Mocking Gangster Rap
I still hear people use the terms “rap” and “gangster rap” interchangeably. Most of the time, it’s from older generations who were never onboard with hip hop in the first place who think it’s clever to use the “gangster” in gangster rap as a pejorative. Or it’s people who never bothered to learn the difference in the first place. I’m never surprised when this happens, yet every time it does, I find it condescending and I’m filled with embittered nerd rage. A rage that sits comfortably next to the other rage I feel at the racist dog whistle that comes with emphasizing the “gangster.”
There’s a number of fairly obvious points to make here. Not all hip hop is gangster rap, and even if it was, gangster rap has value as an art form and it shouldn’t be easily dismissed. Moreover, not all hip hop that addresses violence is gangster rap, not all gangster rap is meant to be taken literally, and I personally would take the worst gangster rap song I can find over the best Captain & Tennille song because, at the very least, gangster rap is interesting.
However, if there’s one aspect of the dismissal of gangster rap that annoys me the most, it’s the assumption that all rappers approve of gangster rap.
Nowadays, despite the very welcome rise of Griselda, gangster rap isn’t really in vogue. This isn’t to say that there’s no gangster rap, and I’ve now given myself an excuse to write “Griselda” again. However, we’re mostly in the slower melodic social media friendly era of hip hop. A lot of emo-y rappers and Drake. And WAP. (Which I love.) But even in gangster rap’s heyday, when N.W.A. were on top of the world and every conservative’s shit list and there was a renaissance of gangster rap coming out of New York, not every rapper was on board.
It’s easy to form an opinion on violent gangster rap now that we have some perspective and hindsight, and whatever the big thing in rap is at the moment will always be criticized no matter what. But what were the thoughts of the rappers at the time? Why were there dissenters, and what were they dissenting to?
In order to find out, let’s listen to what some of those rappers had to say! Specifically, let’s listen to three songs directly addressing the massive popularity of gangster rap, and let’s talk about them in release order! Because why not?
“Afro Connections at a Hi 5 (In the Eyes of the Hoodlum)” by De La Soul
I love De La Soul with every fiber of my being. I own multiple De La Soul shirts, I own and have listened to all of their albums, and I even pitched in for the Kickstarter funded album that wound up being and the Anonymous Nobody…, yet another great album in De La’s discography. I’m a fan, yet I’ll admit that they can be a bit heady.
Most of the time, that’s a feature, not a complaint. But for whatever reason, I have a tendency to overthink De La’s writing. It took me a while to understand, for example, that “Potholes in my Lawn” wasn’t some grand metaphor for society or whatever, but rather a song about biters and weak rappers. (I first listened to 3 Feet High and Rising in eighth grade when I was discovering good music. Clever hip hop was new to me.)
It’s easy to get caught in the same trap with “Afro Connections at a Hi 5 (In the Eyes of the Hoodlum).”
The song begins with the group telling you that this is a joke. “This is dedicated to all those HARDCORE ACTS!” yells Pos. “Yeah, you know, them brothers we used to look up to that fell the FUCK OFF.” adds Dave. (He would’ve been Trugoy at the time, but I’m going to go with Dave because it’s easier to type.) The conversation in the group continues. “And now they doing all that R&B shit.” “You mean Rhythm and Blues?” “No! Rap and Bullshit.”
So, obviously, we’re going to be making fun of gangster rap, the style of hip hop that was dominating the cultural conversation at the time. (For reference, Straight Outta Compton came out in the summer of ’88, predating De La’s first album. Or at least that point of reference is useful for me, because I’ve always assumed the opposite.) However, the lyrics, at a glance, don’t back up the posturing with that much punch.
Dave raps about his dick and how he’ll smack you. In the always welcome Maseo verse, he raps about his blunt and how he’s a pimp. Pos raps about the number of beepers he carries and so on and so forth. By today’s standards, nothing in this song is particularly ludicrous or shocking. Nowadays, even producer tags have death threats in them.
However, the critique happening here becomes much clearer when you take a step back. This isn’t a song about the substance of gangster rap, but the style and the talent of many of the rappers who produce this kind of music.
