Gangsta rap

[Tekun]

What are your opinions on gangsta rap? Rappers like Eazy E, NWA, MC Eiht, DJ Quik, Snoop, Mack 10 and others (I've purposely excluded the Game :lol:)
Is it a positive genre in hiphop? A negative genre?
Is it a good way to show life on the streets?
Or does it celebrate gang culture and violence?

Personally, Im not a fan nor have I ever been
When I went through my whole Pac phase, I almost touched on it
But, it never appealed to me, great production but I felt the lyrics were mundane and subpar, compared with other MC's of the early to mid 90's e.g Rakim and KRS
However, as a person who lived in Los Angeles, I can honestly say that gangs have a negative affect on the community, and gangsta rap easily influences many young ppl
There is certainly some potential of showing police brutality, racism, and street life in gangsta rap
However, from experience, I know that gangs kill ppl and intimidate the community so much that its hard to see gangsta rap as a channel from which to spread a revolutionary message

[Gunman]

It gives a bad image to the rest of rap. So I´m pretty much agaisnt it.

[The Grey Blur]

A lot of gangsta rap displays very basic class consciousness yet because there was never any true revolutionary grouping after the Black Panthers willing or able to reach out to black youth a lot of this potential was wasted

[Dr. Rosenpenis]

I dig Ghostface Killah

[Rage]

I like Eazy-E just cause he is Eazy-E.

I am not a fan of Gangsta rap. I pretty much listen to the opposite (Jurassic 5 song with Dave Mathews :P )

/,,/
Rock on!

[celtopunk]

Originally posted by Permanent [email protected] 19, 2006 11:49 pm
A lot of gangsta rap displays very basic class consciousness yet because there was never any true revolutionary grouping after the Black Panthers willing or able to reach out to black youth a lot of this potential was wasted
It also tends to be very capitalistic.

I don't like it. Give me some PE any day.

[RedSabine]

I can dig it.

music don't have to be revolutionary and communistic to be good.

I like snoop dog, his rhymes is are flyzoid.

[Political_Chucky]

I really don't care personally whether it is Capitalistic at all or glorifies ganglife. I see Rap as an art and every form of it should be embraced. Production wise, Traditional Gangsta rap has that deep bassline and/or high synth bell sound. WestCoast Gangsta Rap usually gets it support more from the nice Bassline while the Eastcoast style usually derives from a a sampling style. Lyrically, it usually has some of the best disses. These include shit from Nas, Dr.Dre, Eazy E, Snoop(Old shit, havn't heard his latest album), kool G Rap, Kurupt, Canibus, DJ Quick, The Game, Ice T, Ice Cube Mack 10, Too $hort, Wu Tang Clan, 2pac and Biggie. Even Boogie Down Productions( KRS-One) is even considered to be somewhat gangsterish with 9mm Goes Bang and South Bronx.

Whether or not its a good source of seeing how it really is on the street, I think it varies between rapper to rapper. Newer rappers tend to focus on how much money they have gotten since they came from the hood or how big their rims are. Old School Gangsta rappers (of course there are exceptions) usually focus on issues or problems in their life, or just daily ganglife.

[Pirate Utopian]

some gangstarapppers had political subtones and some are good but it's rare.
Ice Cube, Da Lench Mob, Tupac, sometimes Ice-T and Nas are the ones that jump out to most on that shit

[Honggweilo]

Me digz DMX and Wu-Tang :rolleyes: , although in a sporadic mood i would even put on some Tupac :lol:. Although i tend to agree that the political undertone is there but mostly weak or scarse. Thats why i stick with underground, progressive and euro hiphop

[Fawkes]

I'm not to big of a fan of Gangsta rap just because the lyrical skills of West Coast gangsta rappers generally aren't as good as East Coast rappers. It pisses me off how so much rap nowadays glorifies wealth and objectifies women, but I can see how gangsta rap could be a good way of showing the true street life

P.S. I personally hate Eazy-E. For one, Ice Cube wrote the raps for him in NWA, he didn't even write his own. Number two, he stole from his bandmates and that is so not cool.

[Pirate Utopian]

Eazy-E had no flow and even if he had MC Ren or Ice Cube write lyrics ofr him he would make them sound shitty

[Fawkes]

That's why I generally prefer East coast rappers over West coast rappers because most East coast ones have such better flow.

[Pirate Utopian]

most southern rappers are very disapointing to me

[ReD_ReBeL]

grrr i HATE the rap culture and rap artists all there 'yo yo yo ' shit is so annoying they think there so cool and hip . Yeah sure your 'tough' with names like ' lil john'

[Rockfan]

Originally posted by [email protected] 21, 2006 08:08 am
grrr i HATE the rap culture and rap artists all there 'yo yo yo ' shit is so annoying they think there so cool and hip . Yeah sure your 'tough' with names like ' lil john'
WHAT!!!!!! (Dumb sounding voice cos my grills falling out)

Hahaha, being into metal and prog and even a bit of jazz these days I can't say any kind of rap does much for me but if I rases class conciousness then thats great, however much of the modern MTV populorised rap, hip-hop and R'n'B doesn't so I don't really like as it pritty much made to do the exact opposite and keep people in the dark.

[Tekun]

Why do some of u consider WuTang, Bis, or Nas as gangsta rappers? :blink:

In addition, how has gangsta rap changed, in the sense that now its all about makin paper when in the past it focused on street life?

[Guerrilla22]

Originally posted by Dr. [email protected] 20, 2006 01:31 am
I dig Ghostface Killah
Ghost Face is the shit, I heard he's making an album with MF Doom that's supposed to come out next year. It might very well be the best rap album ever made.

