Rap music began in the mid 1970's with artists such as Grandmaster Flash, Africa Bambaataa, and Kurtis Blow. According to the encyclopedia based web site infoplease.com " the word rap is derived from a 1960's slang word for conversation. (www.kids.infoplease.com). This extraordinary style of music served as a form of street poetry for most artists. With a mixture of jazz, disco, and funk rap became extremely popular within the African American and Hispanic communities. Some of the artist spoke of only fiction stories while others spoke of true-life triumphs and experiences. Artist such as the Sugar Hill Gang rapped about parties and themselves as the ever-popular ladies men when rapping first began. Africa Bambaataa had their greatest hit Planet Rock, which is still famous and played throughout many clubs and radio stations today. Grandmaster Flash released his greatest hit Showdown, which mainly spoke about political issues and problems embedded within his community. The major topic that was never spoken of was violence. I am sure that there was some type of crime that was occurring during the late 70's and early 80's but most artists never made crime or violence their main focus.
             Please keep in mind that the artist that I have spoken of are all from the East Coast, mainly the New York area. It was not until 1985-86 when the West Coast began to rise. During the mid 80's the movie Colors debuted publicizing the rise in drug dealings and gang related activities. The ever so infamous song, colors, of the movie sound track was made by Los Angles rapper Ice-T. The artist spoke of the two inner city gangs the crips and the bloods. At this time what is now known as gangsta rap had begun to surface and spread throughout the nation.
             When Los Angles rap group Niggas With Attitude (NWA) released their album N.W.A. and the Posse gangsta rap became the fad across the nation. In 1989 the group released their next album " Straig...