Dre ‘might could be’ considered Compton’s gangsta musical mayor.īy the way, has anyone peeped how Compton-ites have been part of multiple national conversations recently? Serena Williams ended a 14-year boycott of the prestigious Indian Wells tournament after being heckled with racist comments in 2001. But Compton is unique for its relationship to hip-hop, giving the people The World Class Wrecking Crew, MC Eight and Compton’s Most Wanted, DJ Quick, Michel’le, 2nd II None, King Tee, Coolio? And Dr. Gangsta rap from Compton is even more triggering as most people who hear the city’s name, can’t help but imagine police caution tape as hood decor and cultural drive-bys. Equating “baby mama drama” with killer cops does not a healthy relationship make. Is that same heart tender from the genre’s troubled relationship with black women? Yes. gangsta rap has a special place in my heart, it carries a rarely recalled history of resistance. “So pay respect to the black fist/or we’ll burn your store right down to a crisp/and then we’ll see ya/Cause you can’t turn the ghetto into Black Korea."īy no means am I endorsing the highly offensive lyrics on this track, but at the time it felt like a win and a theme song for Latasha Harlin’s symbolic death at the hands of a Korean shop owner, and because of that I knew every word of it. The forty-seven second song "Black Korea," was criticized for inciting the riots, but I think it was more of a prediction, a knowing that he expressed over righteous Sir Jinx beats. A conceptual album, one of the issues it called attention to was the mounting tension between Korean shopkeepers and Black consumers. But for real, Death Certificate was dope. Soon he would become a box office darling staring in kid friendly action films? Burn Hollywood Burn. When Ice Cube released his second solo album Death Certificate in 1992, my crew and I received it as his official break from being a Nigga Wit Attitude to reformed student of Khalid Muhammad and the Nation Of Islam posse. “And we hate Popo, wanna kill us dead in the street for sure, nigga” By shifting the focus from “black on black’ crime to police brutality for example, NWA’s “Fuck the Police” spawned an underground cultural movement voicing the rage of post Watts Riots victims of Californian state violence. Perhaps the music even set the tone for the half-hearted gang truce that followed. Musically, the LA late 80s ignited the spark that became the flame of the ‘92’ Riots. Then the mass incarceration and violent death of hundreds of OGs came.
Quite a few of them sported a perfectly parted head full of rollers that a girlfriend or sister did.
But there was something else, something radically dangerous about being a gangsta, something that made me feel safe and excited whenever I saw neighborhood OGs working on cars and listening to oldies. I for one grew up in the Baldwin Hills/Jungle/Crenshaw district wanting to be a crip, mainly because I preferred the color blue over red and crips had their own dance. On the block we would say, ‘his daddy used to bang.’ In certain neighborhoods in Cali this gives him status, a gangsta is something many L.A. Kendrick Lamar is the son of a Los Angeles OG (original gangster). The truth is, upon hearing it in its entirety I found myself stubbornly lost in the song “Alright,” unable to move past repeat. But before I start, let me be clear, this is not a review on Kendrick’s Lamar’s new album. My feeling is that an improved reading of women’s lives could further develop his ability to shape black humanity. At the same time, Lamar could benefit from an unlearning patriarchy course taught by those same leaders. I also think To Pimp a Butterfly should be institutionalized a Negro classic by an approved panel of thought-leaders from our own communities. I like to fancy him a musician of field nigga soul. I love a perfectly placed use of the word nigga in a song, there’s an art to it and Kendrick Lamar is one of the better artists in the-use-of-nigga field.