15 years ago today, gangsta rap pioneer Eazy-E died from AIDS.
Eazy-E was the the leader of the gangsta rap group NWA, which also featured Dr. Dre, MC Ren and Ice Cube. That group shocked the world by insulting police, rapping tales of violence, and its explicit sexual tales.
Eazy-E's talent was his ability to make us laugh at stuff we know we shouldn't laugh at. I mean, not everyone can do that! I mean, many of us say inappropriate things as youth in an attempt to be funny, but in many cases, even our friends aren't laughing with our jokes. This is something not every could do, but Eazy-E was good at that. Even if others wrote his lyrics, his delivery made it humorous. While Ludacris also had that talent, Eazy-E was more extreme!
1) While many stereotype rap music as "all about being a gangsta, talking about bi-----s and h--s", it wasn't anything like that before NWA came on the scene. Hip-Hop was mostly party music. House parties, block parties!
After NWA, many gang-affiliated youth and the wanabees found that making their own gangsta rap records is a legal way for them to make money without conforming to the standards of the corporate world!
Some blame "white-run corporations" for promoting gangsta rap! But in reality, most big music corporations wanted NOTHING to do with gangsta rap in the beginning. Eazy-E's businees partner Jerry Heller was trying to get major labels to invest in his music. Their reaction was "nobody would listen to that garbage."
Remember, this was the 1980s, when Micheal Jackson, Bruce Springsteen, Cyndi Lauper and Lionel Richie were the major stars! Rap was just coming out, and everyone thought it was another fad.
So, NWA ending up selling tons of records WITHOUT much video or radio airplay. And remember, this was before the Internet became popular! But once someone heard it, they ain't going to keep it a secret from their friends. That, plus the controversy over "f---- the police" made people want to buy NWA records.
And it wasn't limited to African-American kids. European-Americans, Mexicans, Asians, and Pacific Islanders got into it! And other people as well!
(I mean, even here in Hawaii, after all these decades, I still hear car stereos blasting Eazy-E's solo hit "Boyz N the Hood", and even last year, I heard students at Kalakaua Middle School rapping the lyrics to that song, even though it came out before they were born. And that school has mostly Filipinos, Polynesians and Micronesians. Major proof Eazy-E had more impact than he realized!)
This underground popularity got the music corporations thinking "maybe people want to listen to that after all". Soon, nearly every major music corporation had a gangsta rap group signed in!
Some claim those records label caused gangsta rap to overshadow positive rap! But even when Will Smith, Black Eyed Peas and other positive groups had major airplay, most hard-core young males rather be Eazy-E, 2pac, Snoop Dogg, Master P,Lil Jon or 50 Cent.
When you're a young male, you want to be seen as tough guy not to be messed with! You also want to have sexy women on your side. You also want to drive a car with loud stereos. No other music can express those desires like gangsta rap! One can complain about corporations pushing gangsta rap, but those kids aren't going to satisfied with other corporate approved trends like teen pop, pop-punk, emo or R&B. While heavy metal has its tough side, it doesn't express the desire to be the stud/pimp, so that's why it got overshadowed by gangsta rap!
2) Where was I during all this? Back in 1991, when I was in 5th grade, my older brother Ramiro introduced me to NWA! At the time, the only rappers I really knew about were the pop rappers like Hammer!
So hearing rap music making the same dirty jokes my school peers were making was eye-opening!
Ramiro told me not to mention his NWA tapes to anyone. But my big mouth mentioned it where my oldest brother Frank (more of a classical music guy) heard it and he told my mom, and she wasn't happy!
A few years later, in 1993, MTV finally played more gangsta rap videos, especially from former NWA member Dr Dre and his new sidekick Snoop Dogg! Dr Dre & Snoop Dogg dissed Eazy-E on the "Dre Day" video. But MTV hardly played Eazy-E response track "Real M----F----n G's" and I thought it was unfair that MTV was taking sides. But I heard that Eazy-E's track from car stereos way more often than " Dre Day"
In 1994, Eazy-E introduced the Cleveland rap group Bone Thugs N Harmony! That group combined gangsta lyrics with R&B styled harmonies! That group was MEGA-POPULAR in Hawaii! While all groups listened to it, the most devoted fans tend to be Samoans. That might surprise many in Cleveland, where the only exposure many have to Samoans is NFL games and WWE. That shows even the most hardcore music can transcend cultural lines.
Then during Spring Break 1995, on a middle-school sponsored field trip to the Volcanoes National Park on Hawaii's Big Island, me & a few other male students were riding in a van. One of my peers suggested playing one of his CDs. That CD was the same Eazy-E CD my brother had. The chaperone told that student to play a few cents per swear word being played!
Then when I returned to Oahu, guess what? I found out Eazy-E died from AIDS. Interesting coincidence. Remember back then, it was a few years before the Internet was popular. There were no text messages on cell phones back then. So we were isolated from the world during that field trip.
3) Before NWA, most of the popular rappers came from New York. NWA helped put Los Angeles as the new center of rap music. For a few years in the 1990's, LA outshined every city when it came to the most popular rappers. However, after that LA rap faced a dramatic decline in nationwide popularity! Here's what I wrote in the "End of the Decade"post on 12/31/2009 http://pablowegesend.blogspot.com/2009_12_01_archive.html#938211719538244940
However, the Southern California hip-hop has faded! Yeah, Snoop Dogg still make hits. Black Eyed Peas are from there, they're not your stereotypical Southern Cal rap group! But overall, the LA rap scene has faded!I wonder if the population changes had something to do with the decline of LA rap! In the last 2 decades, South Central LA went from being mostly African-American to mostly Latin-American!Latinos have their G-funk rappers but they didn't get the attention that African-American g-funk rappers did in the 1990's!
I admit, I should've mentioned in that post that The Game and Nipsey Hussle had underground popularity the last few years.
But, overall, LA rap has extremely been overshadowed by Southern rap in the 2000's.
Though, there has been a new trend coming out of LA that might gain more momentum soon. It is the "jerk movement". The "jerk" is a dance popularized in LA, usually to beats inspired by Southern-style beats. Instead of wearing baggy pants like NWA, the "jerk" rappers prefer "skinny jeans". The New Boyz, Audio Push, Pink Dollaz and Vixenz are part of that movement.
Could it bring the West Coast hip-hop back? We'll see!
