| Chapter 1: | Introduction |
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to the success of these images. Without racially stereotypical schemata, gangster rap would not be so attractive. The tragedy of these presentations is that some gangster rappers are not doing this intentionally; they are simply uninformed. Those who manage them know the nature of the images they reflect but are making too much money to let their performers in on the secret. In order to avoid this criticism and ensure that artists do not come to the realization that their craft perpetuates stereotypes, it is essential that managers and corporations associate gangster rap as strongly as possible with black people and black culture.
Chapter 6 addresses the most contentious issue in hip hop and rap. Whose music is it? Is it not authentically black? And who best represents black people and culture? There is no direct answer to the question of authenticity. Indeed, that the question is raised at all is significant. Authenticity is important largely as it relates to convincing white audiences unfamiliar with black culture that gangster rap’s minstrel representations are “authentically” black. Also reflected is a very small segment of the illegal drug-dealing economy that existed in the 1990s at the height of street-level crack-cocaine epidemic. From interviews and focus-group conversations with drug dealers and pimps then and now, however, a very different picture emerges. The real lives and experiences of the people rappers claim to represent do not fit their minstrel imagery and would not make for marketable rap. The claim that gangster representations accurately reflect black culture is seriously in error even in the imagery of the underground.
Chapter 7 focuses on the most important word in the gangster imagery, nigger. After presenting a short history of the word’s origin, I outline eight different meanings ascribed to the word and the ways that it is used. Gangster rappers claim to have given the word a different and positive meaning. They also claim that black people should take control of the word and use it in public, thereby negating its meaning as a racial epithet. A closer examination of their lyrics, however, shows that gangster rappers use the term precisely with its historical meaning as a racial epithet. Ice-T pointed out that without the N-word (in its historical meaning) gangster rappers’