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Gangsta rap is a subgenre of hip hop music that evolved from hardcore hip hop and purports to reflect urban crime and the violent lifestyles of inner-city youths.^[1][2] Lyrics in gangsta rap have varied from accurate reflections to fictionalized accounts.^[2] Gangsta is a non-rhotic pronunciation of the word gangster. The genre was pioneered in the mid-1980s by rappers such as Schoolly D and Ice-T, and was popularized in the later part of the 1980s by groups like N.W.A.^[1] After the national attention that Ice-T and N.W.A attracted in the late 1980s and early 1990s, gangsta rap became the most commercially lucrative subgenre of hip hop. Some gangsta rappers have been associated, or allegedly have ties with the Bloods or Crips gangs.^[3]

The subject matter inherent in gangsta rap has caused a great deal of controversy. Criticism has come from both left wing and right wing commentators, and religious leaders, who have accused the genre of promoting crime, violence, profanity, sex, homophobia, racism, promiscuity, misogyny, rape, street gangs, drive-by shootings, vandalism, thievery, drug dealing, alcohol abuse, substance abuse and materialism.

Some commentators (for example, Spike Lee in his satirical film Bamboozled) have criticized it as analogous to black minstrel shows and blackface performance, in which performers – both black and white – were made up to look African American, and acted in a stereotypically uncultured and ignorant manner for the entertainment of audiences. Gangsta rappers often defend themselves by saying that they are describing the reality of inner-city life, and that they are only adopting a character, like an actor playing a role, which behaves in ways that they may not necessarily endorse.^[4]

Early Gangster themes[link]

This unreferenced section requires citations to ensure verifiability.

The 1973 album Hustler's Convention by Lightnin' rod and Jaren Clark featured lyrics that deal with street life, including pimping and the hustling of drugs. The Last Poets member Jalal Mansur Nuriddin delivers rhyming vocals in the urban slang of his time, and together with the other Last Poets members, was quite influential on later hip hop groups, such as Public Enemy. Many rappers, such as Ice T and Mac Dre, have credited pimp and writer Iceberg Slim with influencing their rhymes.

Rudy Ray Moore's stand-up comedy and films based on his Dolemite hustler-pimp alter ego also had an impact on gangsta rap and are still a popular source for samples. Finally, blaxploitation films of the 1970s, with their vivid depictions of black underworld figures, were a major inspiration as well. For example, the opening skit on Snoop Dogg's Doggystyle is a homage to the famous bathtub scene in the 1972 film Super Fly, while the rapper Notorious B.I.G. took his alias "Biggie Smalls" from a character in the 1975 film Let's Do It Again.

Origins: 1984–1990[link]

Beginnings: Ice-T & Schoolly D[link]

In 1986, Los Angeles based rapper Ice-T released "6 in the Mornin'", which is often regarded as the first gangsta rap song. Ice-T had been MCing since the early '80s. In an interview with PROPS magazine, Ice-T said:

Here's the exact chronological order of what really went down: The first record that came out along those lines was Schoolly D's "P.S.K." Then the syncopation of that rap was used by me when I made "6 in the Mornin'". The vocal delivery was the same: '...P.S.K. is makin' that green', '...six in the morning, police at my door'. When I heard that record I was like "Oh @#!*% !" and call it a bite or what you will but I dug that record. My record didn't sound like P.S.K., but I liked the way he was flowing with it. P.S.K. was talking about Park Side Killers but it was very vague. That was the only difference, when Schoolly did it, it was "...one by one, I'm knockin' em out." All he did was represent a gang on his record. I took that and wrote a record about guns, beating people down, and all that with "6 in the Mornin'". At the same time my single came out, Boogie Down Productions hit with Criminal Minded, which was a gangster-based album. It wasn't about messages or "You Must Learn", it was about gangsterism.^[5]

In 2011, Ice-T repeated in his autobiography that Schoolly D was his inspiration for gangsta rap.^[6] Ice-T continued to release gangsta albums for the remainder of the decade: Rhyme Pays in 1987, Power in 1988 and The Iceberg/Freedom of Speech...Just Watch What You Say in 1989. Ice-T's lyrics also contained strong political commentary, and often played the line between glorifying the gangsta lifestyle and criticizing it as a no-win situation.

