconic hip hop rap groups of all times. The movie shows how the group changed hip hop forever by telling their day to day struggles growing up in Los Angeles. N.W.A’s music reflected the environment they were growing up in it glorified the lifestyle of drugs and crime and had explicit lyrics.

In the late 1980s rap’s controversial subgenres, gangsta rap raised with debut album Straight Outta Compton. (Encarta) Machlis and Forney states gangsta rap of the 1990s has further disseminated the style through graphic descriptions of inner city realities. The violent shooting deaths of Tupac Shakur in 1996 and Notorious B.I.G in 1997, has highlighted the violence associated with

Hip-hop culture began to develop in the south Bronx area of New York City during the 1970s. It had a significant influence in the music industry. Hip-hop music generally includes rapping, but other elements such as sampling and beatboxing also play important roles. Rapping, as a key part in the hip-hop music, takes different forms, which including signifying, dozen, toast and jazz poetry. Initially, hip-hop music was a voice of people living in low-income areas, reflecting social, economic and political phenomenon in their life [1]. As time moves on, hip-hop music reached its “golden age”, where it became a mainstream music, featuring diversity, quality, innovation and influence [2]. Gangsta rap, one of the most significant innovations in

The Hip Hop Culture is collectively huge. However, if you break it down to subgenre culture it changes drastically. The Hip Hop Culture once started as an expressions of one’s life in poverty, the hood, or the ghetto. When this culture began it became a movement, a more positive one before “gangsta rap” hit the scene. East Coast rappers such as Mos-Def, A Tribe Call Quest, Goodie Map, OutKast, and a few others talked about: growing up; not having enough money for rent or grocery; paying child support; or just trying to making in life itself. Music at that time, many could and can relate to. While you had Public Enemy promoting self-awareness, and taking political stance on world issues, the “gangsta rap”, incorporated into the cultural environment, it makes the culture

Hip-hop wasn’t a new form of music in 1989, in fact it started in 1982 with Run DMC, but nobody was ready for this form. The police and politicians didn’t like what N.W.A was saying in their lyrics, but all of the things they were rapping about were things that were going on around them on a daily basis. They were seeing people being shot, drug deals going down, and women being called b*tch*s. "I remember when Straight Outta Compton came out, where I lived we could all relate to what they were rapping about because it was our lifestyle."(Wilson. Interview). So basically art was imitating life. But as the decade took a turn into the ‘90’s, so did things for N.W.A. (Tha Biography of Tha E) Ice Cube left to pursue a solo career (Ice Cube- Westside Times) and after him Dr. Dre left to start Death Row Records with Marion "Suge" Knight in 1992. (The Untouchable Death Row Records)