Gangsta rap

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"G Rap" redirects here. For the rapper, see Kool G Rap.
For the Ice-T album, see Gangsta Rap (album). For other uses, see Gangsta (disambiguation).

Gangsta rap or gangster rap is a subgenre of hip hop music with themes and lyrics that emphasize the "thug" or "gangsta" lifestyle. The genre evolved from hardcore hip hop into a distinct form, pioneered in the mid-1980s by rappers such as Schoolly 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 attracted in the late 1980s and early 1990s, gangsta rap became the most commercially lucrative subgenre of hip hop. Many (if not most) gangsta rap artists openly boast of their associations with various active street gangs as part of their artistic image, with the Bloods and Crips being the most commonly represented. Gangsta rap is closely related to other indigenous gang and crime-oriented forms of music, such as the narcocorrido genre of northern Mexico.[2]

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, as well as religious leaders, who have accused the genre of promoting crime, serial killing, murder, violence, profanity, sex addiction, homophobia, racism, promiscuity, misogyny, rape, street gangs, disorderly conduct, drive-by shootings, vandalism, thievery, driving under the influence, drug dealing, alcohol abuse, substance abuse, disregarding law enforcement, materialism, and narcissism. The White House administrations of both George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton criticized the genre.[3] "Many black rappers--including Ice-T and Sister Souljah--contend that they are being unfairly singled out because their music reflects deep changes in society not being addressed anywhere else in the public forum. The white politicians, the artists complain, neither understand the music nor desire to hear what's going on in the devastated communities that gave birth to the art form," wrote journalist Chuck Philips in a review of the battle between "the Establishment" and defenders of rap music.[3] "The reason why rap is under attack is because it exposes all the contradictions of American culture ...What started out as an underground art form has become a vehicle to expose a lot of critical issues that are not usually discussed in American politics. The problem here is that the White House and wanna-bes like Bill Clinton represent a political system that never intends to deal with inner city urban chaos," Sister Souljah told Philips.[3]

On the other hand, some commentators (for example, Spike Lee in his satirical film Bamboozled) have criticized gangsta rap as analogous to black minstrel shows and blackface performance, in which performers – both black and white – were made to look African American, and acted in a stereotypical uncultured and ignorant manner for entertainment. Gangsta rappers often defend themselves by arguing they are describing the reality of inner-city life, and that they are only adopting a character which behaves in ways they do not necessarily endorse. Gangsta rappers are also famous (or infamous) for appearing more hardcore compared to early concepts and themes of hip-hop artists, and are known for saying things that are often considered taboo; for instance, the gangsta rap group N.W.A produced the famous Fuck tha Police protest song about police brutality and racial profiling.

In high-crime areas putting on these made up personas is life-threatening, but the fact that gangsta rappers told the stories of others is often seen as having earned them respect for raising awareness of the severity of inner-city crime. Many gangsta rappers argue that in the world of their genre exists the emotions and perspectives of a people whose suffering is too often overlooked and belittled by society. Gangsta rap, in fact, was an effect of the various wrongdoings perpetrated against African-Americans in underprivileged neighborhoods. The various riots sparked by the Rodney King beating and the acquittal of the police officers responsible for the beating sparked anger and outrage in an area that was already on the bubble. Gangsta rap acted as an outlet so such people could express themselves angrily and not in fear that they were going to be silenced for telling the truth. They often used gangsta rap to tell the stories of their lives, which sometimes included strong violence, hypersexuality, and drug abuse.[4]

Early gangster themes[edit]



Origins: 1984–1990[edit]

Beginnings: Ice-T & Schoolly D[edit]

Tracy "Ice-T" Morrow, was born in Newark, New Jersey, in 1958. As a teenager, he moved to Los Angeles where he rose to prominence in the West Coast hip hop scene. In 1986, Ice-T released "6 in the Mornin'", which is often regarded as among the first gangsta rap songs. Ice-T had been MCing since the early '80s, but first turned to gangsta rap themes after being influenced by Philadelphia rapper Schoolly D and his 1985 album Schoolly D, often considered to be the originator of gangsta rap. In an interview with PROPS magazine, Ice-T said:


In 2011, Ice-T repeated in his autobiography that Schoolly D was his inspiration for gangsta rap.[6] Ice-T continued to release gangsta albums for the remainder of the 1980s: 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.

