Gangsta Rap: Production, Marketing and Controversy

Gangsta rap is a hardcore rap style that lyrically and visually portrays the nuances of African American street life – gang activity, poverty, underground economic practices, interpersonal violence, hyper sexuality, and more. Gangsta rappers generally adopt hardened musical identities, aggressive vocal deliveries and frequently use explicit language. Production styles vary across time and space, but producers have historically favored deep base lines, heavy synthesizers, and funk and soul samples. As an identifiable sub-genre, gangsta rap’s peak was between 1988 and 1997, beginning with the release of N.W.A.’s Straight Outta Compton and beginning to decline with the deaths of rappers Tupac Shakur and Notorious B.I.G. Within this period, numerous classic gangsta records were produced and America’s attention toward rap music was focused almost squarely on the gangsta sub-genre.

Gangsta rap emerged from conditions of poverty and desperation, resulting from a constellation of social processes over several decades. The move of large-scale manufacturers to suburban and foreign areas that began in the 1960s decimated the economic resources of inner-city communities. Following this deindustrialization came two recessions in 1973-1975 and 1980-1982, and in the 1980s, President Ronald Reagan’s reduction of funds and cuts to social assistance programs that assisted Black people in navigating this new economic climate. As oral historians, gangsta rappers narrated this lived experience – the effects of poverty and despair. 

The shouted lyrics of violence, death, gang activity and drug use accompanied by aggressive music tracks recount the street realities of daily life. As social activists, gangsta rappers protest the oppressive actions by government entities directed towards inner-city communities. Simultaneously, their use of metaphor and wordplay showcases their verbal skills as standouts in rap battles.

Gangsta rap is strongly associated with the West Coast, especially Los Angeles and the Bay Area in California, with strong contributions from the South. However, the earliest gangsta rap record was released in Philadelphia. In 1985, rapper Schoolly D released the single “P.S.K: What Does it Mean,” on his own label. The song referred to the Park Side Killas, a street gang from Schoolly D’s predominantly Black Park Side neighborhood in Philadelphia. The single was the first to consolidate the street-based themes that would become core to later gangsta rap records: interpersonal violence, gratuitous sex, and graphic language.

Around the same time, in Los Angeles-area gang life area artists began writing lyrics that reflected the complicated dynamics of local street life. The confluence of poverty, unemployment, and crack cocaine influenced and was exacerbated by the 1980s growth of the Crips and the Bloods, two statistically dominant and culturally prominent Los Angeles area street gangs. These Black L.A. gangs were birthed in the 1970s after the FBI’s COINTELPRO attacks on Black Power organizations like the Black Panther Party left a void in leadership and protection. The Crips initially embraced the political militancy and visual power of the Black Panther Party as they sought to protect and organize impoverished Black neighborhoods. However, the Crips turned the Panthers’ pragmatic approach into an underground criminal movement as they appealed to hopeless Black youth in search of life’s necessities. By the early 1980s, the region housed more than fifty thousand gang members sorted into as many as four hundred sets and subdivisions, tripling the highest estimates recorded in any decade prior (Victor 46).

Toddy Tee’s 1985 single “Batterram” which depicts the LAPD’s use of military armored vehicle to smash in doors of suspected crack dealers, is widely considered the earliest West Coast gangsta rap song. Released on soul singer Leon Haywood’s Evejim imprint, the song both critiques the burgeoning crack trade in the area while also protesting police’s response to it. Ice-T’s “6 ‘n the Mornin’” told stories of criminal exploits and misogyny in a first-person narrative form. Over a minimalist beat, Ice-T details robberies, crack dealing, prostitution and police encounters with a rhyme style that is both laidback and menacing. Ice-T, born Tracy Morrow, was a Crip affiliate who in the 1970s would write and recite rhymes about gang life at the behest of other gang members. Whereas Toddy Tee rapped from the perspective of an outside observer, Ice-T told stories from the inside of L.A. street life.

