Ridding Rap Of Violence Not So Simple
Wasn’t the violence in gangsta rap supposed to have ended last fall when the music’s biggest star, Tupac Shakur, was shot dead on the streets of Las Vegas?
Shakur’s death was such a traumatic moment in pop culture that the music industry, which had made millions off the anger and rage of the incendiary genre, began speaking of gangsta rap in the past tense. MTV disclosed that its research suggested fans of the music cable channel were burned out on the sound. After all, how many times can you hear someone talking about the violence and strife of urban life?
Yes, the consensus in recent weeks was: It’s time to take the gangsta out of rap. Tupac Shakur’s death was the final blow. The violence must stop.
If only it were that simple.
The irony in the equally shocking shooting death Sunday of the Notorious B.I.G., another of gangsta rap’s biggest stars, is that B.I.G. appeared to be on the path to becoming a more positive, uplifting voice.
Because he didn’t have a high-profile acting career a la Shakur, B.I.G. wasn’t as well known in mainstream circles as his West Coast counterpart. But the Brooklyn native’s debut album, “Ready to Die,” established him within the rap community as one of the music’s most promising and talented voices.
B.I.G.’s 1994 album was a jolting, uncompromising work that spoke, in such songs as “Things Done Changed” and “Everyday Struggle,” of the desperation and pain of the inner-city streets. A high school drop-out named Christopher Wallace, B.I.G. was 22 when his album entered the charts and he spoke in interviews about his personal life - including jail time for crack-dealing - with the candidness of his recorded raps.
“I can’t say I’m proud of dealing drugs,” he said at the time. “My mom sure didn’t like it when she found out, but you do what you can to survive in the ‘hood. Live in the real bad part of ‘hood for a while and you’ll see how desperate it can make you.”
But the rewards of the pop life gave 24-year-old B.I.G. enough distance to eventually change his hard-boiled perspective - as the title of his upcoming album suggests: “Life After Death.”
When it arrives in stores on March 25, the CD will probably enter the national sales charts at No. 1 - and it won’t be just a case of morbid curiosity. B.I.G. has such a large fan base that the album was expected to enter the charts at No. 1 even before his death.
But his stardom hadn’t removed him from the dangerous elements of his roots any more than it had Shakur. Both men still hung with or knew some of the thuglike forces from the ‘hood. Their entourages were sometimes large, hostile and quick to anger - and often their friends’ problems quickly became their own.
“There’s nothing that protects you from the inevitable,” B.I.G. said, fatalistically, two weeks before his death. “If it’s gonna happen, it’s gonna happen, no matter what you do. It doesn’t matter if you clean your life up and live it differently. What goes around comes around, man.”
In the end, these deaths underscore and perhaps tragically validate the alarming message that is at the heart of gangsta rap.
Ever since the genre surfaced as a commercial force in the late ‘80s, much of the mainstream pop world has attacked gangsta rap as sheer exploitation. The music was seen widely as fictional tales designed to titillate young listeners.
That world saw fiery attacks by rappers Ice Cube and Chuck D. on the white power establishment as simply sales-boosting exaggerations. Today, both are looked upon as visionary artists, much like such respected, socially conscious figures as Bob Dylan in rock and Bob Marley in reggae.
Once that anger struck a commercial nerve, it opened a door for other young rappers who have been greeted with the same kind of hostility that initially met Ice Cube and Chuck D. This time, there wasn’t always an overt sense of social purpose in the music. B.I.G., Shakur and others simply used the music to express their troubled experiences - much as film-makers or novelists might.
It’s possible in some ways to think of works by Shakur and B.I.G. as the rap equivalents of classic African-American novels about the disenfranchised: today’s “Native Son” and “Invisible Man” on wax.
The speculation has already begun on who might have killed B.I.G. Was his death retaliation for Shakur’s death, in some crazed way a playing out the East Coast vs. West Coast rap war, or simply senseless violence along the lines that killed Bill Cosby’s son, Ennis, while changing a tire near a Los Angeles freeway offramp?
Whatever the verdict, Sunday’s death was another troubling, soul-destroying sign of the violence that is all too prevalent in America -especially in a world that Shakur and B.I.G. knew so intimately.
In their private moments, the rappers said they hoped that by exposing the realities of the ‘hood they would encourage society to take positive action. They thought they might some day be seen as heroes rather than villains. They thought they could affect real social change.
If only it were that simple.