Schoolly D's debut album, Schoolly D, and especially the song "P.S.K. What Does It Mean?", would heavily influence not only Ice-T, but also Eazy-E and N.W.A (most notably in the song "Boyz-n-the-Hood") as well as the Beastie Boys on their seminal hardcore hip hop-influenced album Licensed to Ill (1986).[7]

Boogie Down Productions & N.W.A[edit]

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).[8] 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.

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.[9][10] 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.



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, though largely in a more humorous manner. They had started out as a hardcore punk band, but after introduction to producer Rick Rubin and the exit of Kate Schellenbach they became a rap group.[11] 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."[12]

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 1986, the Los Angeles-based group C.I.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.[13]

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 hardcore 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, angry, aggressive, and politically conscious lyrics, revolving around crime, violence, poverty, war and gunplay.

The Houston-based group known as the Geto Boys came out around the late 1980s and made songs containing both gangsta themes of crime and violence and sociopolitical commentary. The group notably released proto-mafioso rap music with the song "Scarface", a track centered on 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, a film which became the basis for various mafioso rap samples in the 1990s. Furthermore, the Geto Boys, along with Jam Master J's and Erick Sermon's group Flatlinerz and Prince Paul's and RZA's group Gravediggaz, are often cited as pioneers of "horrorcore" rap, a transgressive and abrasive subgenre of hardcore rap or gangsta rap which focuses on common horror themes, such as the supernatural and the occult, often with gothic or macabre lyrics, satanic imagery, and slasher film or splatter film-like violence.

1990 – present[edit]


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. Particular controversy surrounded one of its songs "Cop Killer". The rock song was intended to speak from the viewpoint of a police target seeking revenge on racist, brutal cops. Ice-T's rock song infuriated government officials, the National Rifle Association and various police advocacy groups.[14] Consequently, Time Warner Music refused to release Ice-T's upcoming album Home Invasion and dropped Ice-T from the label. Ice-T suggested that the furor over the song was an overreaction, telling journalist Chuck Philips "...they've done movies about nurse killers and teacher killers and student killers. Arnold Schwarzenegger blew away dozens of cops as the Terminator. But I don't hear anybody complaining about that." In the same interview, Ice-T suggested to Philips that the misunderstanding of Cop Killer, the misclassification of it as a rap song (not a rock song), and the attempts to censor it had racial overtones: "The Supreme Court says it's OK for a white man to burn a cross in public. But nobody wants a black man to write a record about a cop killer."[14]

Ice-T's 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 a proposed censoring of the Home Invasion album cover art, 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 @#!*% ?" in 1994.

G-funk and Death Row Records[edit]

Main article: G-Funk

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 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.


Another 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 was not a Death Row artist. One of the genre's biggest crossover stars was Dre's protégé Snoop Doggy Dogg (Doggystyle), 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. Warren G was another G-funk musician along with the now deceased Nate Dogg. Other successful G-Funk influenced artists included Spice 1, MC Eiht and MC Ren, all of them reaching decent positions on the Billboard 100, in spite of not being associated with Death Row.

Mafioso rap[edit]

Mafioso rap is a hardcore hip hop subgenre founded by Kool G Rap in the late 1980s.[15] It is the pseudo-Mafia extension of East Coast hardcore rap, and is considered[by whom?] 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. 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 and the release of the album 4,5,6 by subgenre originator Kool G Rap. This album featured other mafioso rap artists MF Grimm, Nas and B-1. These three albums brought the genre to mainstream recognition, and inspired other East Coast artists, such as Jay-Z, Notorious B.I.G. and Nas, to adopt the same themes as well with their albums Reasonable Doubt, Life After Death and It Was Written (respectively). Though Mafioso rap declined in the mainstream by the late 1990s, it saw somewhat of a revival in the mid 2000s[citation needed] with Ghostface Killah's Fishscale, Jay-Z's American Gangster, and Raekwon's Only Built 4 Cuban Linx... Pt. II. Similarly, in recent years,[when?] many rappers, such as T.I., Rick Ross, Fabolous, Jadakiss, Jim Jones, and Cassidy have maintained popularity with lyrics about self-centered urban criminal lifestyles or "hustling". Lil' Kim's mafioso album La Bella Mafia, released in 2003, was a commercial success, receiving platinum certification.[16]

