Gangs and Hip Hop

Hip Hop and Gangs

Gangsta rap is one aspect of hip hop culture. Hip hop has given youth in the ghettoes a new identity, one that has arisen in opposition to mainstream culture. This hip hop identity is now a world-wide phenomena, the cutting edge of global youth culture. The "gangsta" identity both represents the drama of the steets, but also the "merchandizing of the rhymes of violence" by profit hungry media companies. As KRS-1 and others tell it, the media companies promote the most outrageous stereotypes of "violent, vicious" Black youth while ignoring the rappers who represent the positive and political side of ghetto life.

Gangsta Rap and Stereotypes

Afrikaa Bambaata, one of the founders of hip hop explains its creative origins in an interview as does DJ Kool Herc. Hip Hop in the Bronx was an expression of former gang bangers like the Zulu Nation turning to culture to pull kids from gangs and violence

In Los Angeles, where gangs had institutionalized after the 1960s, rap's origins lay in the gangster culture, not the opposition to gangs of Run-DMC, Afrikaa Bamaata, KRS-1, Queen Latifa and others. NWA was the first "gangsta rap" group and they were performers, not gangsters in real life. The graphic violence of NWA sold and the media companies were quick to pick up on a way to make big bucks off rap.

The "thug life" of Tupac and other depictions of the "power of street knowledge" thus both express the frustration and anger of ghetto youth but also the seduction of rappers into performing outrageous, misogynist, violent lyrics in order to be promoted by major record labels. Like mainstream artists, many rappers sell out and "keep their mind on their money and their money on their mind."

The most effective way to combat gangsta rap's worship of violence is not censorship but through the original message of hip hop.

Questions, comments, suggestions, contact Katie Kaminski