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1993.
‘To it’s supporters ganster rap is a form of social protest, a kind of street theater,' representative of middle america. Others say it's simply to exploit race stereotypes for profits.
The protests at the time were basically just middle aged, educated, professional and family types in a church, and some offended women in their 20s or 30s.
‘It lets everybody know to a certain extent that we as black people MUST have low self esteem, no respect for ourselves or anyone else, and we just don’t care who we hurt as long as we're making a dollar.' That exactly is how it seemed in the mid 90s was the message, and some people were disgusted and just couldn't understand why lots of people around them had hip hop and gangster rap as their favorite music (not just blacks). It was a surprise when this attitude and philosophy went from something a few wanna bes had (as long as it was just fantasy) to becomming one of and then later the main social force and message, not just among blacks. It's hard to say, since I haven't really read any studies that have really collected data, how much this one movement, the allowance of ‘black music’ and it's I don't care about you, I just want money attitude, so strikingly different from what was acceptable or even considered possible in the Western world, has impacted society and culture. We're still in it though. Anyone who says they don't like it or agree with it, since it is now the mainstream, are laughed at as immature or ridiculously conservative.
Black leaders also didn't speak against it much. Democracy?
In Brazil, music singing about violence or crime is illegal. You can still do it, people do it, but it's local, in the community, not on the radio. It's limited and not prevented from being the mainstream. So I've heard.
It also reflects the lack of effective law enforcement of real crimes. And of the criminal justice system and punishment system.
How can we have freedom of speech and expression, not limit it, and at the same time prevent wild swings to social harm?
White males bought the most ganster rap CDs. Arguable, the problem would have been contained if it had continued to be a black issue. White kids wanted to be tough and cool, though.