WHEN I WAS A KID, I LISTENED TO RAKIM, PUBLIC ENEMY, LL COOL J, THE GETO BOYS, N.W.A, DJ MAGIC MIKE, 2 LIVE CREW, BIG DADDY KANE, KOOL G RAP, BOOGIE DOWN PRODUCTIONS, THE D.O.C. . . . I LISTENED TO EVERYTHING.
But I identified with gangster rap because it spoke to my soul. The hard times, the things I was witnessing, the things I was curious about, it seemed as though the music that I was gravitating to had the answers.
As I look back on it now, gangster rap was the soundtrack to my life because things were really rough for me as a kid. My parents were very religious. They hated rap music, so they wouldn’t let me consume it the way I wanted to. I couldn’t have it blaring in my room. My listening was very hush-hush. The music was an outlet for my aggression and my anger, and discovering new music began to be something my friends and I did together. That was dope to me.
I was really into Ice Cube when he broke away from N.W.A. I was drawn to his writing and how he expressed himself. That was something that was mind-boggling to me. When his first album, AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted, came out in 1990, there was no Internet and I didn’t have access to MTV, so I didn’t know the ins and outs, or the reasons why Ice Cube had split from N.W.A. I just thought that he had a solo record. But then when you actually heard the record, that was the Nigganet. That’s where you got the information that you were looking for. I thought the album was crazy. I thought it was fanfuckintastic. I wore it out because the production was so dope—my favorite production team, the Bomb Squad, was involved; they’d broken through with Public Enemy. I was like, “Wow.” Cube’s expressions, his voice inflection. I was in awe of all of it.
Cube was a storyteller. He killed it on that album. Other people told stories, but not like Cube’s. You could visualize them. You didn’t have to see a video to see what he was talking about—he was painting pictures you could see in your mind. It was relatable content, and for the people that couldn’t relate, who were curious about South Central, this was about as close as they were going to get to it. They’d stay way the fuck away from there.
As I was listening to gangster rap as a kid, I had no idea I wanted to be an artist. In fact, at the time, I wanted to be an architect, to tell you the truth. I did architectural drafting, computer-aided drafting. That was my shit. That’s what I wanted to do, build bridges and boats and shit. But then, I went to jail, and there goes that.
So when I actually got out to California (I was about seventeen or eighteen) and met up with James Broadway, there were groups around him that he was producing for: Mad Kap, King Tee, Tha Alkaholiks. It was an exciting time and those were the first artists that I was around. I would just rap for however long the rap turned out to be. There was no structure. There were no bars. It was just rapping.
Eventually, i saw how the process happened. I saw what made a good idea into a good song, and then what made a good song into a great record. Understanding the process lit a spark in me. I started to be like, “I can actually do this.” I haven’t ever looked back.
Now that gangster rap has been around, we’ve seen it transform. We’ve seen it be the scapegoat for a lot of shit that’s really not its fault. We’ve seen it launch careers. We’ve seen it kill careers. We’ve seen it kill people. I say it’s killed people because the one thing about gangster rap is either you’re authentic or you’re not, there is no in-between. A lot of people try to live up to that authenticity when they’re really not that type of gangster, and it gets them killed.
Then there are people that are authentic, and it gets them killed, too, so the music can’t be the only factor you consider. What I’m saying is that gangster rap – the music itself – is overshadowed by the people in its environment, and that’s where the problems come into play. That’s with anything, but the stigma that comes along with gangster rap doesn’t exist in country, doesn’t exist in pop, doesn’t exist in polka music, folk dancing, Riverdancing. You don’t hear about motherfucking rival river dancing bands shooting each other. There’s a danger that comes along with telling these stories.
Gangster rap has fed a lot of people. It’s changed a lot of lives. It’s changed my life. It’s given me something to really reflect on as a fan and as a man. And that’s why Soren Baker’s The History Of Gangster Rap is important—to document the things that some of us may have forgotten, and to relive the moments that have been seared into our souls.
XZIBIT
Chatsworth, California
April 2018