Is Hip Hop Gangsta?

Yea, I ask the question- 'Is Hip Hop Gansta?' Do rappers have to be gangsta to be considered 'real' in Hip Hop? It seems rap music listeners always feel that a rapper has to be a gangsta and rap about drug dealing and violence to be considered a real rapper. What is real? Real should be about being yourself, so why do the Hip Hop community feel that a non-gangsta real rapper is not to be respected? I think it is just absurd.

As long as you can't tell me that Hip Hop is gangsta, then you can't tell me that a non-gangsta rapper should not be respected in Hip Hop. I guess Hip Hop in the 90s (which was predominantly gangsta/mafioso) made people believe that real Hip Hop has to be gangsta. That's why people don't respect rappers like Drake and Macklemore. Hip Hop is a means of expressing yourself, and what is going on in your community, or the world at-large, so why should everything be about being gangsta?





If Drake is rapping about his life, and he is telling the truth, shouldn't he be considered real? Why should only rappers that are braggadocios and macho be considered real in Hip Hop? If you don't like what Drake raps about, it is all good, but you shouldn't consider his music an inferior form of hip hop. Well, I guess my post is more of a question. All i just want to know is....Is Hip Hop Gangsta?

Should You Be Gangster To Be Considered Real In Hip Hop

It has always been funny to me when rap listeners rate some rappers higher than others because they see them as real (with street credibility). Well, it wasn't really funny to me in my teens, but when I got to my twenties, and then thirties, it just sounded ridiculous to me. Some times I think African-Americans are so hypocritical. You go on the blogs and forums, and you hear them condemning a rapper like Drake because he doesn't represent that violent life, and yet when black people are profiled, they shout racism.

What you paint yourselves as is how people will treat you. I am a black man, but there are some parts of my neighbourhood that I thread softly because I know the kind of people that stay there. I know there are killers and robbers there, and I would react differently to them than I would someone else I know is civilized, but it ain't about racism. So, back to the matter at hand. You got rappers saying black people should get along better when ever some thing bad happens in the community, then they would turn around and brag about being more gangster than the next Negro...about being more of a killer. What is wrong with this people?





I think things are getting worse. Rap music is relatively a young genre of music, not even 50 years old yet. Some of the rappers that started out in the late 70's and 80's faded to the background, and just watched from the sideline. Of course most of them still tour and get royalty money, but they are far from the mainstream. Then you have the rappers from the 90's still around till today. And any rapper from the 90's probably has kids now and is heading for his 40's; that is if he is already 40. So, you have rappers like Styles P, who once was a big fan of, going off on twitter that he would fight Joe Budden, just because Budden asked him what he would do (lyrically) to defend New York after Kendrick Lamar (a West Coast rapper) called himself the King Of New York.





So, you have this 39 year old rapper (Styles P) acting a fool on twitter, calling out Joe Budden for being in a reality TV show. And saying he would fight Joe Budden in a closed room, and that they could fix the date and time. To Styles, this is what Hip Hop is...this is what makes you considered a real rapper. I understand why Jay Z laughs at a lot of this rappers now. I understand why he is way beyond them, because they really are thinking backwards. Hip Hop reflects your life and society as a rapper; so, if you were a teen or in your early 20's (as most rappers from the 90s were when they started out), and you are in the streets hustling, or doing whatever you do to get by, it will reflect in your music. But ofcos, the main thing is about your skills on the mic. Now that you are no longer in that situation and have kids in their teens, should you still be rapping about that? Hip Hop music is a big part of the black culture in America, and it's the window through which most other races that know no better use to look into the black community. And this is what you want to put on display? This is what you want to glorify?




