Genre
Gangsta Rap
25 artists
What is gangsta rap? Gangsta rap tells the story of street life from the inside: crime, violence, police, money and survival. It's raw, often controversial and one of the most commercially successful styles in hip-hop.
Where it comes from. Schoolly D in Philadelphia and Ice-T in Los Angeles laid the groundwork in the mid-'80s. N.W.A's Straight Outta Compton (1988) made it a national phenomenon, and the outrage around "Fuck tha Police" only made them bigger. In the '90s gangsta rap split into the G-funk of Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg on the West Coast and the gritty New York stories of Kool G Rap, The Notorious B.I.G. and Raekwon. In the 2000s 50 Cent and Rick Ross took over the charts, and today artists like 21 Savage and Freddie Gibbs carry it on.
The sound. It changes with the region: funky and smooth in LA, dark and sample-based in New York, bass-heavy in the South. What stays the same is the perspective: first-person stories from the street.
Key albums
- Straight Outta Compton, N.W.A (1988)
- AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted, Ice Cube (1990)
- Ready to Die, The Notorious B.I.G. (1994)
- Only Built 4 Cuban Linx..., Raekwon (1995)
- Get Rich or Die Tryin', 50 Cent (2003)
- Piñata, Freddie Gibbs & Madlib (2014)
