Guns are recurring characters in American life. They sit front and center in some versions of rap music, whether to be glorified or denounced (Nas’ “I Gave You Power” comes to mind). They play key roles in video games, TV shows, and movies. As recently as 2015, you could walk into a Walmart, cop an AR-15, and then a carton of milk. America was built with guns. Europeans brought matchlock rifles to American and Caribbean shores, and in 1770, the American Revolution was sparked by the shooting death of Crispus Attucs in Boston. Americans love guns so much, we’re willing to put our own lives in jeopardy because of our fear that the Second Amendment will be repealed. This is why Connecticut Senator Christopher S. Murphy held a 15-hour filibuster on the Senate floor on Wednesday. Standing in the face of this pro-gun rights bloc, Murphy’s goal was to secure votes from other Senators to help pass stricter gun control bills—not to strip anyone of their rights.
America will always be about power and gangster rap will always tell a kind of truth.
As a fan of “gangster” rap, and a person who grew up in an environment where illegal guns were readily available, drugs were prevalent, and gang violence was the norm, gun control remains a complicated issue for me. Can one be in favor of the Second Amendment and for gun control while also enjoying violent rap? I think so. Shit, I would hope so. In the wake of the May shooting at New York event space Irving Plaza involving Brooklyn rapper Troy Ave, I wrote a piece explaining why the gun problem is an American one, and why hip-hop shouldn't bear the brunt of the blame, like it usually does. Because it's only entertainment.
“Gangster” rap (or “drug dealer” rap, or “street” rap, etc.) is my favorite kind. It’s the subgenre I relate the most to due to how and where I grew up. But I also treat it like I’m watching a Scorsese flick—that is, I treat it like it's fiction (even though some songs complicate that). Take Jay Z's and Biggie's "Brooklyn's Finest" for example: Both rappers do their best to outdo each other as they rap about gun violence like shooting a foe's daughter in her calf and being quick on the draw. Despite what they're rapping about, the primary feeling here is, weirdly, fun. As the listener, you're most in touch with the delight these guys are taking in trying to top each other's boasts. You're not asked to think about what a bullet would do to someone's daughter. You're high on the language and the competition.
The only times I’ve pulled triggers have been at shooting ranges. I do cringe when I see young rappers flash guns in music videos, though. It's a feeling not unlike what I experience when I hear 2Pac's "Hit 'Em Up" or Big's "Who Shot Ya?" The lyrics in those songs involving gunplay had real-life consequences. Similarly, 50 Cent's "Many Men" and YG's "Who Shot Me?" from his most recent album, speak explicitly about the murder attempts both rappers survived, and so when you listen to them, you are confronted with the emotional results of real-life gun violence.
Two songs from YG's sophomore album Still Brazy expand on the personal to talk about the ways guns affect Los Angeles: “Blacks & Browns,” featuring Sad Boy, and “Police Get Away Wit Murder.” On “Blacks & Browns,” YG raps, “We get popped then retaliate, and they sell us these guns,” as he and Chicano rapper Sad Boy speak on the trials, tribulations, and rhetoric young black and brown kids have to deal with in the ghetto. On “Police Get Away Wit Murder,” YG goes a bit deeper to detail his environment:
It get real in the field, your honor
How we supposed to chill when there’s no chill, your honor
Niggas running in your crib, your honor
Tell me what the fuck you would have did, your honor
You would have got you a strap, too
AK grenades, shotgun and a mac, too
You would have told your kids to hide
At the front door squeezing on that trigger with pride
If both of those songs fall on the more thoughtful end of the spectrum, Pusha T’s “Keep Dealing,” featuring Beanie Sigel, is a straight-up guilty pleasure. Push and Beans take the listener for a ride as they navigate their respective underworlds, with the former pushing weight while the latter raps from the vantage of an unremorseful soldier:
Ten toes deep in the trap, nigga I’m good here
Feelin’ like Tony reading words on the Goodyear
Big said, “Only the FEDs I should fear”
So no threat, be on your steps with the whole hood there
Yeah, shoot up shit then we blow the scene
Kerosene in a 20-ounce Poland Spring
Nothing to lose attitude like Ron from Arizona
It’s homicide when I slide up on ya
Still, Sigel is one of the most articulate rappers to ever touch on the pros and cons of the streets. This is why gangster music is important. Rappers like YG and Beanie Sigel—who both were recently shot (YG in 2015; Beanie in 2014) —have the ability to show both sides of the coin. Like some of our favorite gangster movies, gangster rap always mixes truth with exaggeration. Tony Montana rose through the ranks of the illegal drug trade by any means necessary and paid for his sins and recklessness with his life. Carlito Brigante wanted out of the life but his environment, his peers, and his own moral code made it impossible. On the same rap album, a rapper can threaten their enemies and then rap lucidly about the environment that created the drama in the first place. Ultimately, rap song glorifying gunplay is no different from movies like Scarface or Carlito's Way. Only movies are consistently given the amoral privilege of art, though.
Dylann Roof was first denied but eventually found a way to buy a firearm. Omar Mateen was able to purchase one and he was on an FBI watch list. I really don’t understand the push back from paranoid gun nuts who feel it's their right to buy an assault rifle in a grocery store. Gun control bills making the process to acquire automatic weapons harder should be championed by all of us (even as we understand that underground markets will always exist). But like crime in our cities and deep-rooted racism in the United States, the topic of guns in this country is a complicated one. America will always be about power and gangster rap will always tell a kind of truth.
After the Irving Plaza shooting, Minnesota-based rapper Atmosphere summed up the relationship between rap and violence with one tweet:
If you see things in that light, you’ll be fine.