Word: gangstas
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Snoop wants out of the dog-house. Snoop Dogg was one of gangsta rap's first megastars, but as of late, his album sales have slumped. This year Master P, the head of the New Orleans-based label No Limit Records, is the top dog in the gangsta world: Master P's current solo album sold more than 400,000 copies in its first week out; at the upcoming MTV Music Video Awards, he'll be a featured act. So Snoop has allied himself with No Limit, declaring himself a "No Limit soldier," sharing in Master P's heat...
...Snoop, he is undoubtedly a charismatic performer. His rapping style has a casual intensity, and he describes scenes of street life with a cool offhandedness, building the tension in his songs in long, lean lines of lyrics, spun out in his Southern drawl. He may be a gangsta, he may have a controversial past, but there is something likable about him, almost fuzzy, sort of cartoon-like, definitely marketable...
...create music that's a good deal more real, a good deal more edgy than the packaged pop of, say, teen-oriented groups like the Spice Girls and Cleopatra. And they tend to write lyrics that are more oblique and yet more socially and emotionally relevant than those of gangsta rappers...
...Known as Prince, for example, has been creating experimental R. and B. for two decades. And remember Terence Trent D'Arby? No? Well, he was that guy...never mind. The point is, in the '90s, the face of cool in R. and B. has been the face of a gangsta. Puff Daddy, Dr. Dre, Master P and the like dominate the aesthetic space in black music. Boyz II Men may sell more albums, but when you think of what's hot, what's hip, what's real, what's representative, gangsta rap has symbolized the cutting edge...
...longer. Hill, D'Angelo and Maxwell are distinct performers, but they share a willingness to challenge musical orthodoxy. For too long, critics, taking the public with them, have looked to rock and gangsta rap to fill the pantheon of pop heroes. But there was a time when auteurs had soul, when Marvin was asking what's going on, when Stevie was singing songs in the key of life, when Aretha was demanding respect. This season, with the ascension of a new generation of neo-soul stars, the past may be present again, and, to paraphrase Fanon, the future...