Boogie Down Productions & N.W.A.[link]

Boogie Down Productions released their first single, "Say No Brother (Crack Attack Don't Do It)", in 1986. It was followed by "South-Bronx/P is Free" and "9mm Goes Bang" in the same year. The latter is the most gangsta-themed song of the three; in it, KRS-One boasts about shooting a crack dealer and his posse to death (in self-defense).^[7] The album Criminal Minded followed in 1987, and was the first rap album to have fire arms on its cover. Shortly after the release of this album, BDP's DJ, Scott LaRock was shot and killed. After this, BDP's subsequent records were more focused with the inadequate rationale removed.

The first blockbuster gangsta rap album was N.W.A's Straight Outta Compton, released in 1988. Straight Outta Compton would establish West Coast hip hop as a vital genre, and establish Los Angeles as a legitimate rival to hip hop's long-time capital, New York City. Straight Outta Compton sparked the first major controversy regarding hip hop lyrics when their song "Fuck Tha Police" earned a letter from FBI Assistant Director, Milt Ahlerich, strongly expressing law enforcement's resentment of the song.^[8][9] Due to the influence of Ice T and N.W.A, gangsta rap is often credited as being an originally West Coast phenomenon, despite the contributions of East Coast acts like Boogie Down Productions in shaping the genre.

In the early 1990s, former N.W.A member Ice Cube would further influence gangsta rap with his hardcore, socio-political solo albums, which suggested the potential of gangsta rap as a political medium to give voice to inner-city youth. N.W.A's second album, Efil4zaggin (1991) (released after Ice Cube's departure from the group), broke ground as the first gangsta rap album to reach #1 on the Billboard pop charts.

Others[link]

Aside from N.W.A. and Ice T, Too Short (from Oakland, California), Kid Frost, and the South Gate-based Latino group Cypress Hill were pioneering West Coast rappers. Above the Law also played an important role in the gangsta rap movement, as their 1990 debut album Livin' Like Hustlers, as well as their guest appearance on N.W.A's 1991 Efil4zaggin, foreshadowing the dominance of the genre in 1990s starting with Dr. Dre's The Chronic.

The Beastie Boys were one of the first groups to identify themselves as "gangsters", and one of the first popular rap groups to talk about violence and drug and alcohol use, though largely in a more humorous manner. According to Rolling Stone Magazine, their 1986 album Licensed to Ill is "filled with enough references to guns, drugs, and empty sex (including the pornographic deployment of a Wiffleball bat in "Paul Revere") to qualify as a gangsta-rap cornerstone."^[10]

The Beasties' 1989 album Paul's Boutique included the similarly themed tracks "Car Thief," "Looking Down the Barrel of a Gun," and "High-Plains Drifter." In 1986, the Los Angeles-based group C.I.A. rapped over Beastie Boy tracks for songs such as "My Posse" and "Ill-Legal", and the Beastie Boys' influence can be seen significantly in N.W.A's early albums.^[11]

The New York rap group Run DMC is often credited with popularizing hardcore and confrontational attitudes and lyrics in hip hop culture, and were one of the first rap groups to dress in flashy, gang-like street clothing. Their stripped-down, rock-inspired beats were also important in establishing the early gangsta rap production style. The seminal Long Island-based group Public Enemy featured aggressive, politically charged lyrics, which had an especially strong influence on gangsta rappers such as Ice Cube. East Coast hardcore rappers like Rakim, Kool G Rap, Big Daddy Kane, Slick Rick, LL Cool J, and EPMD also reflected the trend in hip-hop music in the late 1980s towards hard-hitting, angry, aggressive, and politically conscious lyrics, revolving around crime, violence, poverty, war and gunplay.