East Coast hardcore hip hop and the East Coast-West Coast feud[edit]

Meanwhile, rappers from New York City, such as Wu-Tang Clan, Papoose, Remy Ma, Onyx, Big L, Mobb Deep, Nas, The Notorious B.I.G., Lil' Kim, and the The L.O.X, among others, pioneered a grittier sound known as East Coast hardcore hip hop. In 1994, both Nas and The Notorious B.I.G. released their debut albums Illmatic and Ready to Die respectively, which paved the way for New York City to take back 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:




Southern and Midwestern gangsta rap[edit]

After the deaths of Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls and the media attention the murders generated,[18] 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.

Master P's No Limit Records label, based out of New Orleans, 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 but utilized a quality-over-quantity business approach unlike No Limit.


Midwest gangsta rap originated in the mid-1990s and rose to major prominence in the 2000s. However, in the 2010s a new form of gangsta rap known as drill emerged from the Midwest. Drill gained popularity by rappers such as Lil Durk, Chief Keef, Lil Reese, and Lil Herb. 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".


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.[19] 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, South Park Mexican, Spice 1 and Z-Ro gain regional and sometimes national prominence.


Narco-rap is a music scene, similar to the early underground gangsta-rap scene, that emerged in northeastern Mexico and southern Texas. Its lyrical content, popular among Latino youth, is violent and focuses on the power of drug cartels and the gruesomeness of the drug war in the border region. Narco-rap emerged in the urban area of Tamaulipas, a turf currently under armed dispute between the Zetas and the Gulf Cartel. Narco-rappers sing about the life of mobsters and the reality of the cities under the cartel's rule. Some of the key players of the genre are Cano y Blunt, DemenT and Big Los.[20][21][22][23][24][25][26]

Mainstream rap[edit]




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 1990s 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 late 1980s [Insane Poetry - 12' Strokes Til Midnight 12" 1988] to early 1990's [Esham - Boomin' Words From Hell aka "Boomin' '90."].

Criticism and debate[edit]

The explicit nature of gangsta rap's lyrics has made it heavily controversial. There is also debate about the relationship between gangsta rap and real-world crime taking the form of a chicken or the egg scenario.

Critics of gangsta rap hold that it glorifies and encourages criminal behavior, and may be at least partially to blame for the problem of street gangs.[27] Although this view is often stereotyped as that of white conservatives, it has been shared by members of the black community, most notably Bill Cosby.[28]

Those who are supportive or at least less critical of gangsta rap hold that crime on the street level is for the most part a reaction to poverty and that gangsta rap reflects the reality of lower class life. Many believe that the blaming of crime on gangsta rap is a form of unwarranted moral panic; The World Development Report 2011, for instance, confirmed that most street gang members maintain that poverty and unemployment is what drove them to crime; none made reference to music.[29] Ice Cube famously satirized the blame placed on gangsta rap for social ills in his song "Gangsta Rap Made Me Do It".

Moreover, English scholar Ronald A.T. Judy has argued that gangsta rap reflects the experience of blackness at the end of political economy, when capital is no longer wholly produced by human labor but in a globalized system of commodities.[30] In this economy, gangsta rap traffics blackness as a commodifiable affect of "being a nigga."[31] In other words, gangsta rap defines the experience of blackness, in which he locates in gangsta rap's deployment of the word "nigga," in this new global economic system as "adaptation to the force of commodification."[32] For Judy, nigga (and gangsta rap) becomes an ontologically authentic category for describing the condition of being black in the modern "realm of things."

