Wishful Thinking: Searching for a Brighter Side of Gangsta Rap
(A Review of Aint Nuthin' But a "g" Thang: The Culture and Commerce of Gangsta Rap)
1.01.2006 | Alexis Charles | Book Review

I pulled up in my 6-4 Impala / They greet me with a 40 and I started drinking / And from the 8-ball my breath start stinking / Love to get my girl, to rock that body / Before I left I hit the Bacardi / Went to her house to get her out the pad / Dumb hoe says something stupid that made me mad / She said somethin' that I couldn't believe / So I grabbed the stupid bitch by her nappy ass weave / She started talkin' shit, wouldn't you know? / Reached back like a pimp and slapped the hoe / Her father jumped out and he started to shout / So I threw a right-cross cold knocked him out / [chorus] Cuz the boyz n the hood are always hard / You come talking that trash we'll pull your card / Knowing nothing in life but to be legit / Don't quote me boy, cuz I ain't saying shit - N.W.A., �Boyz n the Hood�

N.W.A.'s �Boyz n the Hood� exemplifies the darkly humorous, irreverent, and aggressive lyrics of gangsta rap that has made and continues to make gangsta rap a divisive genre. A stroll through your local Barnes and Noble's �Ethnic Studies� section can attest to the existing abundance of literature, ranging in tone from abhorrence to acceptance, uniformly packaged in bright covers and bold titles, and extrapolating on the state of black culture, with a particular attention paid to rap music. The most prominent and popular of such books include Robin D.G. Kelley's Yo Mama's Disfunktional , Todd Boyd's The New H.N.I.C .: The Death of Civil Rights and Reign of Hip Hop , Tricia Rose's Black Noise and Nelson George's Buppies, B-Boys, Baps, and Bohos: Notes on Post-Soul Black Culture. Amidst this background, Ain't Nuthin' But a �g� Thang: The Culture and Commerce of Gangsta Rap - complete with the evidently required cover colors and in-the-know-lingo title - enters the debate with a British perspective from the scholar Eithne Quinn, a Professor of American Studies at the University of Manchester, UK.

Drawing heavily on ideas presented elsewhere by her shelf-mates, Quinn discerns two main reactions to gangsta rap. For some , gangsta rap has a decidedly negative impact on American culture. Gangsta rappers, with their glamorous portrayals of pimps, thugs and street hustlers, perpetuate and promote derogatory stereotypes, and distort how Black Americans are perceived by the culture at large. Moreover, not only does their music seem to encourage homicide, drug use and the degradation of women, but it's sole purpose is economic gain.

For others, there is a clever, less condemning perspective led by Kelley and Boyd in their books mentioned above. This second view embraces rap's profitability (never denying that making money is the main goal), and spins it. Far from a detriment, it contends, economic gain is the only way the young black males who comprise the gangsta rapper populace can be empowered in society. Thus, rappers, like anyone else, are entitled to do whatever they can to get out of the hood, even if that means exploiting their �hood� in the process.

Quinn splits these two poles and argues that what is needed is a reading of the rap phenomenon that avoids judgment of gangsta rappers. Quinn seeks to bring objectivity to the debate and to fulfill the task that Kelley proposed in his book Yo Mama : to determine �where gangsta rap creators and consumers were at.�

Through a study of the emergence of West Coast rappers such as Ice Cube, Eazy-E, Dr. Dre, and Snoop Dogg during the period termed as classic gangsta, 1988-1996, Quinn finds that gangsta rap creators and consumers �were at� the middle of a distressing and debilitating socioeconomic struggle against mainstream America, in which traditional black protest politics were waning. Drawing from a broad spectrum of sources in sociology, political economics, black folklore, music, and film, Quinn explores the role postindustrial America played in turning gangstas into businessmen and commercial representation of the ghetto into a multi-million dollar industry.

Quinn's placement of gangsta rap within the political, social and economic currents of the Reagan and Bush administrations is a much-needed and provocative analysis given that popular criticism has too often treated the genre in a contextual vacuum. By studying the emergence of West Coast rappers during the period of �classic gangsta�, Quinn skillfully draws connections between the decline in manufacturing work, the proliferation of dead end �McJobs�, high rates of incarceration for black men (resulting from the �war on drugs�), and the explosion of angry, militant and abrasive gangsta rap. According to Quinn, gangsta rap was the child of postindustrial conservative America, responding vividly to the social ills plaguing inner cities.

Regretfully, Quinn's insightful analysis ends here and a crusade to champion gangsta rap with a forcefully optimistic and positivist reading begins. She agrees with critics of gangsta rap that the main goal of the gangsta rapper is to make money, but strains to defend this ambition. While attempting to illustrate the merits of this individualist and capitalist ethic, she disregards its negative consequences and neglects her earlier claim to avoid judgment.

The opening chapter discusses the McKenzie River Corporation's choice of gangsta rappers as the spokespersons for St. Ides Malt Liquor (a cheap high-alcohol beer). Quinn argues that even though the company was using the rappers to specifically target working-class urban blacks with a potentially harmful product, the rappers themselves were only following their gangsta ethic: to get paid. As she notes, rappers such as N.W.A. would have been promoting the brew for free in songs such as �8 Ball�, if they had not signed with McKenzie River for a corporate endorsement deal. She reminds readers, �to avoid a mass cultural pessimistic reading� of this situation, and understand that spokesmanship, and gangsta rap as a whole, gave young black men access to financial freedoms that they had historically been denied. But Quinn focuses on just six gangsta rappers�six successful young rappers out of the entire black community. The question that begs to be asked and answered is does the payment of a handful of rappers negate the problematic and exploitative aspects of a corporation knowingly targeting an entire minority community?