Houston, Texas rap group, the Geto Boys came out around the late 80s and highly influenced by N.W.A, made songs with similar themes which included songs with crime and violence even predating Mafioso rap music with the song "Scarface" centered around selling cocaine and killing rival gang members. The Geto Boys are also known for being the first rap group to sample from the movie Scarface, which became the staple for lots of mafioso rappers to sample from.

1990 – present[link]

Ice-T[link]

Ice-T released one of the seminal albums of the genre, OG: Original Gangster in 1991. It also contained a song by his new thrash metal group Body Count, who released a self titled album in 1992. The group attracted a lot of media attention for the Cop Killer controversy.

His next album, Home Invasion, was postponed as a result of the controversy, and was finally released in 1993. While it contained gangsta elements, it was his most political album to date. After a proposed censoring of the Home Invasion album cover art, he left Warner Bros. Records. Ice-T's subsequent releases went back to straight gangsta-ism, but were never as popular as his earlier releases. He had alienated his core audience with his involvement in metal, his emphasis on politics and with his uptempo Bomb-Squad style beats during a time when G-funk was popular. He published a book "The Ice Opinion: Who Gives a @#!*% ?" in 1994.

G-funk and Death Row Records[link]

In 1992, former N.W.A member Dr. Dre released The Chronic, a massive seller (eventually going triple platinum) which showed that explicit gangsta rap could hold mass commercial appeal just like more pop-oriented rappers such as MC Hammer, The Fresh Prince, and Tone Lōc. The album established the dominance of West Coast gangsta rap and Dre's new post-N.W.A label, Death Row Records (owned by Marion "Suge" Knight), as Dre's album showcased a stable of promising new Death Row rappers. The album also began the subgenre of G-funk, a slow, drawled form of hip hop that dominated the rap charts for some time.

Extensively sampling P-Funk bands, especially Parliament and Funkadelic, G-funk was multi-layered, yet simple and easy to dance to. The simple message of its lyrics, that life's problems could be overcome by guns, alcohol, and marijuana, endeared it to a teenage audience. The single "Nuthin' but a "G" Thang" became a crossover hit, with its humorous, House Party-influenced video becoming an MTV staple despite that network's historic orientation towards rock music.

Another success was Ice Cube's Predator album, released at about the same time as The Chronic in 1992. It sold over 5 million copies and was #1 in the charts, propelled by the hit single "It Was a Good Day", despite the fact that Ice Cube was not a Death Row artist. One of the genre's biggest crossover stars was Dre's protégé Snoop Doggy Dogg (Doggystyle, 1993), now known as Snoop Dogg, whose exuberant, party-oriented themes made songs such as "Gin and Juice" club anthems and top hits nationwide. In 1996, 2Pac signed with Death Row and released the multi-platinum double album All Eyez on Me. Not long afterward, his shocking murder brought gangsta rap into the national headlines and propelled his posthumous The Don Killuminati: The 7 Day Theory album (released under the alias "Makaveli") (which eerily featured an image of 2Pac being crucified on the front cover) to the top of the charts. Warren G was another G-funk musician along with the now deceased Nate Dogg.

Mafioso rap[link]

Mafioso rap is a hardcore hip hop sub-genre founded by Kool G Rap in the late 1980s.^[12] It is the pseudo-Mafia extension of East Coast hardcore rap, and is considered the counterpart of West Coast G-Funk rap. Mafioso rap is characterized by lavish, self-indulgent, and luxurious subject matter, with many references to famous mobsters, organized crime, materialism, drugs, and expensive champagne.Though the genre died down for several years, it re-emerged in 1995 when Wu-Tang Clan member Raekwon released his critically acclaimed solo album, Only Built 4 Cuban Linx.... 1995 also saw the release of Doe or Die by Nas' protégé AZ. These two albums brought the genre to mainstream recognition, and inspired other East Coast artists, such as Nas, Notorious B.I.G. and Jay-Z, to adopt the same themes as well with their albums It Was Written, Life After Death and Reasonable Doubt. Though Mafioso rap declined in the mainstream by the late 1990s, it has seen somewhat of a revival in more recent years with Ghostface Killah's Fishscale, Jay-Z's American Gangster, Rick Ross's Deeper than Rap, and Raekwon's Only Built 4 Cuban Linx II. Similarly, in recent years, many rappers, such as T.I., Fabolous, Jadakiss, Jim Jones, and Cassidy have maintained popularity with lyrics about self-centered urban criminal lifestyles or "hustling".