Despite this, many who hold that gangsta rap is not responsible for social ills are critical of the way many gangsta rappers intentionally exaggerate their criminal pasts for the sake of street credibility. Rick Ross[33] and Slim Jesus[34] among others have been heavily criticized for this.


  1. ^ "Gangsta Rap – What Is Gangsta Rap". Retrieved 2015-03-03. 
  2. ^
  3. ^ a b c Philips, Chuck (July 19, 1992). "COVER STORY : The Uncivil War : The battle between the Establishment and supporters of rap music reopens old wounds of race and class". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2014-01-02. 
  4. ^ "Cam'ron on The O'Reilly Factor". 2006-01-27. Retrieved 2015-03-03. 
  5. ^ "Ice T Interview". Retrieved 2015-03-03. 
  6. ^ Ice: A Memoir of Gangster Life and Redemption—from South Central to Hollywood, Chapter 8: Six in the Mornin', One World, New York, 2011
  7. ^ Hess, Mickey (2009). Hip Hop in America: A Regional Guide. ABC-CLIO. 
  8. ^ "The Original Hip-Hop (Rap) Lyrics Archive". Retrieved 2015-03-03. 
  9. ^ Ritchie, Ryan (2007-02-28). "Eazy to be hard". Press Telegram (Los Angeles Newspaper group). Retrieved 2008-01-26. 
  10. ^ Deflem, Mathieu (1993). Rap, Rock, and Censorship: Popular Culture and the Technologies of Justice. Retrieved 2012-10-06. 
  11. ^ Rude Boys, Amos Barshad, New York magazine 2011 5, retr 2012 Oct
  12. ^ The New Rolling Stone Album Guide, Fourth Edition
  13. ^ Chang, Jeff. Can't Stop, Won't Stop: The History of the Hip Hop Generation
  14. ^ a b Philips, Chuck (July 19, 1992). "COVER STORY : 'Arnold Schwarzenegger blew away dozens of cops as the Terminator. But I don't hear anybody complaining.' : A Q & A with Ice-T about rock, race and the 'Cop Killer' furor". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2014-01-02. 
  15. ^
  16. ^ "Gold & Platinum Searchable Database - March 03, 2015". RIAA. Retrieved 2015-03-03. 
  17. ^ Lewis, Angela. On Pop: Life & Style. The Independent. Retrieved on 2009-08-03.
  18. ^ "Biggie Smalls and Tupac Shakur Cold Cases Heat Up," Women in Crime Ink 2011-01-11
  19. ^ Briana Cheng. "10 CHOPPED AND SCREWED SONGS THAT NEVER GET OLD". Pigeons and Planes. Retrieved 2016-02-12. 
  20. ^ "En Tamaulipas los narcos disparan a ritmo de rap - VICE - México". 
  21. ^ "El narco-rap, la banda sonora del horror en Reynosa". 
  22. ^ Paso, Luis Chaparro
    El Diario de El. "Se suman los raperos norteamericanos a la 'ola narco'".
  23. ^ "McALLEN: ‘Reynosa la Maldosa’". 
  24. ^ "Borderland Beat: US Rappers Dedicate Their Songs to Mexican Drug Lords". 
  25. ^ "Mexico's Narco Rappers Are Here to Stay - VICE - United Kingdom". 
  26. ^ "Voy a morir porque creen que soy un Zeta". 
  27. ^ "Is Gangsta Rap Hurting America's Children? - Fox News". November 14, 2003. 
  28. ^ "Video: Bill Cosby Speaks On Gangster Rap & The Youth". October 15, 2007. 
  29. ^
  30. ^ Ronald A.T. Judy, “On the Question of Nigga Autheticity,” in boundary 2 21, no. 3 (Autumn, 1994), 211-230.
  31. ^ Ibid., 227.
  32. ^ Ibid., 229.
  33. ^, HipHopDX -. "Rick Ross Admits Correctional Officer Past". 
  34. ^ Mic. "Slim Jesus' New Video "Drill Time" Is Being Hilariously Destroyed by the Internet".