hip hop, the 1990s and the gangsta ethic:"Do I look like a motherfucken role model?"
Gangsta rap and LA: background. Gangsta rap and gender Gangsta rap and violence Gangsta rap and sonic forces
Hip hop provides an interesting and challenging source for historical examination, because it is an historical process in itself. To listen to hip hop is to listen to appropriation, pastiche, reconstruction and reclamation, and it is also to listen to the past and history. Hip hop is not just music. It is a lifestyle. It is a
collective of music, rhymes, graffiti, breakdancing and visual style. It
is a unique structure of ingredients, and it has its own history and significance
that is often misunderstood. Hip hop encompasses thugs, breakers, graffers,
djs, mcs, young bloods and legends, gangsta rap, underground hip hop, scratching
and battles. It is not just the music you listen to, it is the clothes
you wear, the shoes you choose, the drugs you take and the language you
adopt. It is a distinct group that has a number of fairly common values
that run through all the subgroups mentioned above. It is a primarily male
dominated and masculine group, and at the forefront of hip hop criticism
is gangsta rap.
In the heated years leading up to the Los Angeles riots of April 1992, hip hop and its related street culture gained a reputation for violent and illicit behaviour, an image that was often enhanced and exaggerated by the media and the mostly white traditional patriarchal figures of authority. Like much criticism of hip hop and rap, the accusations levelled at artists and fans were often unrealistic and unfactual: not only because the ruling hegemony was still unwilling to accept a vocal black community, but also because the posturing and self-aggrandising of the individual is such a key element of hip hop. Early hip hop had its roots and heart in the ghetto, accompanied by the music of an older generation—the act of sampling a beat or break from a record grew from the pastiche mix tapes made by the earliest hip hoppers in large American cities, particularly New York. Gangsta rap goes out of its way to shock and challenge those that it sees as the biggest obstructions to racial equality: the institutions and ruling powers of white society. Gangsta rap first burst onto the scene with Ice T, whose aggressive, socially conscious lyrics captured the underside of life as a black in white America. Ice T’s lyrics were potent messages of the situation in the street, from semiautobiographical descriptions of violence and everyday hardships to sophisticated political debates about current affairs that affected the black community. Truly the Original Gangsta, Ice T has been a vocal and compelling figure in hip hop for many years. Critics who dismiss gangsta rap as misogynistic and violent would do well to examine the lyrics and sentiments of rappers such as Ice T, Ice Cube, and even Eminem, the latest and greatest gangsta rapper in the hood. In Droppin' Science, Perkins discusses both the surface and underlying themes and issues of hip hop. One of his more interesting points is that gangsta rap contains what Foucault would call a "counter-discourse of prisoners" Ice T provides an excellent example of this discourse at work: the outro on his OG album, "You shoulda killed me last year," is as follows "They say slavery has been abolished except for the convicted felon. Y’all need to think about that, unless you know what the fucken Constitution really is about." Ice Cube also discusses black incarceration, with some of his more colourful conspiracy theories verging on the paranoid. Ice Cube’s track "The Product" is a sobering account of prison life and the system that has, again to quote Ice Cube, "more niggers in the pen than in college." Dear babe, your man’s getting worn out
The gangsta ethic is inherently linked to ideas of masculinity and manhood. While it is true that women have clawed their way into gangsta rap, by and large they are still denoted as bitches and hoes. Gangsta rap is the music of aggression and self-determination, and as a result, women haven’t always wanted to listen to it, let alone create it. Chuck D from Public Enemy had this to say: ‘I wanted to make records that girls hated…make something that people cover their ears to. It’s ‘love at first hate’ that was the key with Public Enemy.’ In the days before NWA, making what Def Jam founder Russell Simmons called ‘black punk rock’ was not viewed as a relevant direction for hip hop. In the mid eighties, black urban youth was just beginning to find its voice, and just as the punk scene went from small regional styles and ethics, so hip hop became more widespread, in both the black and white communities. To the outsider, this sudden explosion of angry, urban hip hop and rap was frightening and stunning. All of a sudden, there were groups of young mainly black men with an aggressively devised attitude that asked no favours or sanctions from the white community, young men with guns, and spray paint, and the capacity for violence. These urban youths were, it appeared, the same responsible for the havoc in South Central. "...people like violence. Americans like violence more than your average world citizen. It's sad but it's true. You put a gun on television, you put a gun in the movies, you put a gun on a record and people pay attention." --Joe Levy of Rolling Stone, from Alex Ogg & David Upshal, The Hip Hop Years: A History of Rap, Channel 4 books, London, 1999, p 147. This violence, and debates surrounding gangsta rap’s stance on violence is fraught with misinformation and deliberate or plain ignorant misunderstandings. It is important to discuss and qualify violence in the world of the ghetto, simply because the white hegemony has struggled to understand and control this aspect of black America. Violence and crime are facts of life in a community that has been cast as the subaltern and slave for centuries, and despite the many efforts in the past to redirect black energy towards creative rather than destructive forces, these twin forces have continued to undermine the black community. But to see this problem as created and perpetrated by blacks is to ignore the influence of institutionalised racism and brutality that has been a core dilemma for American society since its inception. While black-on-black violence is the largest cause of death among young black men, dismissing this as a community, rather than national, problem has only served to abet the widening racial divide between the affluent, white hegemony and the underpaid, black community. Certainly there are exceptions to every rule: not all wealthy whites are the enemies of the black hip hop community, but just as the hippies of the sixties cautioned their peers not to trust anyone over thirty, there is a deep suspicion between black and white America that has been fostered by ignorance and unwillingness to compromise. Examining the lyrics and sentiments of gangsta rap
helps to deconstruct some of the myths and legends of blacks, violence
and crime, the issue which has been a thorn in the side of white America
for centuries. In the American psyche, it can be seen how the black community
has been consistently identified and typecast into violence and violent
situations. "When something happens in South Central LA, nothin happens,
it’s just another nigga dead," says Ice Cube on ‘Straight Outta Compton.’
Or another record sold.
GANGSTA RAP: WHY IS HIS CAR SHAKING SO MUCH?! One important but often overlooked aspect of hip
hop and gangsta rap is the sonic quality of the music, and what, if any,
non-musical dimensions it brings to mind. The easiest way to explain this
is to examine the typical hip hop rhythmic beat in terms of its basic element:
the drum. Drums have been at the centre of black African culture
for centuries. They were used to communicate over great distances, to provide
a beat for dances and dance battles, and as a key part of initiation and
religious ceremonies. Polyrhythmic improvisational drum or bass patterns
characterise much of black music, from jazz and swing to funk and soul
right up to hip hop. The thump of hip hop bass lines and rhythms has aggressively
muscled into public sonic space. Kelly remarks that many hip hop producers
have been instrumental in developing technology that ‘fattens’ the bass
while maintaining clarity at high volumes, called ‘jeep beats’.
This fat, throbbing sound can shake car chasses, windows in the hood, or
the values of white America, as the drum and bass keeps up an often threatening,
advancing pace. As Robin Kelly states, "hip hop must be understood as a
sonic force… you can’t simply read about it; it has to be heard, volume
pumping, bass in full effect…"
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