East Coast hardcore hip hop and the East Coast-West Coast feud[link]

Meanwhile, rappers from New York City, such as Wu-Tang Clan, Onyx, Mobb Deep, Nas, The Notorious B.I.G., Lil Kim, and the The L.O.X, among others, pioneered a grittier sound known as East Coast hardcore hip hop. Wu-Tang Clan, B.I.G., and some of Bad Boy Records artists paved the way for New York City to take back chart dominance from the West Coast. In an interview for The Independent in 1994, the Wu-Tang Clan's GZA commented on the term "gangsta rap" and its association with his group's music and hip hop at the time:

Our music is not 'gangsta rap'. There's no such thing. The label was created by the media to limit what we can say. We just deliver the truth in a brutal fashion. The young black male is a target. Snoop (Doggy Dogg) has gone four times platinum and makes more money than the president. They don't like that, so you hear 'ban this, ban that'. We attack people's emotions. It's a real live show that brings out the inside in people. Like I said, intense.^[13]

—GZA

It is widely speculated that the ensuing "East Coast/West Coast" battle between Death Row Records and Bad Boy Records resulted in the deaths of Death Row Records' 2Pac and Bad Boy Records' The Notorious B.I.G. Even before the murders, Death Row had begun to unravel, as co-founder Dr. Dre had left earlier in 1996; in the aftermath of 2Pac's death, label owner Suge Knight was sentenced to prison for a parole violation, and Death Row proceeded to sink quickly as most of its remaining artists, including Snoop Dogg, left. Dr. Dre, at the MTV Video Music Awards, claimed that "gangsta rap was dead". As Puff Daddy's Bad Boy Entertainment fared worse than its West Coast rival, it eventually began to lose popularity and support by the end of the decade, due to its pursuit of a more mainstream sound, as well as challenges from Atlanta and New Orleans-based labels, especially, Master P's No Limit stable of popular rappers.

Southern and Midwestern gangsta rap[link]

After the deaths of Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls and the media attention the murders generated,^[14] gangsta rap became an even greater commercial force. However, most of the industry's major labels were in turmoil, bankrupt, or creatively stagnant, and new labels representing the rap scenes in new locations sprang up.

Master P's No Limit Records label, based out of New Orleans, became quite popular in the late 1990s, though critical success was very scarce, with the exceptions of some later additions like Mystikal (Ghetto Fabulous, 1998). No Limit had begun its rise to national popularity with Master P's The Ghetto Is Trying to Kill Me! (1994), and had major hits with Silkk the Shocker (Charge It 2 Da Game, 1998) and C-Murder (Life or Death, 1998). Cash Money Records, also based out of New Orleans, had enormous commercial success beginning in the late 1990s with a similar musical style but utilized a quality-over-quantity business approach unlike No Limit.

Memphis collective Hypnotize Minds, led by Three 6 Mafia and Project Pat, have taken gangsta rap to some of its darker extremes. Led by in-house producers DJ Paul and Juicy J, the label became known for its pulsating, menacing beats and uncompromisingly thuggish lyrics. However, in the mid-2000s, the group began attaining more mainstream popularity, eventually culminating in the Three 6 Mafia winning an Academy Award for the song "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp" from Hustle and Flow.

Midwest gangsta rap originated in the mid-1990s and rose to major prominence in the 2000s. Midwest Hip Hop was originally distinctive for its faster-paced flow. This is evident in the styles of the earliest Midwestern rappers to release albums, Chicago's Twista and Cleveland's Bone Thugs-n-Harmony. Bone Thugs, known for their fast, harmonizing vocals coupled with an ultra-quick rap delivery, would achieve major success with their critically acclaimed 1995 album E 1999 Eternal, which featured a major hit in the Grammy-winning "Tha Crossroads".

