Kulturel analyse af hip hop og rap

In the 1990s the music industry changed forever – especially in the United States. It was here in small neighborhoods mainly consisting of black men and women that the genre that so many people around the world would love and aspire was created – namely gangster rap. For decades African American people had excluded themselves from society by their own will or by all the blame that the American society had put on them. This exclusion led to the natural forming of the “hoods”, where these people lived in very tightly built houses with crime and drugs all around them. They had to get involved with crime to make a living because a lot of workplaces would not allow black people to work there. During this time a lot of gangs were created that roamed around the streets doing illegal things such as loansharking, dealing drugs, car theft, and a lot of other crimes.

One of the biggest representatives of this life was 2Pac. He was a gangbanger with a crime list longer than you could ever believe. But he was also an artist with great music capabilities. At the start of the 90s, 2Pac was on his way up with music from the gangster rap genre. Years before him people such as Ice Cube, Eazy-E, and Dr. Dre had done the same. But 2Pac was different, he resonated totally different with the American public, and he was seen as the greatest. His lyrics were so iconic and seemed so real. They depicted the “gangster life” in simple but deep words and sentences.