Artistically, gangsta rap is firmly part of the African American storytelling continuum. Toasting was particularly influential. Popular during the early to mid-20th century, toasting was an oral poetry tradition that featured crude stories of characters who asserted power through force or wit. These stories, or toasts, circulated within Black male street culture and were told in various settings, including street corners, barbershops, parties, and prisons. The “badman” was among the most prominent character type in the toasting tradition. According to Lawrence Levine, badmen were “hard, merciless, toughs and killers confronting and generally vanquishing their adversaries without hesitation and without remorse” (Levine 1978:407). Badman characters reflect outlaw and antisocial ideals and reject mainstream social norms. In such stories, communal ties fall in the face of individual desire; these tales were inscribed with metaphorical meaning, representing the often internalized and suppressed attitudes, emotions, and desires of their audiences.

Though there is a plethora of toast legends, two badmen – “Stagolee” (also known as Stackolee) and Dolomite – were particularly influential to the gangsta rap aesthetic. First told during the late 1890s, Stagolee is a prototype of the badman characters (Levine 1977:413). The signature aspect of his tales was their gross depictions of violence and sexual activity: The Stackolee toast is characterized by irreverence, badness, and violent set pieces. Standard toast exploits include shooting the bartender at The Bucket of Blood (“I pumped six a my rockets in his motherfucken chest”) for disrespecting his name; engaging in public sex with a whore (“we fucked on the table and all over the floor”); and the pivotal shooting of badman archfoe Billy Lyons (“when the light came on old Billy was dead / had two more rockets in his head”). (Quinn 2004:96)

Badmen and trickster characters were central to Blaxploitation, the 1970s film genre that featured black-centered stories with black actors and were targeted at Black audiences. These films commonly featured street themes and the central chapters exemplified the badman and trickster archetype. Films like Black Caesar, Super Fly and Dolomite captivated Black audiences in the 1970s, especially the youth who would later go on to pioneer gangsta rap.

Gangsta rap was birthed in the Badman’s spirit. With gangsta rappers, according to folklorist Jerry H. Bryant, we see the two sides of the badman: on the one hand, enslaved, exploited, stultified, and frustrated to the point of angry violence; on the other, perpetually hopeful that one day the lofty promises of the Declaration of Independence would also apply to him. This opposition is the sign and symbol of African Americans’ historical status in the New World. (Bryant 2003:162) In addition, the badman’s toast had an urban surrealist tone that is also present in gangsta rap. About this, Eithne Quinn writes that “artists reoriented and extended the mythic tales of the past, keeping hold of the bold surrealism, while incorporating a documentary quality” (Quinn 2004:97). Gangsta rap is based on the realized experience of the Black underclass but infused with the surrealism carried over from badman toasts. This surrealism allowed previous generations to escape, but it functioned differently for audiences in the 1980s and 1990s. Gangsta rap shines a spotlight on community issues while captivating audiences of divergent backgrounds. This artistic overstatement enhances the protest potential of the music. I say “potential” because the commercial viability of the music doesn’t necessarily relate to the reception of its meaning.

Additionally, badmen toasts aesthetically inspired gangsta rap’s use of first-person narrative, verbal sparring, macho posturing and focus on reputation within the lyrics. N.W.A.’s initial single, “Boyz-n-the-Hood” is a good example of this. Written by N.W.A. member Ice Cube and produced by member Dr. Dre, “Boyz-n-the-Hood” is a first-person narrative that offered a superficial “day-in-the-life” of a common L.A. gang member. Ruthless Records founder and N.W.A. group member Eazy-E raps as the protagonist and recounts episodes of heavy drinking, sexual activity, drug dealing and various forms of violence. Released as a single on Eazy-E’s Ruthless Records in 1987, the song became a local hit by fusing the badman aesthetic with the hyper local realities of life in Black L.A. Hip Hop scholar and critic Jeff Chang calls “Boyz-n-the-Hood” “an anthem for the fatherless, brotherless, state-assaulted, heavily armed West Coast urban youth.”

