Friday, March 29, 2024

Dr. James Braxton Peterson: Gangsta Rap is Dead

The activist work of the victims of the alleged homicide, like the rebuilding of Compton itself, throw into bold relief the fact that hip-hop has moved on.

tupac - thug life

*(Via The Guardian) – Gangsta rap is dead. In fact, it’s been dead for a good while now. But nothing signals the demise of the genre and its influence on American popular culture more than the  alleged vehicular homicide involving Marion “Suge” Knight.

In the early to mid-1990s, Knight was one of the most feared figures in the music industry. I remember being part of the Philadelphia media core that had an opportunity to interview him on one of his rare trips to the City of Brotherly Love.

In the moments preceding what would be his fairly understated entrance into the room where we were interviewing him, you could smell the fear in the atmosphere. The local journalists had read the stories and heard the rumours. Knight was not to be “f*cked with” and the quiet understated nature of the ensuing group interview reflected his intimidating stature in the world of pop culture.

suge knight (jail orange)

But that was the mid-90s. In the new millennium, gangsta rap has been displaced (and in some ways erased) by the kind of affective rap popularised by artists like Drake and Macklemore.

And the most popular figure from Compton, California, is not Ice Cube, Dr Dre, Knight or even The Game; it’s Kendrick Lamar. Compton is not the Compton that Dre, Cube, Knight and others put on the proverbial map of American inner-city decline and danger.

Today the city, lead by an innovative 32-year-old mayor Aja Brown, has declining crime and unemployment rates, complemented by a resurgence in business interests and investments.

Get the rest of this essay by Lehigh University professor, Dr. James Braxton Peterson at The Guardian.

james peterson
Dr. James Braxton Peterson

 

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