The History of Gangster Rap by Soren Baker

Author:Soren Baker
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Abrams
Published: 2018-10-03T16:00:00+00:00

AN ALTERNATE SLAUGHTAHOUSE

When Brooklyn rapper Masta Ace appeared on Marley Marl’s 1988 landmark posse cut “The Symphony,” a high-energy song with top-tier lyricism from Big Daddy Kane, Kool G Rap, and Craig G, being aligned with established rap figures seemed to have his career on a fast track to success.

But when labelmate and comedic rapper Biz Markie was a no-show to a subsequent recording session, Masta Ace decided to impersonate Biz Markie on his “Me and the Biz” single, the first release from Masta Ace’s debut album, 1990’s Take a Look Around. The song was panned and Masta Ace caught a lot of flak for what people perceived to be a novelty record. While much of the rest of Take a Look Around was simmering with insightful social commentary, strong storytelling, and impressive wordplay, it failed to gain much commercial traction.

The rap world had changed dramatically as Masta Ace prepared to work on his second album. N.W.A had become a dominant force with a far-reaching influence. “It wasn’t just West Coast rap, because New York was on that, too,” Masta Ace said. “Dudes [in New York] were rhyming about wearing Timberlands, drinking forties, guns, and just taking it to this real negative direction.

“They [gangster rap albums] were being purchased in places in America you would have never thought people were listening to this stuff,” Masta Ace continued. “The middle of America, the red states, the suburbs of America, all these white kids were growing up listening to this and maybe didn’t know anything about Boogie Down Productions or Run-DMC or anything that came before it, but they gravitated to this music and that kind of became the prevailing sound of what people associated with hip-hop music, even though there was a lot more to hip-hop music. But as soon as it crossed into the living rooms of America, the white living rooms of America, it turned into this other phenomenon, and it kind of took over for a long period of time.”

With the rap world evolving, Masta Ace changed creative course with his own material.

“I wanted to come back and do the hardest album I could do,” Masta Ace said. “I looked at the landscape and I said that, ‘It appears that people probably think the only way to do a super-hard album is to rap about gangster stuff or guns, rap about drinking and smoking and partying, and shooting people that get in your way.’ My goal was to make the hardest album I could do without falling into any of those typical patterns that I felt every other artist was doing at the time.”

Flanked by a new crew of artists, he returned rechristened as the leader of Masta Ace Incorporated. The group’s 1993 album, SlaughtaHouse, took aim at hardcore rap and the artists who espoused violence for the sake of violence, as well as the companies who clamored for that type of material. The album is a stark look at the impact violence and violent imagery was having on rap consumers and the communities in which they lived.

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