Vice City: How TDE is Changing Hip-Hop by Keeping Gangsta Rap Honest
Top Dawg is the first successful crew to talk about gang life without glorifying, sugar-coating, or sensationalizing it.
Top Dawg Entertainment has proven that they’re the best label in hip-hop today. Up until recently, many critics labeled them as a one man show with Kendrick Lamar being the only real standout in the group. But over the summer, both Schoolboy Q and Isaiah Rashad dropped great albums and now they’re finally getting their due as two of the better rappers out there. But even though critics are finally recognizing the group’s overall greatness, it seems that no one is discussing how truly groundbreaking their work is. There’s never been a group quite like TDE in hip-hop history.
At first, putting TDE and groundbreaking in the same sentence doesn’t seem to make much sense. They’re so indebted to Death Row’s gangsta rap of the early 90s that they can often seem like they’re a nostalgic throwback group. It’s true that in an era where so many rappers are determined to free themselves from any kind of tradition, the members of TDE constantly remind us that they’re followers of classic west coast hip-hop. Kendrick, especially, puts those who came before him on a pedestal. On To Pimp a Butterfly, he stages conversations, both real and imagined, with Dr. Dre and 2Pac that reflect an almost reverential attitude. As he asks these mentor figures for advice, there’s an anxiety that comes from being a disciple and not wanting to tarnish their tradition.
But despite this respect for their predecessors, Top Dawg completely stands out from Death Row and the rest of the gangsta rap tradition for being completely and unapologetically real. In a genre so obsessed with being authentic, most successful gangsta rappers — and I use that term broadly, to mean any rapper who regularly discusses topics like gun violence and drug dealing — have given in to the temptation of exaggerating their stories. TDE is the first successful crew to talk about gang life without glorifying, sugar-coating, or sensationalizing it. Above all else, they insist on being painfully honest. Looking back on hip-hop history, you may surprised about how truly rare that is.
In the hip-hop world, nothing matters more than being real. In a certain sense, it’s more important than being talented. Rappers talk about a lot of stuff that most of us can’t personally relate to, from the most unthinkable acts of violence to extravagant stories of wealth and success. They can do this because they have a sort of social contract with fans: the audience trusts that the stories they tell are real. This is why some rappers have made an entire career off of telling us how authentic their stories are — they aren’t just being cocky, their reputation is based on whether or not the audience believes what they say.
Case in point: A lot of shots were fired between Jay-Z and Nas in their infamous battle, but no insult was worse than Jay-Z saying that Nas made up the violent stories on Illmatic: “I showed you your first tec, on tour with Large Professor/Then I heard your album about the tec on the dresser.” In a genre that’s so focused on confidence, competition, and bravado, there’s nothing worse than being a fraud.
But there’s always been a tension between hip-hop’s obsession with authenticity and rappers embellishing their stories for dramatic effect. In wanting to prove that they’re the toughest, the richest, or the most dangerous, many rappers have exaggerated who they are or what they’ve been through. But sometimes it’s even simpler than that. The entire hip-hop industry realized early on that rappers can sell a lot more records by marketing an inflated image. As much as we, the fans, say that we want realness in hip-hop, we’re usually more attracted to rappers who make themselves into larger than life characters.
This tension has led rappers and critics to debate the purpose of gangsta rap since “Fuck the Police” caused a national uproar. Traditionally, rappers have defended their graphic lyrics as being real depictions of what takes place in their surroundings. Unlike mainstream media, which often ignores what’s actually going on in our country’s most corrupt and dangerous neighborhoods, they present an unfiltered picture of reality. This is what led Chuck D to famously call hip-hop “CNN for black people” — in the same way that the news is supposed to inspire political action by teaching us about injustice, hip-hop inspires change by placing the ugly aspects of society in front of our faces.
But critics argued that, at least most of the time, rappers weren’t really concerned with fighting the system or even accurately talking about what’s going on. Instead, they were creating superhero identities to sell a ton of records.
Looking back at the so-called golden age of hip-hop — I’ve discussed elsewhere why I’m cynical about this term — when the debates over gangsta rap’s merits dominated the media’s coverage of the genre, we see that the critics actually had a point. Although they certainly looked like out of touch geezers at the time, in hindsight we see that many rappers were sensationalizing their stories. For Chuck D, hip-hop truly is “CNN for black people,” but most rappers aren’t Chuck D. His authenticity is to this day unprecedented — in his pursuit for political change he was painfully honest and never created any kind of character to embellish his story. But most gangsta rappers who wanted megastardom couldn’t help but partaking in what we might generously call “creative storytelling.”
