Alternative Sex

As the '70s gave way to the '80s, though, and hip-hop ceased to be a novelty and started gaining stature as a cultural force, it changed. Performers started to take themselves more seriously. The message started to harden.

Hip-hop became more reflective of actual ghetto and barrio life. It started tackling subjects like poverty, slum housing, gangbanging, crime and drugs. It became more antagonistic and confrontational.

"Don't push me, because I'm already close to the edge" was the refrain of a 1982 hit, "The Message," by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five.

The crack cocaine epidemic of the '80s, which made millionaires out of a few pushers but left whole communities enslaved and impoverished, also had an insidious impact on rap music, says Bill Stephney, founder of StepSun Records and co-creator of the group Public Enemy.

"This changes completely the nature of the music," he says of cocaine. "Rappers start to reflect the crack trade, the violence surrounding the crack trade, the materialism surrounding the crack trade. So what had been a culture designed to minimize violence in the black community put your knives down, put your guns down, we're going to rhyme against each other now becomes a culture that reflects a violence unforeseen in the black community."

This new kind of rap was so different, it picked up a new name: Gangsta rap. One of its first stars was L.A. rapper Ice T, who remembers, "I was on the streets, hustling, doing all kinds of illegal activity, pimping, robbing, and my friends were like, 'Write about THAT, man,' and that was, like, the invention of gangsta rap."

Ice-T's first hit, "6 'n the Mornin'," was a diatribe against the Los Angeles Police Department and its chief at the time, Daryl Gates, legendary in the black community for ordering pre-dawn raids on suspected crack houses and gang hideouts.

West Coast hip-hop, centered in L.A., emerged during the '80s as a major new force, and was perceived as more radical and gang-influenced than its East Coast counterpart.

The L.A. group N.W.A. fired a shot heard 'round the hip-hop world with their 1988 album "Straight Out of Compton," a raw depiction of Southern California gang life. One song, "F--- Tha Police," earned official censure by the FBI and other law-enforcement agencies.

Rick Rubin, founder of Def Jam Records, says, "With N.W.A., it was the first time there were a lot of guns around, guys getting strapped to go onstage. We didn't have that before N.W.A."

In the '90s, hip-hop became even more radicalized, especially after the Rodney King beating in Los Angeles in March 1991 and the widespread rioting that erupted when a jury acquitted the police officers accused in the beating.

West Coast hip-hop produced a host of major new stars, including Public Enemy, Snoop Dogg (Calvin Broadus) and Tupac Shakur (Lesane Parish Crooks), who aggrandized the "thug life" of the ghetto and barrio. Shakur, in fact, had those words tattooed in large script across his stomach.

"We've never had black male celebrities like these before," says Nelson George, author of the book "Hip Hop America." "We've had bad, bad dudes, but those bad dudes were not projected into everyone's home on a daily basis with their shirts off, their muscles glistening and big money in their pockets. We ain't had that in people's living rooms in Iowa."

Even the performers have expressed surprise at the attention lavished upon them, and the position of influence they have achieved, as hip-hop has continued to extend its reach. Ice-T says, "When I started making my gangster rap, they said, 'You can't curse on records! Are you crazy?' But f--- that, that's how I'm livin', man, and it was just embraced by so many. Wow, there's a lot of bad little kids out there, you dig?"

In the early '90s, gangsta had established itself as rap's dominant form. West Coast rap music was outselling East Coast rap music three-to-one. Coincidentally or not, homicide rates were setting records in cities throughout Southern California, gangsta rap's birthplace. In 1992, Los Angeles had 1,092 homicides, San Bernardino 84 both all-time highs.

As if alarmed by the prospect of losing their competitive edge, East Coast rappers tried to respond with music that was just as tough as West Coast gangsta rap. The Notorious B.I.G. or "Biggie" (Christopher Wallace) sang the praises of thug life with lyrics like "I get mine the fast way, the ski-mask way." His first CD was titled "Ready to Die" (1994). His second, "Life After Death," contained the hit "You're Nobody 'Til Somebody Kills You."

