To Live and Defy in LA: How Gangsta Rap Changed America
Felicia Angeja Viator, "To Live and Defy in LA: How Gangsta Rap Changed America"
English | ISBN: 0674976363 | 2020 | 352 pages | PDF | 4 MB
English | ISBN: 0674976363 | 2020 | 352 pages | PDF | 4 MB
How gangsta rap shocked America, made millions, and pulled back the curtain on an urban crisis.
How is it that gangsta rap―so dystopian that it struck aspiring Brooklyn rapper and future superstar Jay-Z as “over the top”―was born in Los Angeles, the home of Hollywood, surf, and sun? In the Reagan era, hip-hop was understood to be the music of the inner city and, with rare exception, of New York. Rap was considered the poetry of the street, and it was thought to breed in close quarters, the product of dilapidated tenements, crime-infested housing projects, and graffiti-covered subway cars. To many in the industry, LA was certainly not hard-edged and urban enough to generate authentic hip-hop; a new brand of black rebel music could never come from La-La Land.
But it did. In
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