primetime said:
like others have said, there were drive by shootings, rapes, calling women "bitches" and "ho's", senseless murders, pimping and all kinds of other stuff WAY BEFORE 1988, when NWA came out with the first type of "gangsta rap". you take away gangsta rap, the violence still continues.
That's why the thread is about the gansta lifestyle, not the rap alone. Again, it's the cultural shift - it's not the music, it's the subculture as a whole. Back in the old days, you had a lot of gang violence in the big cities, based on gang pride and money to be made from the drug trade.
At that time, in the days of NWA, Public Enemy, Ice-T and so on, rappers were telling stories about what they saw in everyday life (just like a lot of CA punk bands did, such as The Dead Kennedys with "Moon Over Marin", "Police Truck", etc.) In it's time and place, American rap (and punk) was a sort of hybrid folk music and storytelling ballad.
What happened AFTER that, after the old days, was as the music and trappings of the subculture became more widespread, you now had people spraying the streets with gunfire in Peoria, Illinois. Rappers were no longer telling stories about what they saw; they manufactured images of themselves, and continued to propagate the violence and ugliness because it made them big men with their posse, a big man can have some pull, and with that pull you can become a star. OG rappers talked about what they knew, and it made them stars. Modern Gs want to be stars, so they make an effort to develop a violent, street cred rep. In other words, the past shootings, dealings and pimping was the landscape of where the gangsta rappers came from. These days, many rappers are posers who make the pose into a terrible reality, perpetuating that landscape, making it and manufacturing it, keeping it going, because that's how you make money and get big - only now it's been imported everywhere and not just kept in the overcrowded metropolitan areas as in the past. Their fans, who have seen even less of what the rappers have seen in their everyday lives, now act that out, just as little kids put on capes and try to be superheroes. Emulation does indeed occur.
primetime said:
all this stuff about kids looking up to these artists is true to a point. but again, look at the audience. most of these "kids" who you claim will emulate the lyrics literally, were going to do so anyway. they see these artists who are just like them. grew up poor and in the streets. these artists did not create the lifestyle they rap about. it is what they learned in life. get it right.
No one is complaining about the music - it is the lifestyle. The music is simply the most obvious aspect, and for better or worse, fair or unfair, the medium of conveyance of the lifestyle. If someone.... no, many people..... rap about where they go, what they do, what they are wearing and drinking while they do it, what they are playing on what specific type of stereo in what specific type of car as they fire this or that kind of gun... what you have is a repetitive blueprint to a lifestyle or subculture that a young male filled with his own hormones will absorb. Men and women looking for an identity will latch on to something and try to make it their own. Frankly, people who live this lifestyle know it! There was a trial in Houston, TX in 1994 where a young man shot a police officer, and HIS OWN DEFENSE was that he was listening to so much anti-cop rap that day, over and over, that he acted out on it. In other words, here was a violent hip-hopper saying, yeah, this music is a component in my lifestyle, and my lifestyle is pretty unpleasant. So.... gangsta rappers have not improved things for their own people in 10 years, while they make millions and continue to grow in legion - and it's the critics who are the bad guys? Shiz. The guy's defense was rejected of course, personal choice and responsibility being the biggest factors - just as in the cases where Ozzy and Judas Priest were sued in the 1980s when kids killed themselves while listing, repetitively while intoxicated, to their songs and killed themselves. Common sense won out and the musicians were cleared. But 2 things should be considered, two big factors:
1.) The music played SOME role in all of these acts, just not the major role; it was more about lifestyle. But it can't be completely discounted.
2.) unlike the gangsta rap/ gansta lifestyle, the heavy metal casualties are fewer, aren't as mainstream, and far less often involve random innocent victims on the street over things so ephemeral as pride or specific as drug money. You can shake your head and do the devil fingers in your mirror all day long and no one really gets hurt; someone starts swinging a blade or firing a gun to prove what they are, that blade or bullet has to land somewhere.
primetime said:
plus, all this talk about the violence that rap portrays. has anyone ever taken a look at the album covers of punk/ska music? heavy metal? those covers are not exactly "family oriented" either. where is all the ruckus about those covers? what is it about "black" music that people must get riled up about? dammit, if people are going to criticize rap music, then i want to see equal criticism of other type of music that promotes death and other "scary" images. will we see that? of course not.....let's be fair people, let's be fair.
There would be equal criticism if there was an equal real life, in-the-streets comparison. It's not 'let's be fair', it's 'let's be real'. There is violence on punk and ska albums.... but how mainstream is ska compared to 50 Cent? With ska, that's like comparing hip hop to klezmer music. You can read articles or watch interviews again and again from older,
original gang members, the ones who got out and became successful and the ones who are in jail for life, and THEY are shocked with how violent & disrespectful the modern gangbanger is. And gangbangers generally aren't listening to Sarah McGlaughlin on their Blaupunkts cranked up to 10. Sidney Vish may have killed his girlfriend, but he didn't grab a 9 and bust caps into a crowd of people because he was told to leave a nightclub, which happens every weekend as opposed to a 30 year old event. And the reason Sid and Nancy ended up dead was because as a 19 year old male Sid started believing his image, began living out the press he was getting, and it lead to destruction. What is exactly what gangsta rappers are doing NOW, not whatever was happening in the 1
What happened AFTER that, after the old days, was as the music and trappings of the subculture became more widespread, you now had people spraying the streets with gunfire in Peoria, Illinois. Rappers were no longer telling stories about what they saw; they manufactured images of 980s. They are manufacturing creating an image and trying to live up to that image, meanwhile people who know even less, seen even less, than the rappers are buying into it. There's a reason the OGs like T and Kane are going back into the communities they rapped about and trying to improve things, give people more choices. Pac, 50, The Game etc. were and are just screwing up those efforts trying to be stars. About the worst thing that 'grunge' did was lead to self destruction of the people who got turned on to drug aspect. It didn't lead to people in entire housing projects having to sleep on the floor because of the bullets that flew nightly.