Okay, lets say Styles wants to keep doing his gangster thing till he is in his 50's and has started loosing teeth, that's no ones business. There might still be some 2,000 people total or so that would love to buy his CD. But, why should you look at your style as the ultimate, and look at some other rapper that carters for another portion of the population inferior? Another thing is that people play favouritism a lot in Hip Hop. You have Andre 3000 being proclaimed one of the best rappers in Hip Hop history, but he once released a CD where he sang all through. Then, you have people looking down on Drake cos he likes to harmonize once in a while? When he raps does it kill it? Yes. That's what you should be concerned about it. If you don't like him cos he doesn't look like he had it tough growing up, then that is your business, just know the kid doesn't rap about the streets life, because he didn't live the streets life. What is realer than being yourself?

Can Gangstas Grow Up

When I ask- Can Gangstas Grow Up? I really am asking a question that i want to know the answer to. I think the life span of a gangsta rapper in the music scene is one of the shortest. I think that's basically because  of the redundancy in this kind of rap; a gangsta rapper has put himself in a box of telling tales of his or his neighborHOOD's gangsta stories, and he can only re-invent how he tells those stories so much before people get tired of hearing them. That was the case with Snoop Dogg; he released a damn near classic with Doggystyle in the early 90s, but there has been minimal growth after that. Ofcos, he has since detached himself from that gangsta image, and now collabos with people like Katy Perry, but he can never top his peak from the 90s.



50 Cent is another example. Curtis Jackson (50 cent) hit the world with his bomb, Get Rich Or Die Trying in 2003, which went on to sell over 11 million copies worldwide. He was the new milleniun's gangsta rapper. He had been shot 9 times (or so he made the world believe), he had the whole G-Unit movement, and the gangsta persona with his physical appearance; but these type of qualities can only catch the attention of people for a while. 50 had his run with it, but now he can nolonger go platinum, or even get his label to support his albums. Gangsta rap has a very short life span, and the reason is because the artists that chose that sub-genre, refuse to be creative and grow out of it. I was watching TV the other day, and i saw a couple of new 50 cent videos where he was still doing the gangsta thing, and i was wondering why he feels he has to keep doing that. He lives in Connecticut, and has been away from that kind of life for a decade now, so why does he still protray that image?



Ice Cube, and the other old west-coast gangsta rappers are legends, but they can't drop an album today that would make headlines. In fact, this is the reason why West Coast rap is irrelevant right not, except from a few. So, i ask the question- Can Gangstas Grow up? Is there a way gangsta rappers can grow from maybe glorifying that lifestyle, to speaking on other ways of living? Most of them can't shake off that persona they created. Some try, but that would lead to a risk of losing who they were while they were at the peak of being a gangsta rapper, and also losing the fan-base they built up. I think some of them are getting wiser now. For example, i am happy for the success of Young Jeezy's new album- TM103. Technically, Jeezy is a gangsta rapper, but if you check the singles he has been dropping from this new album, you would know he is trying to downplay that old image of his- "I Do" and "Leave You Alone" are definitely not gangsta rap songs.



You have the gangsta rappers that mix finesse with their music; the ones that go the bragadocious way like Rick Ross that still have a chance for growth. I think any rapper that envisons growth and longevity in hip hop should never box himself in with that gangsta rap persona. If you pick rappers that have been relivant in hip hop for more than 10 years, they are rappers that bring more to the table than just hood stories. Jay-Z is the braggadocios type, and even if  he portrayed being a gangsta in the past, it was more of a don status, than a street corner type. To keep his music going and keep the albums dropping, he has to take the persona he created to higher heights, that's why he has to keep talking money and success.

Busta Rhymes came in the game with his commical style and crazy delivery, so this would still keep him going, because there is always some form of growth that can be achieved in that lane. Jadakiss is still here after more than 10 years because, even though he does gangsta rap, he has that loveable raspy voice, plus his punchlines are alwasy on point. Nas dropped his Illmatic album 18 years ago, and people considered it a classic. He told hood stories on it, but it wasn't really the stories, but the way he told those stories and his intelligence that made him so great that 18 years later, his album (Life Is Good) is being anticipated by people that werent even alive when he dropped his first album.