Gangster Rap and Its Social Cost: Exploiting Hip Hop and Using Ra ...

Hope-6. In contrast, high-rise buildings are not stigmatized in New York City; they are the norm. In the South Bronx, public housing provided better living conditions than most market-rate commercial rentals. Virtually all the founders of hip hop grew up in public housing and started their social and artistic experiments there. Rap as a musical expression of hip hop initially emerged from the efforts of public housing residents to entertain their young people in community recreation rooms. The goal was to keep young people out of trouble and close to home through family- and community-run parties.

This is where rap and hip hop observers have missed an essential point. These parties were not about angry, alienated, and abandoned young people rebelling against their parents and society—quite the opposite. Parents were required to sign up for the activities and to be responsible for their teens’ use of the recreation rooms. Mothers and daughters cooked and provided the food. Favorite dishes at these parties were southern fried chicken, West Indian peas and rice, Puerto Rican asopao (gumbo), and Cuban moros y cristianos (black beans and rice). Fathers and young men set up the room, made certain no one got out of hand, and cleaned up afterward.

As was the case in America’s South or in the Caribbean, here too social events were family affairs that children of all ages attended and where they listened to the music, danced, and enjoyed themselves alongside their older siblings and parents. If someone threw a good party with good music, word would get out on the streets. This would attract people from outside the local development. Some were invited, but many were not. It was at times like these that peace among rival gangs became so important. Young people would need to move back and forth across turfs to visit and to attend parties. Soon competition developed among those who gave the parties, and reputations evolved. Parties moved outdoors whenever weather permitted; for popular party givers, the recreation rooms became too small. I remember at this point that organizing and executing the parties became more involved. More formal security was necessary