The Music Crew: Redefining Gangsta Rap

I know I said I was gonna have a Music Dude post on some of the ridiculous amount of ridiculous albums I've been listenin to, lately. But this afternoon has spawned a historic conversation between me and the crew as we have randomly delved into one of those music-life changing discussions where drapes are pulled back and the sun lights makes you squint...or hearing parents talk about how they fell in love. It all started with an evening email from my nigga Trav last evening. What I'm posting is the email string -- totally unchanged. As messages keep coming in, I will post them to the end. If any visitor has extra knowledge to add, get to clickin on that Comment link and handle ur bees-wax.

Knowledge now...

From Travis, June 21, 6:30pm

Gents,

One of my students in this summer program gave a cultural presentation today on music and why it meant a lot to her. She mentioned that she wasnt sure where exactly gangster rap came from in her presentation, but noted that it was an important inflection point in music history as it has a lot of influence in today's artists.

I was thinkin, were did gangsta rap come from? I want to say that NWA were the fathers of it but that Snoop and Dre really popularized it around 1992 with the help of movies like Boyz in tha Hood. What gave birth to this genre of music? Was it really just the west coast's desire to be taken seriously in hip hop?

From Vince, 7:12 pm

Yo Bum Rush The Show dropped in 87. Takes A Nation of Millions dropped
in 88. Thats when things stopped being a game, when PE started speaking.

Ice-T dropped Rhyme Pays in 87, Power in 88.

NWA and the Posse dropped in 87, but Stright Outta Compton dropped in
89, which is the same year Road to Riches dropped.

Colors came out in 88, Do The Right Thing in 89...but movies sometimes
take 2 to 3 years to film.

So technically, the gangsta rap motif was already incubating before
the albums dropped. I'm writing as I'm thinking here, trying to get at
the essence of the gangsta rap genesis, because its an interesting
question and something we never discussed.

I throw PE in there, because I consider them the pioneer of overtly
defiant and threatening lyrics. Yeah, Ice-T dropped in 87 right with
PE, but Ice wasnt on no cop killer till a lil later.

U also gotta go back to a common refrain of many of our discussions:
Crack. Reagan dropped them rocks off in the hood around this time. So
the game got switched up, yeah...but so did niggas lives and they code
and look of the streets. If crack wouldve dropped in 76, then Melly
Mel and Herc and them niggas mightve sounded a lil more gangsta...but
still...somethin's not computin...because gangsta rap - in theory,
presence and sound -- is a product of Cube and Chuck D, if u ask me.

i'm gonna fall back for a sec and let some others nibble on this. But
keep in mind those album and movie dates when we talk about this.


From Gee, 8:47pm

i would think that those albums and were the definite beginnings to gansta rap, but i dont think it started to get real media and mass attention until NWA came with F*ck the police in 89...then ice cube came with americas most...
then we got movies like boyz in the hood and menace...
cube kept hittin you death certificate...and then in 91 i think we got "deep cover" which blew up and introduced dre goin solo, and snoop...then in 92 the chronic hit and it was a pretty much done deal

From Tony, June 22, 11:25 am

wait, who was the first niguh to sing wa da da da dang and show you what the nine do. '87. moe dee with the wild wild west. he was talking about killing niguhs back then. crack hit in '86, so definitly it was the catalyst but i think the genre of gangsta rap didnt emerge until the west got popular. g rap was a gansta and a rapper but he didnt make gangsta rap. chuck and kris were doing consciousness, not gansta rap. i mean even the r "used to be a stick up kid." but gangsta rap was a west coast thing. matter of fact thats what the west brought to the table - gangs.

From Tony, 11:45am

ayo vince, why do you say cube and chuck produced the genre of gangsta rap, i want to know.
where you are coming from.
and i would have to put crack number one on the food chain in terms of what spawned the era. gangs developed so heavily because of the need to protect the different drug territories. then you got guns, murder is out of control, and a lot of young niguhs with illegal paper. a black gangster almost always involves drugs. think of the black gangster movies. new jack/menace/boys in the hood/paid and full/belly-they all involve drugs. and please please please dont sleep on the fact that the movies scarface dropped in 83 i think. the effects of that film are ongoing and tragic.