Houston first came on to the national scene in the late 1980s with the violent and disturbing stories told by the Geto Boys, with member Scarface achieving major solo success in the mid-90s.

The Chopped and Screwed genre was developed in Houston, Texas which remains the location most associated with the style. The late DJ Screw, a South Houston DJ, is credited with the creation of and early experimentation with the genre.^{[citation needed]} DJ Screw began making mixtapes of the slowed-down music in the early 1990s and began the Screwed Up Click. This provided a significant outlet for MCs in the South-Houston area, and helped local rappers such as Big Moe, Lil' Flip, E.S.G., UGK, Lil' Keke, South Park Mexican and Z-Ro gain regional and sometimes national prominence.

Mainstream era[link]

Before the late 1990s, gangsta rap, while a big-selling genre, had been regarded as well outside of the pop mainstream, committed to representing the experience of the inner-city and not "selling out" to the pop charts. However, the rise of Bad Boy Records, propelled by the massive crossover success of Bad Boy head Sean "Puffy" Combs's 1997 ensemble album, No Way Out, on the heels of the media attention generated by the murders of 2Pac and The Notorious B.I.G., signaled a major stylistic change in gangsta rap (or as it is referred to on the East Coast, hardcore rap), as it morphed into a new subgenre of hip hop which would become even more commercially successful and popularly accepted.

The earlier, somewhat controversial crossover success enjoyed by popular gangsta rap songs like "Gin and Juice" gave way to gangsta rap's becoming a widely accepted staple on the pop charts in the late 1990s. For example, between the release of The Notorious B.I.G.'s debut album Ready to Die in 1994 and his follow-up, the posthumous Life After Death in 1997, his sound changed from a darker, tense production, with lyrics projecting desperation and paranoia, to a cleaner, more laid-back sound, fashioned for popular consumption (though the references to guns, drug dealing and life as a thug on the street remained).

R&B-styled hooks and instantly recognizable samples of well-known soul and pop songs from the 1970s and 1980s were the staples of this sound, which was showcased primarily in Sean "Puffy" Combs's latter-day production work for The Notorious B.I.G. ("Mo Money, Mo Problems"), Mase ("Feels So Good"), and non-Bad Boy artists such as Jay-Z ("Can I Get A...") and Nas ("Street Dreams"). Also achieving similar levels of success with a similar sound at the same time as Bad Boy was Master P and his No Limit label in New Orleans, as well as the New Orleans upstart Cash Money label.

Many of the artists who achieved such mainstream success in the 2000s, such as Jay-Z, DMX, then 50 Cent and G-Unit, originated from the gritty 1990s East Coast rap scene and were influenced by hardcore artists such as The Notorious B.I.G, Wu-Tang Clan, and Nas. Mase and Cam'ron were typical of a more relaxed, casual flow that became the pop-gangsta norm. By contrast, other rappers like Eminem and DMX enjoyed commercial success in the late 1990s by rapping about ever-more macabre tales of death and violence, maintaining commercial relevance by attempting to be controversial and subversive, growing on the Horrorcore rap style born in the mid-1990s.

Gangsta Rap in Russia[link]

See also[link]

• List of gangsta rap artists

References[link]

External links[link]

• Keepin' It Unreal — by The Village Voice
• Gangsta rap regional south

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (October 2009)

Ice cubes in a glass of iced tea

Ice cubes are small, roughly cube-shaped pieces of ice, conventionally used to cool beverages. Ice cubes are sometimes preferred over crushed ice because they melt more slowly; they are standard in mixed drinks that call for ice, in which case the drink is said to be "on the rocks."

Ice cubes that are crushed or sheared into irregularly-shaped flakes may add an interesting aesthetic effect to some cocktails. Crushed ice is also used when faster cooling is desired, since the rate of cooling is governed by the number and average radius of the ice particles.^[1]

Melting ice cubes sometimes precipitate white flakes, commonly known as "floaties". This is calcium carbonate which is present in many water supplies and is completely harmless.^{[citation needed]}

Origin[link]

Gorrie's ice machine.