Obviously, rappers won’t be lining up to admit how they’ve stretched the truth, but even a cursory glance at hip-hop history shows how some of the most legendary artists took liberties in crafting their image.
Some examples are more obvious than others. I can’t think of any moment quite as embarrassingly fake as N.W.A.’s 1990 performance on The Arsenio Hall Show, where they pretended that the LAPD banned them from performing and staged a backstage scuffle with some actor-cops. They miraculously break free, of course, and perform their “radical” single, “100 Miles and Runnin,’” in front of a rapturous crowd. It’s like something out of the WWE.
Perhaps they did this because they wanted to prove they were still dangerous after Ice Cube left the group. Or maybe they felt they needed to up the ante after “Fuck the Police” blew up. Either way, it highlights the concern that gangsta rappers deal with when trying to constantly one-up themselves: after exploring the worst of reality, the only way to shock the audience is to bend the truth.
Since N.W.A. that’s exactly what gangsta rappers have done. Of course, most rappers don’t go as far as to stage fake encounters with the police, they usually just present inflated pictures of themselves. Even an artist like 2Pac, one of the most open and vulnerable gangsta rappers in history, struggled with being authentic as he became more successful. He was extremely sensitive about being perceived as real, all while he was painstakingly crafting his image. When De La Soul released “Ego Trippin’ (Part Two),” which ruthlessly mocks the “I Get Around” video for presenting Pac as a kind of gangsta sex symbol, it upset him until the day he died. For 2Pac, looking real was more important than being completely honest and he wasn’t alone in his priorities. This anxiety is consistent throughout hip-hop history.
N.W.A. and the rest of the gangsta rap tradition fell prey to the belief that they had to bend the truth to be most effective. What TDE has shown is that the truth, when presented in all of it’s complexity, is much more powerful than any image that we can create.
Let’s take the song “Vice City” by Black Hippy — TDE’s supergroup of Jay Rock, Kendrick, Schoolboy Q, and Ab-Soul, the label’s four core members. The subject matter is typical gangsta rap: women, money, and gang life. But the song isn’t just an excuse to act tough and brash, as so many hip-hop posse cuts are. Instead, “Vice City” is about the self-hatred that comes from being too weak to avoid temptations. Kendrick sounds absolutely defeated as he raps the refrain, repeating “I pray to a C-Note, my mama gave up hope I can’t stand myself. I just bought a new coat, I might go broke I can’t stand myself.”
“Vice City” is the perfect representation of TDE’s aesthetic. It’s the exact opposite of traditional gangsta rap: there’s no exaggerated self-confidence, only honesty.
Even Schoolboy Q, who’s right up there with Predator era Ice Cube and 36 Chambers era Ghostface as the most intimidating rapper in history, goes against what’s normal in gangsta rap. Instead, he flips the traditional themes of the genre on it’s head to reveal the contradictions of gang life. On his last album, Blank Face, he plays Groovy Tony, the “no face killer” who’s even more frightening because of his anonymity. Even the name is a complete play on gangsta rap, as a reference to both Tony Starks, Ghostface Killah’s mafioso alias, and Tony Montana, the patron saint of gangsta rap.
But for Q, blank face means two things simultaneously: it’s not just the ruthless anonymous killer — a character traditional gangsta rap fans would love — it’s also the idea of being a “blank face” and not cracking under pressure when shit hits the fan. In the video for “Black Thoughts,” Q shows the real consequences of this silent violence, as he’s forced to choose between spending his daughter’s childhood behind bars or snitching on his friend. In the video Q chooses jail, but he doesn’t brag about how he’s stayed true to his code, an attitude you would find in a lot of traditional gangsta rap. He knows he had to do it, but in a sense his life is over and he knows there’s no victory in that.
Pretty much every project TDE puts out centers around these kinds of moments and that’s why they’re so groundbreaking. Whereas gangsta rappers in the past tried their hardest to appear cocky and self-assured, the members of TDE shine most when they’re displaying their weaknesses. As a group consisting of both Bloods and Crips, they’ve been through enough hell to know that in gang life there’s no superheroes — there’s usually not even clear cut winners. They’re just trying to present an honest view of reality in all its mundane ugliness. That’s as real as it gets.