If you know De La Soul, you know that they always have an angle. Their subject matter is generally universal, but they approach it with a different style or a less obvious approach. “Jenifa Taught Me (Derwin’s Revenge)” is a song about a girl in Pos and Dave’s high school, only the conceit is that it starts wholesome and gets increasingly raunchier. On the opposite end of the emotional spectrum is “Millie Pulled a Pistol on Santa.” Though stories about sexual abuse are surprisingly common in hip hop, this story is about Millie, who shoots her molesting social worker father while he’s playing Santa at the department store.
Other than certain lyrics, there is no clever conceit to “Afro Connections.” It’s just rapping about the same stuff a lot of other rappers were making music about. Sex, wealth, and being tough.
And that’s entirely the point. They’re showing you that any rapper with any modicum of talent can do what these rappers are doing, provided you do the bare minimum. Get a vaguely hard sounding beat, rap about certain subjects, and bam, you made a track just like most of the songs that seem to get all the attention.
“Afro Connections” is the most subtle song we’ll be talking in this article. If you don’t know about De La’s style or the kind of music they tend to make, it’s entirely possible to miss the sarcasm at play. However, even if you don’t get the joke, there’s still enjoyment to be found here. One could argue that this song is still a continuation of the De La style. Maybe this isn’t meant to be a hardcore critique of hardcore rap acts. Instead, maybe it’s their version of a hardcore song.
“U Mean I’m Not” by Black Sheep
Unlike De La Soul, Black Sheep aren’t going for subtlety.
There’s no need for foreknowledge of the group or the imagery associated with “hardcore” rappers. There’s no chance for mistaking this for an actual gangster rap song. (Or at least I hope not.) “U Mean I’m Not” is outright satire.
The story the song tells is a simple one. Our narrator wakes up and assembles his AK. He beats his family to the only bathroom in the house only to discover that his sister has used his toothbrush. Like a perfectly rational human being, he goes into her room and screams at her before beating her up and shooting her. Then he does the same to his mother for breaking his egg yolks and his father for getting upset about what he did to his mother. He then kills the mailman for no apparent reason before going to wait for the school bus.
To someone who only knows gangster rap by reputation, you may not know this is a joke. One doesn’t have to strain hard in order to imagine the PTA at a conservative high school wringing their firsts about these appalling lyrics without realizing they’re falling for the gag. (It’s also easy to imagine them ignoring the bit at the end, which we’ll be getting to soon enough.) However, if it wasn’t clear it’s a gag from the lyrics, I’d argue that Dres’s delivery tips its hand. Of course, many detractors of hip hop still won’t see the nuance, but Dres’s gloriously over-the-top shouting makes even the most boring of actions seem hilariously dangerous. (“WAITIN’ FOR THE MOTHAFUCKIN’ SCHOOL BUS!” makes me laugh every time I hear it.)
But after this line, Dres wakes up in a panic, and he tells Mista Lawnge, “I dreamed that I was… hard.” From the way he says “hard,” you’d think he was physically disgusted.
Really, there isn’t a whole lot to analyze as far as lyrics are concerned. Again, Black Sheep aren’t going for subtlety. However, I think there’s something to be said about where this song is placed on the album, A Wold In Sheep’s Clothing, and where it stands in contrast with the rest of the material.
On the intro to the album, Black Sheep declare themselves the literal black sheep of the Native Tongues collective. (A collective that includes De La Soul. Maybe it would’ve been a good idea to pick an example from outside of this circle. Oh well.) The “doo-doo eatin’, vomit tastin’, pee drinkin’, jelly donut makin’, hoe slappin’, kitty cat lickin’, cesspool swimmin’, premarital sex havin’” rappers of lefty alternative hip hop.
We’re immediately followed by “U Mean I’m Not.” But Dres wakes up from his dream, and the rest of this classic album is more representative of their more laid back sarcastic style.
Dres and Mista Lawnge go out of their way to outright reject the stylings of gangster rap and embrace themselves and their own sound. Thus the song sets up an expectation of authenticity. Everything you’re about to hear is representative of who they really are, and if there’s any posturing on this album, you’re not supposed to take it seriously.
Maybe, as it’s implied, you should take that attitude and apply it to most of the gangster rap you hear.
