ABSTRACT
The L.A. rebellion merely underscores the fact that a good deal of gangsta rap is a window into, and critique of, the criminalization of black youth. L.A. might be the self-proclaimed home of gangsta rap, but black Angelenos didn’t put the gangsta into hip hop. Gangsta lyrics and style were part of the whole hip hop scene from its origins in the South Bronx during the mid-1970s. Part of what distinguishes gangsta rap from “locker room” braggadocio is that it is circulated on compact discs, digital tapes, and radio airwaves. When gangsta rappers do write lyrics intended to convey a sense of social realism, their work loosely resembles a sort of street ethnography of racist institutions and social practices, but told more often than not in the first person. Gangsta rappers construct a variety of first-person narratives to illustrate how social and economic realities in late capitalist L.A. affect young black men.
