This is no different from what they thought of jazz in the 20s, rock and roll in the 50s, hippie music in the 60s, punk and metal in the 80s, etc.
Most of these rap guys are pretty intelligent and well-spoken IRL

Flavor Flav

"beating out everyone from pearl jam to sinatra"

In the early nineties, I was optimistic about progress in race relations and thought that the country was less than a century away from actual equivalence and true racial harmony.

I don't think that any more.

Quite a few gangsta rappers - Ice Cube, Snoop Dogg, Ice-T - have gone on to mainstream acting careers. Snoop Dogg's pure caricature at this point. Death Row Records is now owned by a Jewish-Canadian woman.

Gangsta had its place, but it reminds me of Elvis: it's now blatantly mainstream, and frequently lapses into self-parody, like with that Tupac head hologram.

I cant remember the last time I heard real 'rap'. Maybe it's just because I moved out of the city, but I honestly can say all the rap I've been exposed to in the last three or four years has been parody, 'old school' based, or mixed with rock or RnB. Maybe I'm just 'missing out' though.

Haha! Calvin Butts!!!

"Butts got so angry..." Heehee.

My God... '91-'94 were such amazing years for hip-hop.

Do yourselves a favor and download the Rub Radio mixtapes for those years, even if you don't really care about hip-hop:

http://www.itstherub.com/radio.htm#history

The late 70's through the early 80's are interesting from a historical perspective, but the early 90's were definitely the height of the genre.

If you can put yourself in Tipper Gore's shoes and imagine yourself catching your kid listening to Eazy E maybe it'll make more sense

"fuck the white house, it aint my house,
you can burn the motherfucker down for all i care
cause t-shirts and khakis is all i wear"

"Easy E" is a tag? Its Eazy-E. Cause I'm the E A Z Y E and this is the season to let the real muthaphukkin' Gs in.
Get with it Fatherboat.

Gangster Rap is the angriest kind of Rap Music.

You know what else offers nothing of redemptive value? Assholes running the God scam.

This is fascinating in so many different ways, not the least of which are how this is dated in some ways, and just plain forgotten in others.

If this isn't too faggy: Back then, as now, I was fine with the criminal-poet persona, but never the actual artists, music or lyrics, partly because it all seemed to perpetuate viciousness, especially once it was commodified. (Russel Simmons I'm looking at you) Did anyone rise above "living in a ghetto is bad" with what he had to say or how he said it?

[ok yeah, that was faggy, but it's a serious question. Musically I always thought it sounded like shit but I'd give it another listen.]