[cb9's_unity]

I'm not really into rap (even though i like PE and some band that plays in my cousins car every mourning) so all i really now about it is what i see on T.V. If anything new Gangsta rap decreases class-conciousness. People listening to how much money the newest rapper has will only make them believe in the capitalist lie that any ordinary person can join the capitalist elite.

[The Grey Blur]

If anything new Gangsta rap decreases class-conciousness
How so? To be honest I can't see non-political music as increasing or decreasing 'class consciousness' at all. Like I said, early gangsta rap in fact displays very basic class consciousness - Tupac, Snoop Dogg, some other early West Coast stuff - all contain messages at one point or another that the current system is fucked up. It's just that, unlike their fathers and mothers who were about at the time of the BPP, they had nowhere to educate them further on this or to show them how to express their anger in constructive ways. We should not be patronising and wonder why these people eventually rose "from their class" instead of "with their class" when it was our failure as Socialists that no alternative to the Capitalist mindset was on offer to these youths.


I'm not really into rap
You should try 'The Coup'; they're a moderately large rap duo who have explicitly Socialist lyrics. None of that Black Nationalist bollox that Dead Prez are spitting on now either.


People listening to how much money the newest rapper has will only make them believe in the capitalist lie that any ordinary person can join the capitalist elite.
I think someone needs to define urgently whether we're talking about early gangsta rap or today's commercial "gangsta" rap.

[Tekun]

I think someone needs to define urgently whether we're talking about early gangsta rap or today's commercial "gangsta" rap.

Originally, I was talking about gangsta rap in general (now and b4)
But now that I think about it, most of today's "gangsta" rappers are mere shadows of the early pioneers (Eazy, DJ Quik, Snoop)
Aside from Snoop (whose more commercial than gangsta nowadays), therez very few well known rappers today whose music could be labeled as "gangsta"
So I guess we can focus on early gangsta rap

[dark fairy]

i dig it to the max...
i live in l.a so it's a big part of living here :D
:ph34r:

[Ol' Dirty]

Originally posted by [email protected] 19, 2006 05:54 pm
It gives a bad image to the rest of rap. So I´m pretty much agaisnt it.
Me too. I think that east coast is better.

[Dr. Rosenpenis]

unquestionably east coast is better... a tribe called quest, the roots, kool g rap & dj polo, de la soul, mos def, ghostface killah, common, mf doom

[Pirate Utopian]

common is midwest, he is from chicago.

[Fawkes]

Yeah, and aren't the Roots Philly, or is that considered East coast.

[Tekun]

Common might be from Chitown, but his style is totally East Coast
Its nothing like the garbage Nelly or Murphy Lee spit

[socialistpunk]

I like the rap group public enemy ther song fight the power is good for pissing of white supremists. :D :ph34r:

[Dr. Rosenpenis]

Philly is obviously east coast
Chicago is closer to the east coast than to the west coast
and his style is east coast

[Pirate Utopian]

Originally posted by [email protected] 31, 2007 10:39 am
I like the rap group public enemy ther song fight the power is good for pissing of white supremists. :D :ph34r:
PE isnt a group of gangstarappers

[C.R.M]

i'm not perticularly a big fan of the mainstream rap scene i think the best rap groups are more underground and politicaly motivated dead prez, immortal technique, jedi mind tricks a good song with some real lyrics immortal technique ft.mos def bin laden

[Honggweilo]

DMX's "stop being greedy" and "who we be" sound rather progressive. He's also not that materialistic and exentric, and is from a working class background. He's also rather religious, but apperantly uses his faith for things like community service, which is a positive side effect. He build a church one time though in Jonkers NY, i can't say that's really positive :P. But hey, he doesnt wear bling but a dogcollar :lol:.

His oldskool stuff like "The Born Loser" is awsome btw. You don't see much gangster rappers get so cynical, self-degrading and nihilistic like that.

Of course i have a large number of underground and political MC's i like, but i thought this topic was for mainstream "gangster rap"

[Pirate Utopian]

DMX is like Lil' Jon, even if they turn political their musicstyle is horrible.

imagine a political lil' jon

Fuck Capitalism! WHAT! What! What! Socialism! YEAH!

[Honggweilo]

Originally posted by Big [email protected] 02, 2007 12:04 pm
DMX is like Lil' Jon, even if they turn political their musicstyle is horrible.

imagine a political lil' jon

Fuck Capitalism! WHAT! What! What! Socialism! YEAH!
Its best not for him to turn political, musically, i agree :P. But neither should almost any "gangsta" rapper.. :rolleyes:. Allthough its always a good thing when someone switches up his politics towards the left.

About their music style, its kind of a childish remnant, i used to be into his music before i even found out who Marx was :rolleyes:


Fuck Capitalism! WHAT! What! What! Socialism! YEAH!
Laughed my balls off :lol:. "If it aint red it aint me. UH! if it aint red it M, A R to the X, all class struggle is straight set *pop, pop, pop, beeep!* which cappie is next?" :lol:

[Tekun]

I think its impossible to make politically conscious music out of the garbage that clowns like Lil John, T.I, Mims ("Im so hot, U not" shit), and Jim Jones ("So Fly") put out there

[Pirate Utopian]

yeah i dont see 50 Cent releasing In Da Commune anyday soon

[Djehuti]

NWA are great! Absolutelty wonderful. :wub:

[gilhyle]

Recommend Ghostface's best ?

[Comrade_Scott]

NWA is the boss they rule and thats that.

[Pirate Utopian]

NWA was very simple, it was good and all but except for their first 2 albums how suprising were they?

ice cube solo was alot better