“SlaughtaHouse” by Masta Ace Incorporated
If De La Soul were going for subtlety and Black Sheep weren’t, Masta Ace finds the middle ground. While he’s clearly going for the satirical approach of Black Sheep, he’s also going for more studied specificity. Something you have to be in the know to understand, like De La.
Unlike the other groups, the lyrics, at least in the first part of the songs, are intentionally uninspired and boring. Gone are Masta Ace’s usual flair for interior rhymes and unconventional patterns. Instead, it’s only the basics. “Earth” and “birth.” “ “Murder, murder, murder/kill kill kill.” So on and so forth. On top of that, he intentionally delivers all these lines in a slowed down over-the-top yell. To put it simply, he’s making himself sound as stupid as possible on purpose. Or at least by the standard of what that meant in 1993.
Of course, all that’s easy to say as a rap fan. But “SlaughtaHouse” is track two. This is track four. This is the standard Masta Ace fans are used to.
However, the joke isn’t just for his fans, but for more dedicated fans of hip hop in general. Whereas De La Soul and Black Sheep are poking fun at more generic gangster rappers from either coast, Masta Ace is clearly going after the west. “Strictly Raiders and Kings gear/Only where black and I don’t know how to act” is a clear reference to N.W.A’s famous look, and “So come and take a chance and/Mess around with the black Charles Manson” is a potential reference to Ice Cube’s “Here’s a murder rap to keep y’all dancin’/With a crime record like Charles Manson” line from “Straight Outta Compton.”
Moreover, this is the first song in this article that isn’t just mocking gangster rap lyrics, but gangster rap production as well. “SlaughtaHouse” samples “More Bounce to the Ounce” by Zapp, one of the most heavily sampled songs in hip hop history. In gangster rap alone, the sample was used in songs by Ice Cube (on multiple occasions before the release of “SlaughtaHouse”), The Geto Boys, Compton’s Most Wanted, Master P, and countless others. Even if you’re a casual hip hop fan, you may be able to recognize elements of it in its untouched form.
A write a bunch of intentionally bad over-the-top raps referencing west coast rappers over a beat that mocks the west coast sound. It’s easy to see the fans immediately being in on the joke. Not only is it mocking west coast gangster rap, but bad gangster rappers in general. (I haven’t even mentioned MC Negro and The Ign-ant MC, the characters Masta Ace is portraying in the song.) That said, it’s entirely possible that someone without the context may take the joke as a real song. According to Masta Ace, many did just that. Hell, I know the meaning of the song, and sometimes I find myself listening to it for fun.
However, once we get these opening verses, the beat changes, and so does the content. Here, we get the Masta Ace we know and love, who spits a verse about how he’s going to slaughter all the rappers who he’s spent the song mocking thus far.
Then we hear two kids talking about how much they love the “Murder, murder, murder/kill, kill, kill” song. The implication, of course, is a cynical one. You can slaughter wack gangster rappers on the mic, but it doesn’t matter, because you can’t outsell them. Thus the song isn’t just a critique of gangster rappers, but the hip hop audience as well.
I find it incredibly interesting that these songs barely critique the substance of gangster rap, but the quality of the music itself. If any of the songs come close to an actual critique of the cultural peril of music that seemingly promotes violence, it would be “SlaughtaHouse.” But even then, it’s more critique by implication than actual statement.
Overall, the issue doesn’t seem to be that violent music is bad. The issue is that most gangster rappers don’t have what it takes.
Of course, a lot of this has to do with the specific songs I chose. KRS-One had released “Stop the Violence” before any of these songs, and was a vocal critic of gangster rap in the years after, and he was far from the only one. The narrative that gangster rap is destructive was alive and well, even when all three of these songs came out.
I like to believe that all of these rappers saw the potential value in gangster rap, and those who can do it well. (Or at least some of them were.) N.W.A wasn’t just about fucking and killing. They were also speaking out against police brutality and racial injustice. In the bigger picture, gangster rap as a whole is a response to the hell created by an oppressive white led establishment. Some understood that, and some didn’t. (Though, to be fair, that doesn’t stop mean all gangster rap is good.)
That said, if there’s one thing we can say for sure about these three songs, it’s that they all value, above all else, individual artistry and expression. It’s one thing to be wack. It’s another to be wack doing the same shit everyone else is doing. At least the former scenario has a little bit of dignity.