From Vince, 12:14pm

I touched on this a lil in that last email. But here's my Cube/Chuck thinking:

What I'm trying to determine is the genesis of the ish like
Niggaz4life, Chronic, Deep Cover, Boyz N the Hood, New Jack, etc...naa
mean. There were social constructs that led to that, prior artists
that pushed the envelope or established a motif and films that acted a
precursor in terms of depicting similar stories and emopting similar
sensibilities that them West Coast niggas started reppin the new
decade.

Cop Killer and F*ck The Police, to me, were the first
landmark/hallmark tracks of the Gangsta Rap era after it have arrived
in full-bloom, stormed the media and bumrushed the charts. I remember
looking in the Gusto! every Friday when i was a lil preteen, checkin
the Billboard charts and I kept seeing this album called
Efil4zaggin...naa mean? That was NWA, No. 1 for like 10 weeks, goin
multi-plat off the strength of a schocking track and we know what it
is. And year before, Luke and them came out with Banned In the USA,
which was in no way gangtsa (but a lil later, I'll explain its
influence), but it was the begginning of rap's outlaw image with mass
media in full. Once record stores started pullin O.G. Oringinal
Gangster and Nigaaz4life from album shelves, thats when whities coined
the term Gangsta Rap and the rest is history (also around this time,
JW governing body started printing articles in our mags and books
warning against and semi-outlawing young kids to listen to rap
music...which is a big reason why, even if I liked a soing, I hated
West Coast rap...because I thought their over the top lyrics ruined a
whole genre of music for me.)

OK...so 1991 is the official year that Gangsta Rap begain in
earnest...but we gotta go deep than that and get at the genesis.

We can talk about Crack, the inundation of gangs on SoCal,
proliferation of guns (thanks once again to crack) and movies like
Scarface and Colors that dramatized that gangsta ish, but also Spike's
Right Thing that was incredibly influential in terms of voicing the
"new" rage and defiance for Gen X blacks.

But musically, there are some gangstarap identifiers: objectification
of women, violence, gun talk, drug talk, graphic sex talk, police
hatred, a total distrust of the American system, and a hubris that
basically says, "I can do whatever the eff I want cause I'm a G."

I think Luke and them did a lot for that graphic sex talk. Niggas out
west was listen to them Miami boys like, "Yeah, we talk like that
anyway, let's get that graphic on wax." I mean, NWA made B*tch Iz A
B*tch in 87...and Ice-T was talkin that slick pimp ish since he came
out, but by 1991, don't u agree that they raised the stakes? I don't
discount a 2-Live influence there....but that influence is much less
than Cube/Chuck...

I just think those two niggas rapped with such anger and such a
confident defiance..and to me, that was what was really "new" about
gangsta rap. Like Tone said, Rah and GRap had some gun talk, killed a
couple niggas on a song...but that music that as a composite was
gangsta rap...i really think Cube and Chuck blazed that
lyrical/emotional trail.

From Tony, 12:41pm

this is starting to become a little more clear. i dont know, now im thinking that gangsta rap may have been an unnatural progression from the previous era which was consciousness. criminal minded, bum rush the show, albums such as those sparked the consciuos era and set a platform for rappers to make this new music that was basically going to be the cnn for the black youth. gangsta rap initially stemmed from that, as it was reporting what was actually going on in the streets for a young urban black. but the term "gangsta rap" to me was just a term created by white media and record execs to capotolize on this new music that was hard hitting and raw but packaged in a way to sell to whites. i think these west coast niguhs were origionally just west coast conscious rapppers. but the media and execs took the pieces of what was being said (guns, drugs, degredation of women) and created gangsta rap to sell to the masses almost off of shock value. when i listen to amerikkkas most wanted i dont feel like im listening to gangsta rap, i feel like im listening to conscious hip hop. when i watch dotherightthing im watching consciousness. feel me. so maybe we can say the origin of gangsta rap is actually conscious hip hop. and that conscious hip hop was flipped and bounced in a way to 1) diffuse the message of consciousness in hip hop and 2) to make it popular to white youth. white youth wasnt kopping x clan, but they definitly kopped that NWA.

