Gangster Rap Culture

The emergence of Gangster Rap or as some call it “Gangsta Rap” led to a new emergence of culture & challenges to the values and understandings of this genre of music in more ways than one. As someone who was born in the 90’s I saw the change within the culture of rap but more importantly in gangster rap; something which challenged the message behind the song’s lyrics and really changed the movement because of the usage of words which were deemed to be inappropriate in past ages. Gangster rap made it easy to transparently recognize derogatory terms such as the “N Word” and phrases such as “calling women the B word” were used towards different races, ethnicities and more importantly towards people of colored skin. For some Gangster Rap was a …show more content…
The music echoed the profound changes that this music was promoting to listeners of the change that was occurring in society. This was so much so that it even began an emergence of political issues because of the rejection of lyrics or songs of this nature. For Instance, “Ice-T Looks Back on 'Cop Killer” (Radio) talks about how Ice T being one of the founders of gangster rap & how when his song “Cop Killer” was released it reached to a point of the President at the time reaching out to the public since law enforcement was being targeted. Additionally, Gangster rap was also picking up popularity in suburbs a location where music like gangster rap was very uncommon. Because of this new emergence of this genre of music many new artists could freely express themselves & led to a big tension of racial issues. Gangster Music also offered to what many were expecting that being the lyrics pertaining to drugs, sex and weapons. It gave many an escape from the true reality which many were accustomed too. It also offered a negative image for African Americans as they were the prime consumers for this type of music, no positive message was being spread from this music to influence otherwise. If a study were to be done regarding the influence rap music has on the listeners I think it has a direct effect. If you see entertainers and rappers promoting violence drugs and sex it might be deemed as acceptable for others to perform the same actions without the consequences. Gangster rap also for some was a way to demonstrate the conditions in which they grew up in many working their way out of violence and poverty. However, with all this said gangster rap is still very well prevalent to the issues today. Social Media has help spread this with great quickness. While it is just another genre of music gangster rap is significantly