What is Gangsta Rap?
Gangsta rap is a sub-genre of hip hop, but where exactly did it come from and what makes gangsta rap different than normal rap? According to Brian Coleman in “The Making of Ice Cube’s ‘AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted’” gangsta rap comes from the pain and injustice that black Americans have had to face. In Coleman’s writing, Ice Cube expands on what gangsta rap is when he talks about “tales” of how he came up with ideas for his songs with N.W.A.
I mean, rap is the blues, especially gangsta rap, because you’re hearing our pain, whether you agree with it or like it or not. You’re hearing what we’ve got to say. If not, then you’re voiceless, you’re not even a number to a lot of these… people in high places. — Ice Cube
Gangsta rap became a voice for Ice Cube and the other members of N.W.A where they could express to everyone what exactly they had to face.
In Coleman’s article it is also stated that gangsta rap is a hardcore rap. Loren Kajikawa agrees that gangsta rap a is form of hardcore rap, but he describes it in a different way. Kajikawa puts gangsta rap as a “controversial genre of music defined by its gritty depictions of inner-city street life” in his article “Compton Commodified: NWA Was Always a Blend of Fiction and Reality.” He identifies that origin of gangsta rap with the N.W.A in 1987. Eazy-E did have the group rap about portraying themselves, the rappers, as gangsters, but none of the members were proven to be gang members. They only posed with weapons to help promote the sale of an album; the group only claimed to be “street reporters.”
Because of the normal themes of gangsta rap some audiences were turned away from the music as if gangsta rap caused those situations. Celine Padmore argues that Ice Cube “mock[s] the idea that Gangsta rap is the reason for everything bad that happens in society.” Padmore continues in “Rap Made Me Do It” stating that Ice Cube uses rhetorical situations to prove that rap doesn’t cause violence or crime. She uses the song Gangsta Rap Made Me Do It by Ice Cube to prove her point. The lyrics of the song are all extreme and exaggerated ideas of what music can do to a person such as sell crack or join the military. The decisions people make aren’t determined by their music, so he won’t change what he raps about which he states in his song. He won’t let the government’s incompetence keep him from gangsta rap because for him he is reporting the struggles he sees, just like how Kajikawa describes the N.W.A. This proves gangsta rap originated as another outlet to express oneself through music.