It is also important to note that gangsta rappers commonly used figurative language – including reference to violence and drug dealing – to highlight their skill as MCs. These rhymes were not to be taken as literal references to street life. Instead, the street themes are metaphors for the MCs verbal prowess or cultural impact. This practice reflected hip hop’s battle tradition where MCs spar with each other or boast about their skill to a real or imagined audience. It is also an example of the African American oral tradition of signifyin’ – the creative use of indirection or coded language to insult, outsmart, or even affirm someone. For example, on “I’m Your Pusher,” Ice-T employs drug dealing themes to relate to the creation, production and marketing of his music. The figurative “dope” that he pushes are actually records. Dr. Dre’s “Lyrical Gangbang” (1992) reflects the song’s use of complex rhymes and aggressive delivery. Gangsta rap’s core fanbase was able to decipher the semi-covert meanings of the songs, while mainstream audiences and journalists commonly misunderstood them.

N.W.A.’s debut full-length album, Straight Outta Compton (1988), helped usher in gangsta rap’s peak era. On the title track, the group declares that “America was now about to witness the power of street knowledge.” Through songs such as “Gangsta Gangsta,” “Straight Outta Compton,” and the anti-police brutality anthem “F**k the Police,” N.W.A. depicted Black Los Angeles as a desolate and violent landscape shaped by anti-black systemic racism. The album offered a counterpoint to the message or socially conscious rap style that was dominating hip hop at the time. Whereas message rappers felt that uplift would come as a result of Black unity, reclamation of African heritage, healthy lifestyles, and intellectualism, N.W.A. saw that uplift was an individual fight that would come by any means necessary. N.W.A. was speaking from the inside of the harsh conditions of the urban street culture, rather than critiquing it from a distance.

N.W.A.’s success triggered an explosion of gangsta rap around the country. Compton’s Most Wanted, DJ Quik and Above the Law helped Ice-T and N.W.A. turn Los Angeles into the preeminent gangsta rap scene. The Bay Area also became a stronghold through artists like Too $hort, E-40 and Spice-1. In the South, Houston’s Geto Boys took listeners into the psychological depths of street life. Memphis’s Eightball and MJG fused gangsta rap and pimp culture while tapping into Memphis’s blues legacy. Artists such as MC Breed and the Dayton Family offered insight into the Midwestern streets.

Many gangsta artists prefer the label “reality rap” rather than “gangsta rap,” arguing that their music is a reflection of real-life experience. However, gangsta rap tales are not necessarily autobiographical even though they are often told from the first-person perspective. Gangsta rappers use their personas to speak for the community, and their songs should be seen more as documentary and less autobiography. Gangsta rappers transform peer and community stories into tales told from an individual perspective. Chuck D of Public Enemy once referred to rap as “the CNN of the Black community,” but gangsta rappers are both journalists and subjects as they report on life in poverty-stricken African American neighborhoods.

Gangsta rap’s peak era (1988–1997) was characterized by heavy drug abuse, high incarceration, and high homicide rates among Black American males. According to the Centers for Disease Control, the death rate for Black men in 1992 was four times that of white men. In the same year, the Black male homicide rate was nearly seven times the national average. Given this reality, gangsta rap reflects a world where early and unnatural death is accepted as a common part of life. Gangsta rappers not only present the existence of murder; they articulate its importance as a means of survival and a vehicle of agency in a world dominated by uncontrollable forces. The acknowledgement of and engagement in the music of the Geto Boys, Spice 1, MC Eiht, and Mobb Deep – rappers coming out of communities rife with homicide – reflect this characteristic through graphic depictions of violence.

Gangsta rap’s impact on hip hop as a culture, a musical genre, and a commercial product is undeniable, yet complicated. As a subgenre, gangsta rap has moved to the periphery of mainstream hip hop, but the style is transcendent. Gangsta rap’s ability to bear witness to the tragedy and triumph of inner-city life can be seen in many contemporary artists including the late Nipsey Hussle and Pulitzer Prize winner Kendrick Lamar. In addition, screw, trap, and drill are three popular subgenres that have been strongly influenced by the gangsta rap aesthetic. Mainstream hip hop continues to circulate street-oriented lyrical themes that first rose to prominence in gangsta rap. Tales of interpersonal violence, sexual promiscuity, and misogyny continue to have a firm place in the larger genre.