Rumbling out of Los Angeles with different beats, a different look and a very different attitude, gangsta rap was hip hop’s belligerent street child. This new sound grew up at black discos and parties away from mainstream interference, and so, much as the original hip hop had, it quite literally pleased itself and harked back to ...
clothes, art, film, dance … everything.’ LL Cool J Styles Hip Hop British Hip Hop Old School Hip Hop Golden Age Hip Hop Political Hip Hop Gangsta Alternative Hip Hop Hip Hop Style Most hip hop styles have a fairly simple melodic backing, with a more intricate bass-and-drum rhythm section. The focal point of the style ...
, rapper, songwriter, b. 1965) Adopting the name Dr. Dre, Andre Young is colossally influential in rap. A creative force behind Niggaz With Attitude, he pioneered gangsta rap and has a vast number of production credits, including Snoop Dogg and Blackstreet’s ‘No Diggity’ to his name. Dre also created the more laid-back G-funk musical style. His ...
(Rap group, 1985–91) Founders of gangsta rap, N.W.A. stands for Niggaz With Attitude; their visceral debut Straight Outta Compton (1989) featured controversial tracks such as ‘Fuck Tha Police’, a reaction to the unprovoked beating the LA cops gave Rodney King. However, many tracks – despite their exciting delivery – were mindlessly violent and sexist, as ...
‘Andre 3000’ Benjamin – rapped their way out of Georgia in the mid-1990s. Their first four collaborative album efforts (released between 1995 and 2000) contained everything from straight Snoop Dogg gangsta rap, albeit with more brains, to near-George Clinton parody, and plenty of attitude. But it was not until 2003’s Speakerboxxx/The Love Below, a double album divided ...
(Rapper, b. 1971) Raised in Long Beach, California, his teenage years often found Calvin Broadus – a.k.a. Snoop Dogg – in trouble with the law. He was fortunate that Warren G., his collaborator in early rap explorations, was stepbrother of Dr. Dre of N.W.A.. Dre gave Snoop’s laconic style a break ...
Born Steveland Judkins on 13 May 1950 and blind virtually from birth, the future Little Stevie Wonder was already singing in his local choir at the age of four. By the time he was seven he had mastered the piano, harmonica and drums. In 1961, Ronnie White of The Miracles introduced the child prodigy to the label’s founder ...
six weeks in the UK alone. But the group’s origins can be traced back to 1989 and rap competitions in LA. Their individual style, very much removed from the gangsta look of the time, and performances with a live band set them apart from the majority of hip hop crews in the charts in the 1990s. Will.I.Am ...
this area of late are Orishas, Paris-based Cuban exiles, who combine hip-hop techniques and rapping (in Spanish) spectacularly with traditional Cuban music (scratched-mixed) and singing. Today, although gangsta seems to dominate, there are still plenty of alternatives. Rap and rock are common bedfellows: bands such as Fun Lovin’ Criminals, Limp Bizkit and Linkin Park have all ...
absorbing a turnover of influences matched only by its appropriation of musical technology. Whether it was the old school Sugarhill era, Def Jam’s rap’n’rock extravaganza or the west coast’s gangsta, like the beat itself hip hop’s golden era just won’t stop. In The Beginning … It is those three high profile areas that serve best to define hip hop’s ...
need to be saying something was definitely seeping into rap’s consciousness. On The Other Hand On the west coast in the 1990s, it was never all nihilism, as gangsta maintained its own robust approach to politics with tales of ghetto life as a valid statement in themselves. Indeed, N.W.A.’s Straight Outta Compton, Ice-T’s ‘The ...
The UK garage scene began in London in the 1990s when enterprising DJ’s such as Norris ‘Da Bass’ Windross and Karl ‘Tuff Enuff’ Brown set up after-hours parties in the capital’s pubs for clubbers reluctant to end the revelry after spending the evening at one of London’s new superclubs, such as The Ministry Of Sound. ‘We used to pitch it ...
(Vocals, 1972–97) Born Christopher Wallace in New York, he sold crack to make ends meet which ended up in a jail term. Because of his large size he began rapping under the name of Biggie Smalls and an early demo eventually found its way to Sean Combs, a.k.a. Puff Daddy, who signed him to his ...
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