From Chuck, 2:04pm

Ok I have to chime in on this because I feel that you all are on the right
track but missing some key ingredients. I think if the question is what are
the origins of gangsta rap than you have to mention, two crews who came out
with a straight up street mentallity, KRS-ONE and Just ICE of BDP and
Schoolly D of the Stick 'Em crew. Kris was too gangsta when he dropped, his
debut album and record was an attempt to incorporate the mentallity of a
criminal with music. But as far as the stigma of what gangsta rap became, I
have to that Just Ice and Schoolly D were the first to be on some rob, kill
and just don't give a f*ck. Especially Schoolly D with 'Saturday Night' in
86/ 87 and 'Smoke to Kill' in 87/ 88 set off some ish that we had never
heard before he was cursing at a level that you didn't hear and talking
about things, llike raping women and gettin high, that are still too taboo
even today. Just-Ice had a crazy ass track with a kid I believe to be 'the'
DMX (he was also beatboxing on the track, you may want to do the knowledge
it was very dope) back in 86 that was just straight up hardcore hip hop and
is widely considered to be the birth of hardcore rap music. But Fell brings
up a good point that if we're talking about gangtas in gansta rap you have
to take to the west coast and Ice -T's 'Rhyme Pays' 86/87 (classic by the
way) wich had the legendary '6 in tha Morning' and it doesn't get more
gangsta than that and I personally beleive that song along with Colors(the
song not the movie) influence the entire movement because it was the first
time the west coast life style was introduced to the hop, and his
affiliation with Afrika Bambatta and the Zulu nation mad him ligitimate in
the eyes of the real headz of the time. We may also want to address the
significance of Sir-Mix-A-Lot's 'Swass' allbum of 87/88 very gangsta for the
times

From Vince, 2:24pm (in response to Tony's last email, but unaware that Chuck had sent the previous note)

See this is why we need to teach classes on this ish and right a
crew-collective book on the "creation then progression then degression
then rennaissance now stagnace of hiphop."

I like where u r comin from, though, my nigga. the whole gangsta rap
being an unnatural progression or evolution of conscious hop is so
keen its not even funny.

Because, to try to zero in on the essence, I think gangsta rap became
gangsta rap when it lost its message...and sure, F the Police had a
message, a very serious/grave/honest message, those songs were on
albums that featured alot of the consciousless songs...especially with
the mysogyny...OG Original Gangsta, I think Ice was still on that
conscious steez...even though I'm not an officianado of that album (I
will be downloading tonight, though, and doin some knowledge just to
see what cats were thinkin back then).

Like, did Snoop have a message? Did the chronic have a message? Or was
it them taking/embracing the hedonistic/materialistic aspects of the
hood and reporting that.

And then check this: Are we sayibng that Boyz-N-the-Hood was not the
cinematic equivalent of gangsta rap? Because it definitely had a
message.

Are we redefining gangsta rap right here? right now? This is big.

From Chuck, 3:05pmOk to me Gansta Rap is about two very important ingredients that without
both you don't have it. They are counsciousness, and not that stereotypical
'consciouss rap', but more awarness. An awareness of you souroundings, an
awareness of "what's "real"ly goin on?" or simply an awareness of what's
"real". Wich brings us to KRS's definition of gangsta rap: Rhymes Equal
Actual Life. The second key ingredient and maybe the most crucial element of
gangsta rap would have to be the perverbial "I don't give a f*ck" attitude
about absolutely everything. For example; I have a pic of me and my 9 on the
cover cause..., I say f*ck tha police cause..., I tell bitches they ain't
sh*t cause...That's Gangsta Rap to me

From Vince, 3:39pm
which is gettin at my point that whether ur goin with tony's version
of gangsta rap being a narrowly focused portion of that West Coast
music minus the consciousness...or we're going with a broader more
essential interpretation of gangsta rap that chuck just
defined...either way, its a redefinition of the music that white
people coined Gangsta Rap.

Tony is saying that the white people were throwin that term around in
broad, ignorant manner, because make no mistake: Amerikka's Most was
considered gangsta rap. But I see Tony's point in that, it really
wasn't. I feel like Tony is saying, "Yall can;t take that corny
moniker u made up up and start designating ish that has nothing to
with it."

Chuck is on some gangsta ish of his own where he's sayin: look, if
anyone is gonna determine what's Gangsta Rap, then the owners will do
that...and we're gonna get at what is REALLY gangsta...KRS, Cube, Ice,
PE, Just-Ice..etc. Chuck is taking therm Gangsta Rap and bringin it
back to the hood and the streets, he's yanking that designation out of
the hands of the ignorant and makin it a real, accurate description of
the music.

On one end there is a push, a distance...on the other end there's an
embrace and clarification. Either way...it's a redefinition and that's
big.

For my money..i'm goin with Tony.