I'm just disillusioned with the hip-hop sound right now. It's too materialistic. You know, I'm the kind of guy. . . I can't do that. If you track my movement, you'll never see a picture of me with any girl that wasn't mine, or my own car. My jewelry, my clothes. What kind of gangsta rapper has a stylist? A stylist?!
I am a gangsta, Ms. Katie. I don't take nothing from no one. I do what I wanna do.
I think people see me definitely as a "gangsta" rapper, and what people love about me is when they meet me and they meet me again later, I'm the same dude they spoke to and ain't nothing changed.
Well, follow who you want to follow. It depends on what your fantasies are. You understand. People have different fantasies in life. The suburban culture. Always dream of being gangstas.
We should remember what a rapper like Tupac Shakur was doing, to a certain degree, who came from an experience of politicization very close to being a "Panther Baby". He knew, he came from that experience of the Black Panthers, and accounting for all his contradictions and process of growth, he achieved politically through gangsta rap things that no conscious rapper has achieved, such as establishing political, ethical, and moral codes between Crips and Bloods in the United States.
Straight out of Blackpool, I'm William Regal. My rhymes so intense, they shouldn't be legal. My style is refined, not crude and crass. I'll keep you grounded, like volcanic ash. I'll take you down, rung by rung. I'm just like British Parliment; I'm completely hung. Straight-up gangsta trippin'. Yes, boy!
I'm in prison. But my heart and mind is free. Gangsta haters on the streets are doing more time than me. They need 30 police escorts with them every time they walk down the street.
As long as there's a demand for gangsta rap, it will be supplied.
I believe gangsta rap, as such, in its foundation is simply anti-systemic and transgressive.
Some people say I'm conscious, some say I'm a gangsta rapper - it's just me doing me. I'm stomping in my own lane. I'm doing what I do.
It's time for the bully pulpit of the White House to bring the gangstas in, put them around the table and let them know that if they don't come up with loan modifications and keep people in their homes that they've worked so hard for, we're gonna tax them out of business.
What is MTV doing and what is the hegemonic culture industry promoting in gangsta rap? It is the glorification of violence for the sake of violence, the violence itself, like consumption for the sake of consumption, hypermasculinity writ-large with an adapted potency.
I believe a lot in gangsta rap, I see in it a lot of positive things as it is. I believe it is only about doing politicization work. Revolutionary change will come from there, it won't come from conscious rap.
I can't say enough good things about my band. I feel very fortunate that I found them when I did, very early in my career. Not only are they just great, nice guys; they're some of the best musicians you're likely to find. They do everything from gangsta rap to polka music and every genre in between. It's amazing.
Shoot first, ask questions last. That's how these so called gangsta's last.
Gangsta to us didn't have anything to do with Al Capone and stuff like that. It's just about living your life the way you want to live it. And you're not going to let nothing stop you.
We have to remember that the experience of gangsta rap as such in its foundation is an anti-systemic experience primarily. And it is an anti-systemic experience that is not in some cases politicized, but in general results in a much more transgressive, much more uncomfortable music for the structures of power, than conscious rap or political rap.
Gangsta rap often reaches higher than its ugliest, lowest common denominator, misogyny, violence, materialism and sexual transgression are not its exclusive domain. At its best, this music draws attention to complex dimensions of ghetto life ignored by most Americans. Indeed, gangsta rap's in-your-face style may do more to force America to confront crucial social problems than a million sermons or political speeches.
I'm the gangsta Nancy Sinatra.
But, Eminem. . . No, I've loved rap for a long time, especially when it got out of its first period and became this gangsta rap, ya know this heavy rap thing? That's when I started to fall in love with it. I loved the lyrics. I loved the beat.