A rivalry between East Coast record label Bad Boy and West Coast label Death Row Records reached its apotheosis in a personal, public feud between their respective stars, Biggie and Tupac Shakur. The feud reached a horrifying flash point when Tupac was shot dead in Las Vegas in September 1996, and Biggie was shot dead in Los Angeles in March 1997.

Both coasts held their breath, but a feared hip-hop Armageddon didn't come to pass. In fact, arguably there has been a mellowing of sorts in the hip-hop world, at least among its first generation of stars.

Many of these individuals are now mainstream celebrities. Queen Latifah (Dana Owens) is an Academy Award-nominated actress. Will Smith is one of Hollywood's most bankable stars. Other rap artists also have parlayed their fame into big-screen careers, including Ice Cube (Oshea Jackson), LL Cool J (James Todd Smith) and Ludacris (Christopher Bridges).

Ice T plays a cop, ironically enough, on TV's "Law and Order: SVU." Snoop Dogg is an in-demand schmoozer on the TV talk show circuit. Chuck D (Carlton Ridenhour) lectures on college campuses. P. Diddy promotes voter registration through his "Vote or Die" organization.

Jay-Z (Shawn Carter) is a business tycoon who runs record labels, clothing lines, nightclubs and a vodka company. He even owns a share of the New Jersey Nets basketball team.

Lil' Kim (Kimberly Jones) is in prison, convicted of perjury after lying to investigators about a 2001 shooting in New York. Harlem rapper Cam'ron (Cameron Giles) is recovering from a gunshot wound he received in October on a Washington street. Eminem (Marshall Mathers) recently remarried ex-wife Kim Mathers, who evidently has forgiven him for writing songs about murdering her. 50 Cent (Curtis Jackson), a former drug dealer who has survived multiple shootings, still celebrates the gangster life in songs like "Get Rich or Die Trying."

Recent stories of a public feud between 50 Cent, who is from New York, and Compton rapper The Game (Jayceon Taylor) have stirred unpleasant memories of the Biggie-Tupac tragedy. In February 2005, a member of The Game's entourage was shot in the leg on a New York street.

The hip-hop juggernaut continues unimpeded, however. Hip-hop not only dominates the pop culture of America's minority communities, it has become pervasive in the nation's mainstream culture.

Hip-hop's stars, like artists of every kind and every era before them, argue that it is their job to hold up a mirror to society and that the violent themes and imagery of their art are accurate and necessary.

But perhaps because hip-hop has become so potent and influential a force in early 21st century America, many voices are being raised against it, saying that it does more than chronicle violence, but also glorifies and perpetuates it.

"Rappers are always saying they want to keep it real, but the reality is that rap music is perpetuating the violence in our culture," says Beamon, the San Bernardino community activist.

The minister believes rap stars and their labels should be held accountable. "We need to start demanding that the record companies be more responsible. We can say to them: You keep causing the problem, so now you better become part of the solution.

"I can guarantee you, if some other Fortune 500 company was out there causing this kind of havoc in the community, society would rise up against it, and that company would be shut down tomorrow."

The big money in hip-hop culture could go toward helping society, instead of harming it, Beamon believes. "Music companies make a ton of money. They make millions of dollars off gangsta rap. They could put some of that money back into the community, to help the community, to build social programs, to inspire the next generation of kids to rise up and escape from poverty and violence."

"The murder epidemic that is destroying our cities," she says, can largely be blamed on the "glorification of violence in U.S. films, television, and popular music."

Society must take a stand, King says. She has called for stronger warning labels, a stricter rating system and selective consumer boycotts against purveyors of violent entertainment.

"We have to become more active about confronting the culture of violence that permeates U.S. media. We have to find new ways of encouraging and challenging them to sponsor art and entertainment that celebrate peace and love and create a culture of nonviolence."

This is cache, read story here