Throughout her text, Quinn attempts to domesticate the gangsta rapper and make the manipulative business practices and often violent and aggressively sexist lyrics acceptable, even palatable. To say the very least, this is a hard path to follow. How does one make acceptable misogynistic lyrics that boast sexual abuse and degradation of women? Quinn explores lyrics from the Geto Boys, �I'm a peeping Tom/her body's beautiful so I'm thinking rape�. She counter-reads these lyrics, claiming that the gangsta persona is preoccupied with attacking that which threatens his masculinity, so the brutality of the lyrics implicitly construes women as powerful. Even if one does adhere to Quinn's superficial analysis of these lyrics, the woman's �power� stems from her feminine physical beauty, which still subordinates her to the super-masculinity gangsta rappers purport. Returning to the lyrics quoted at the beginning of this review, Quinn does not make an effort to interpret and justify N.W.A.'s more blatantly abusive lyrics, �Dumb hoe says something stupid that made me mad�So I grabbed the stupid bitch by her nappy ass weave/She started talkin' shit, wouldn't you know?/Reached back like a pimp and slapped the hoe�. The �power� of the opposite sex in this case stems not from her physical beauty (she can even be read as unattractive with her �nappy ass weave�), but from her refusal to be subordinate and quiet in the presence of the �gangsta�. I find it hard to dismiss these misogynistic lyrics, as Quinn claims they are simply signs of gangsta's �working through of relationship insecurities� (102).

Not only does Quinn attempt to alleviate the sexual tensions in gangsta rap she also does her best to mollify the reactions to aggressive gangsta rap lyrics by claiming that they are purely performative. While gangsta rap is a highly performative genre, Quinn denies the existence and consequences of the violent lyrics and the bloodshed that actualized from them. In particular, her dealings with the highly publicized East Coast-West Coast �beef� (gangsta rap feud) between Death Row and Bad Boy Records, which ultimately resulted in the homicides of Tupac Shakur and the Notorious B.I.G., both gunned down in the 1990s, is selectively dismissive; because according to Quinn, �To date the demise of classic gangsta rap to the high-profile deaths of key personnel would preclude the possibility of any upbeat or open ending to this story� (173). Instead, classic gangsta rap's demise is mainly attributed to the Clinton administration's (slightly) more liberal policies and Clinton's efforts to restore funding to public service s. But to claim that Clinton's economic and social policies relieved all social angst of the time so that gangsta rappers no longer felt the need to protest is a naïve re-reading of history. To dismiss Tupac and Notorious B.I.G.'s deaths as coincidental to the demise of gangsta rap self-servingly supports the optimistic view of gangsta rap that Quinn has so invested herself in. Theses deaths, rocked the gangsta rap as well as the entire hip-hop community. They made it painfully obvious that despite financial empowerment, gangsta rappers were still vulnerable to the repercussions of their �thug life.� After Tupac and Notorious B.I.G.'s deaths, fans, critics and activists began to clamor for an end to the violence gangsta rappers portrayed and mainstream �classic gangsta� rap began die as the narrative changed from (gang)banging to �blinging�.

As Quinn realizes, we are now in the middle of another decidedly conservative capitalist era. George W. Bush's tax cuts are benefiting the rich while dismantling public service s (reminiscent of the situation in which gangsta rap first emerged). But, Quinn, ever the optimist, predicts a backlash against free-market worship in rap and a shift away from the accumulation narrative and commodifcation of the ghetto. Quite hopefully, Quinn notes �original gangstas�, such as Ice Cube, are moving away from an individualist stance and acknowledging the value of collectivism and community. But what about the young gangstas just getting into the rap game�the ones who are yet to make their fortunes, and want to cash in on unfavorable social conditions and the profitable imagery of thug life?

#1 Billboard artist 50 Cent is a glaring example of the �new gangsta�. Building on the commercial legend of gangsta rap, 50 Cent is quick to claim his ghetto authenticity, while endorsing numerous products, from shoes to VitaminWater. He is famous for being shot 9 times, starting fights with rappers from opposing camps and flashing the diamonds and platinum that he has earned by parlaying street life into multi-platinum albums. Most recently and perhaps most disturbing to Quinn's hopeful narrative, 50 Cent has defended George W. Bush's actions in dealing with Hurricane Katrina victims. While it is most probable that 50 Cent's comments were meant more to publicly antagonize rapper Kanye West (who infamously accused Bush of not caring about black people) rather than show loyalty to the Bush administration, it is still unsettling that he would publicly support Bush and reject the black community. But if we look back at Quinn's argument�is that not the thesis of gangsta rap, in much less optimistic terms? It is every man for himself and profit above all else. 50 Cent's comments garnered attention from the press, and managed to stir up speculation about an escalating feud between him and Kanye West, which led to more publicity, which meant more profit.