American physician and humanitarian John Gorrie built a refrigerator in 1844 with the purpose of cooling air. His refrigerator produced ice which he hung from the ceiling in a basin. Gorrie can be considered the creator of ice cubes, but his aim was not to cool drinks: he used the ice to lower the ambient room temperature. During his time, a dominant idea was that bad air quality caused disease. Therefore, in order to help treat sickness, he pushed for the draining of swamps and the cooling of sickrooms.

Methods of production[link]

Ice cubes are produced domestically by filling an ice cube tray with water and placing it in a freezer. Many freezers also come equipped with an icemaker, which produces ice cubes automatically and stores them in a bin from which they can be dispensed directly into a glass.

Ice cube tray[link]

Ice cubes in a tray

Ice cube trays are designed to be filled with water, then placed in a freezer until the water freezes to ice, producing ice cubes. Trays are often flexible, so the frozen cubes can be easily removed by flexing the tray. Twist ice trays have a simple spring loaded mechanism with a lever that is used to turn the tray upside down and flex at the same time such that the cubes drop are collected in a removable tray below and return the ice cube tray to its upright position without removing it from the freezer which can save time and reduces accidents and mess, though the tray has to be removed to be collected and the ice cube tray still has to be removed to be refilled. An alternative system is an aluminum tray with a lever that raises the ice cubes, freeing them from the tray. A motorized version of this is found in most automatic ice-making freezers.

While the usual shape of the ice 'cube' is roughly cubical, there are trays that dispense hemispherical or cylindrical blocks. These are commonly referred to as ice tubes. Some novelty trays produce blocks of ice in seasonal, festive or other shapes.

The first rubber ice cube tray was invented by Lloyd Groff Copeman. One day in 1928, while walking through some woods collecting sap for maple syrup, Copeman noticed that slush and ice flaked off his rubber boots rather than adhering to them. Having recalled this incident over lunch with his patent attorney, he conducted experiments using rubber cups. Later, he set about designing and then patenting different types of tray: a metal tray with rubber separators, a metal tray with individual rubber cups, and a tray made completely of rubber.^[2]

The first flexible stainless steel, all-metal ice cube tray was created by Guy L. Tinkham in 1933. The tray bent sideways to remove the ice cubes.

Several companies now offer pre-filled disposable ice trays for home freezing, which they claim provide better taste and reduced risk of contamination.^[3]

Large-scale ice cube production[link]

Dedicated ice-maker machines can be used to produce ice cubes for laboratories and academic use. Ice cubes are also produced commercially and sold in bulk; these ice cubes, despite their name, are often cylindrical, and may have holes through the center.

An interesting characteristic of commercially made ice cubes is that they are completely clear, lacking the clouding found in the center of domestically made ice cubes. Cloudy ice cubes result when water is frozen quickly, or when the water is high in dissolved solids. When water is cooled to its freezing point, and ice starts to form, dissolved gases can no longer stay in solution and come out as microscopic bubbles. However, as ice floats in water, once there is enough ice to form a layer on the surface, the ice layer traps all bubbles within the ice cube. Commercial ice-makers use a flowing source of purified water to make ice with cooling elements at the bottom, allowing the bubbles to be washed away from the top as the cube grows.^{[citation needed]}

See also[link]

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References[link]

1. ^ Rauch, Jeffrey (1975). "The mathematical theory of crushed ice". Partial differential equations and related topics (Program, Tulane Univ., New Orleans, La., 1974). Berlin, New York (the state): Springer-Verlag. pp. 370–379. MR0427863. 
2. ^ "www.lloydcopeman.com: Biography". http://www.lloydcopeman.com/biography/CopemanStory.pdf. 
3. ^ "After Bottled Water? Purified Ice Cubes". http://www.aquaice.com/PressRelease_WSJ_2006.htm. Retrieved 2008-06-03. 

External links[link]

Look up ice cube in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

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