ABOUT

Gangsta Rap was formed in the 1980's by young, African American men who were involved in the hip hop culture but who also were in touch with the gang and street life in big cities on the East and West Coasts. Its music celebrated gang culture. This research was completed by me, Caleb Dallimore, by October 29, 2020. I researched gangsta rap in the late 1980's and the early 1990's to develop a deep understanding of how it began and transformed. In my research I found that there were several common themes that the gangsta rap group, N.W.A., rapped about in their songs. I collected a list of all the N.W.A songs that cracked the Billboard Hot 100 from the Billboard website. I then looked up the lyrics of each of the 6 songs that charted on genius.com to analyze and see the meaning of each song as well as what themes were present. I then placed the lyrics from each song into Voyant Tools to see the frequency of certain words and phrases that could be related to certain themes. Using Voyant tools, I also looked to see what explicit words were used in each song as well as the frequency that they were used because N.W.A was heavily criticized for the highly explicit nature of their songs. I placed the explicit lyrics into an excel chart to show what profanity and the frequency of  it was used in each song. I also researched newspaper and magazine articles to find any controversy with each song. I wanted to show that gangsta rap, was not just music or sound to the ears, but a form of art that represented what was going on in the inner city neighborhoods in South Central L.A. and Compton. The purpose of this research was to show what common themes in N.W.A.'s songs charted the highest as well as what themes of their songs generated the most controversy.