Gangsta Rap
When people think of hip hop music they're primarily thinking about gangsta rap.
Gangsta rap is almost as old as rap itself. The songs were bawdy, violent tales of the strife of inner city youth, but the music became popular with mainstream America and several breakout artists climbed to the top of the charts in the early nineties. In its heyday, gangsta rap was often accused of glorifying violence, promoting misogyny, and celebrating anti-social behavior. Controversy has always dogged the music and the furor conservative parent groups made lead to the creation of the parental advisory labels many album covers were required to display. Proponents of the music claimed that it was reflective of a part of the population that America preferred to ignore.
Whatever side of the cultural divide you fall on, there's no arguing the power of the music. Good gangsta rap is a strange mix of bravado, fury, and melancholy, which can be absolutely captivating. While many performers acknowledge that the stories that they tell aren't autobiographical, they're telling stories that need to be heard.
The Evolution of Gangsta Rap
Gangsta rap's origins tend to be traced to West Coast rappers Schoolly D and IceE. Their album ''Straight Outta Compton'' solidified the genre's tropes and quickly rocketed up to the top of the charts. Their song ''F*** Tha Police'' ignited a firestorm of controversy and furious protests from law enforcement organizations. The group eventually broke up due to fights over money, and the vitriol the former members showed toward each other on their respective solo albums started another grand tradition in rap: the diss song.
Dr. Dre would later form the Death Row label and release a solo album entitled The Chronic. The album went triple platinum and stole mainstream rap from pop acts like MC Hammer and Vanilla Ice. It also kicked off the career of Dre protege Snoop Dogg. His laidlife style, but his career was cut tragically short when he was gunned down in Las Vegas. Though the culprits have never been arrested, blame fell on East Coast rivals, particularly Brooklyn rapper Notorious B.I.G. At the time, East Coast rappers were stealing the spotlight from the West Coast and the rivalry became vicious. Notorious B.I.G. was murdered in Los Angeles, an event that shocked the rap community. Again, the murder was never officially solved, and theories involving everyone from gang members looking for revenge over unpaid security services to the murder being retaliation for Tupac Shakur's killings.
The music continued to evolve, incorporating southern rap acts like Ludacris, Three 6 Mafia, and OutKast. The harder edges of gangsta rap began to soften in the wake of all the violence and more pophop.
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