Word: gangstas
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...perplexing chasm separated the two Tupac Shakurs. As rap's Public Gangsta No. 1, he spumed venom on CD, reeked menace onstage, wore his tattoos like a war hero's medals, did time for violent crimes and, at 25, got gunned down in Las Vegas last September. As a budding film star, though, he pinwheeled charm and emotional purity. Shakur, who had acted professionally since he was 12, wasn't quite Sidney Poitier, but in a decent range of roles (in Juice, Poetic Justice, Above the Rim) he showed power and promise...
...Lean-like scope and passion back to the Cineplex. Still laboring under Khomeini's fatwa, Salman Rushdie produced what may be his greatest novel. A rock update of La Boheme brought the Broadway musical resoundingly into the '90s. The Fugees proved you can sell millions of rap records without gangsta's toxicity, while Tiger Woods broadened golf's horizons simply by showing up. And Jerry Seinfeld stayed funny, defying sitcomic entropy. So here's to the men and women who spat in mediocrity's eye and made us believe in forward progress--the best...
...Fugees The Score (Ruffhouse/Columbia). Tough but tuneful, ready to entertain but unwilling to compromise, this Haitian-American rap trio proved that positive, semipolitical hip-hop could outsell gangsta rap--and alternative rock too. Drawing from reggae and soul, the Fugees created a fresh bicultural sound as bright as the Caribbean and as blunt as New Jersey...
...never raunchy, sweet through not saccharine, and are always on the right side of the fine line separating light-hearted from vacuous. Furthermore, the band is known primarily for the quality of its music, not its extracurricular reputation, unlike other groups such as Jodeci who rely on a playa-gangsta-mack image to sell-records...
...produced the CD, gives all the music gangsta grit--minus much of the usual gangsta venom. Dre contributes one solo performance on the record, the brooding Been There Done That, which takes a swipe at the gangsta genre. "I try out some different things on this album," Dre says. "Yeah. It will surprise some people." --C.J.F...