Urban Music In The Year 2000 Essay, Research Paper

Urban Music in the Year 2000

Shots ring out in South Central Los Angeles. A man screams in horror.

This man has been shot in a heated gang war. This is everyday life for

gang members. Gang members are used to cold blooded murder and most

attend at least 5 funerals a week. Similar situations occur in Harlem,

New York and in other places around the country.

Why is this happening? Many people think that rap music is making kids

more violent. They think that rap music is just a glorification of

violence. All rap music is doing is to show how horrible and inhuman

life is in the ghettos across the country. This is what’s really

happening out there. It’s not fake.

Right now, there is a major conflict between West Coast and East Coast

rappers. East and West are fighting in a vicious battle that leaves

hundreds of poor, helpless people dead in the street. There’s no reason

for this to be going on.

Back in the early ’90’s, when rap was beginning to become popular, the

East/West war wasn’t quite there yet but it was slowly becoming more and

more obvious that there was a conflict between rappers. Part of the

reason that the war started was that West Coast rap dominated and nobody

questioned their supremecy. Ice Cube, Ice T, and Eazy E were the rappers

of the moment. The war slowly worsened when East Coast rappers began to

get more publicity. West Coast rappers were upset that they weren’t 100%

in the spotlight so they started to make fun of East rappers in their

music proclaiming that East Coast rap was fake and couldn’t top West

Coast. Then, East Coast rappers fired back obscenities at West Coast

rappers and it kept up like that until someone decided that the other

coast had gone too far.

In 1993, Sean Combs started Bad Boy Entertainment in New York and for

the first time ever, East Coast sales surpassed West Coast rap sales.

Suddenly, as if out of nowhere came the peak of the West/East feud.

Smaller gangs in cities took the example of the “big playaz” and

followed what they said. Before, local gangs killed for affiliation

whether you were a Blood or a Crip. Now, gangs were killing for West and

East. In some cities it was so bad that you could be killed for living

on the wrong side of the neighborhood.

The war went on for awhile and started getting worse. The big feud was

West Coast Death Row Records against East Coast Bad Boy Entertainment.

Their were some personal feuds though. West rapper Tupac Shakur had a

personal problem with East rap mogul The Notorious B.I.G. They often

rapped about each other and were very personal. In one song Tupac

claimed to have slept with Biggie’s wife and the Notorious B.I.G.

retaliated in his music by saying “Stupid niggaz mess wit Big Poppa,

mother*censored*ers get roasted if you *censored* wit B.I.G. These words became

extremely important later.

Then, on September 7, 1996 West rapper Tupac Amaru Shakur was shot to

death in a drive by shooting in Las Vegas. His murder remains unsolved

and will probably never be solved. There were over 100 possible

witnesses but only 1 agreed to testify. Many gang members believe that

the police can’t do anything so they refuse to cooperate. And, after the

funeral the gang members settle the score themselves. And almost always

it is bloody. Members of Tupac’s entourage thought the only way to make

things better was to kill an East rapper. And in my opinion, that’s

exactly what they did.

On March 3, 1997 East rapper Christopher Wallace aka Notorious B.I.G.

was shot to death. Sound familiar? It should because that’s the same

thing that happened to Tupac Shakur six months earlier. Both murders are

unsolved so no one except the killers know why these senseless deaths

happened.

Sadly, life goes on and many people in the ghetto think there is only

one answer to these problems: retaliation.

Now in 1998, the feud is somewhat better. No Limit Records, which is

the number one West label after Death Row Records CEO Suge Knight got

nine years for probation violations is doing fine and remarkably without

violence. There are still blatant attacks on East rappers in the music

but for now their have not been any more rap murders.

Rap is a way of expressing how life is on the streets and yes there is

violence in the streets. But, the violence can be stopped. We are all

human beings and there’s no reason for us to hurt each other.

I dedicate this report to Tupac and Biggie in hopes that the violence

in rap will end. We should all be able to live together. In Peace……