Life imitates art. This was top-down. Not bottom-up.
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It's what they always do. They take something fringe, which is fringe because it's essentially societal degradation if it becomes mainstream.
They then hijack it, promote it using all the channels available to them {which is every channel}, call it truth, or street knowledge, or the unheard voices of the underground, promote it through a white "star" a free years in, and cash in.
The 80s contained a fair amount of gangsta rap, but it was maybe 10 percent of all records released. Ice T, too short, even the Beastie boys spoke about having guns drugs and things like that in 86. There was lots of rapping about being in the streets with gangs because the 80s saw the biggest increase in gang violence in history. {Because if drug dealing on a massive scale, but that's another topic} Even grandmaster Melle Mel as early as'82 touched on that stuff.
However the tIipping point was NWA in 88-89. Their ascent was no accident. No radio play yet the record begins to sell? due to the massive underground "grass roots" movement?
Around the same time, you had Kool G rap and the Geto Boys on the east coast with perhaps the filthiest and ugliest rap to ever come out. Go listen to it and be amazed how utterly depraved the albums from Kool G Rap are.
And they also sold well.
And who were the main buyers of the filth? The majority were white people, teens specifically.
That's the target audience. Why do you think that is?
Ghetto Boys came from Houston, which was the source of some of the ugliest underground gangster rap.
You're right about NWA. They were promoted in the music magazines like Spin and Rolling Stone, and also at the record stores. These were controlled/influenced by the record industry. Parents had no way to detect it since it was not on the radio.
The first Beastie Boys song mentioning a gun is Paul Revere.
"Quick on the draw, I thought I'd be dead He put the gun to my head and this is what he said "Now my name is MCA, I got a license to kill I think you know what time it is, it's time to get ill"
Nah, "I got a jammy in my pocket so you better stay cautious, flying around the world kind of makes me nauseous"
Correct about Geto Boys I always equate them with East Coast.. I guess because they weren't west
It is indeed license to Ill, and to an extent Paul's boutique. {Both are great by the way}
They spoke of jammy{gun} in the pocket, angel dust and that sort of stuff.
And that's what I'm saying though, it was all being mentioned, sometimes spoofing, sometimes not, before the big gangsta rap explosion
Rick Rubin+three Jewish kids who played punk to that point=
Don't forget Russell Simmons who is referenced doing dust in the back of the bus.
They left def jam after license to Ill