Hip-hop has evolved relative to the 1980s in a more aggressive and violent direction. While the mainstream artists of the 1980s were fairly puritanical in their lyrics and maintained minimal censorship, the 1990s is seen as an era of explicit lyrical content (Baker, 2018). The samplers of the 1980s were also more technically limited compared to the artist equipment of the 1990s, which produced a richer and more authentic sound. The new forces that emerged in the early 1990s in the booming hip-hop genre were more hardcore and vulgar artists. The subject changed from street life and social justice to the more violent and explicit themes of gang life, swindling and drug dealing – although pimp rap already gained popularity in the late 1980s through Big Daddy Kane and Slick Rick.
In New York in the 1990s, the hardcore hip hop genre became particularly relevant. From a musical point of view, hardcore hip hop belongs to the boom bap school – the name symbolizes deeper and biting beats with lo-fi production. Wu Tang Klan, a team of charismatic and ironic rappers and producers, formed a special school in the hardcore hip hop scene, supplying stories about street life with martial arts aesthetics and tournaments from old exploitative Hong Kong action movies.
In Los Angeles, the 1970s soul-inspired G-Funk genre, musically inspired by the production work of Dr Dre, is gaining popularity. This beatmaker created a sound unique to hip-hop, borrowing psychedelic grooves from funk music but supplying them with a layered synth production with an abundance of sawtooth waves imitating sirens (Baker, 2018). The iconic, immediately recognizable sound was reinforced by rapping from Snoop Doggy Dogg, whose relaxed and confident flow is also a signature sound of the 1990s. The popularity of G-funk is also associated with many crime stories about the bloody confrontation between the West and East coasts of Los Angeles. The music and lyrics of Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls, who died in gang shootings, can feel like a soundtrack that mythologizes this era.
Work Cited
Baker, Soren. The history of gangster rap: From Schoolly D to Kendrick Lamar, the rise of a great American art form. Abrams Books, 2018.