Can't Stop Won't Stop (Young Adult Edition): A Hip-Hop History

When the riots ended, they were replaced with celebrations as the peace treaty between gangs in Los Angeles was finally set to take hold. A rap by Kam commemorated the moment: “The man in the mirror’s got power / It’s now or never / More than ever / Black people got to stick together” (152). New rappers with new brands of creativity began to emerge in the wake of the destruction, and attention shifted toward a better future. Rebuild LA was meant to put $1 billion into creating new buildings, but only about half were actually built. The Bloods and Crips had another plan to build hospitals and health care centers and to replace welfare with factories instead. They wanted better lighting for their streets, business loans, funding for schools, and a new police force that included former gang members. Gang violence dropped dramatically in South Los Angeles, and some police suggested a hidden motive where none existed. Others doubted it would last. LAPD began intentionally inciting people to retaliate, busting truce parties where no crime was taking place. One such incident “sent thirty police officers to the hospital” (154) and sparked the FBI to add 26 new agents to its LA offices. One Crip, Kershaun “Lil Monster” Scott, pointed out, “Now that we’re chilling, they want to attack us […] Isn’t that ironic?” (154).

This “War on Gangs was a prelude for a larger crackdown on youth in general” (154). The juvenile justice system was originally designed to help people redeem themselves and learn to lead a better life, but after the riots attitudes toward young people shifted toward the belief that they were beyond saving. Forty-eight states introduced more severe punishment for juveniles and 41 made it possible to try children as young as 12 as adults. Curfew and loitering laws were passed all over, designed to keep youth from gathering in certain places or at certain times. Crimes related to gangs also received harsher punishments, and countless youth were arrested pre-emptively without any cause. In New Orleans between 1988 and 1997, “Blacks were arrested at nineteen times the rate of whites” (156). In the late 1980s, 80% of Americans over 40 were white, and 35% of youth were not. As a result, older white men were governing young people of color. The War on Gangs became the War on Youth as attempts to erase young people of color from public spaces went into full force; pastimes like boom boxes and b-boying were no longer acceptable. Much like the Jim Crow segregation laws, these new laws targeting youth were designed to specifically target youth of color, and they were arrested 2.5 times more often than white youth. In 1993, California passed Proposition 187, which prohibited social services from assisting undocumented immigrants, including schools. Thankfully, the bill was never implemented and eventually ruled unconstitutional. Affirmative action was also banned in California in 1996, leading to a 10% drop in university attendance by Black and Latinx students.

A culture war also exploded in America during this time. Rap music took much of the brunt of it, and in 1985, a Parental Advisory Label was added to music deemed too explicit. After the panic surrounding Satanism in heavy metal music, attention was turned to the seemingly violent and sexual lyrics in rap. Several rap groups were banned from performing in cities like Miami at the request of locals. With hip-hop in the mainstream, it gave way for white people to attempt to take control of it. Albums were banned and retaliatory albums were written. Clinton used the rhetoric to aid his election, instilling fear in the public when he misquoted Sister Souljah, a member of Public Enemy, implying that she promoted the killing of white people in the Rodney King riots. When Ice-T released a song called “Cop Killer,” the NRA and police demanded a boycott on Time-Warner. Despite no evidence that the song was trying to incite violence or that it would, it served as a distraction from the LAPD’s incompetence in the Rodney King event. The record was pulled from countless stores, and Ice-T responded by taking it off future productions of his album and giving it away for free as a single at his shows: “It was never about money […] This song is about anger and the community and how people get that way. It is not a call to murder police” (161). Rap became a target as record labels reconsidered their investments. When Ice-T was unable to produce his next album, Home Invasion, with Time-Warner, he left the label for Priority Records, which worked with NWA/Ice Cube. Record labels went from cashing in on hip-hop to throwing it out. Rappers had to choose between their freedom of speech and making the money that they deserved; in this way, “the truth was at stake” (162).

In 1990, record store owners were arrested for selling 2 Live Crew’s records, and 2 Live Crew members Luther Campbell and Chris “Fresh Kid Ice” Wongwon were arrested for obscenity after a performance in Broward County, Florida. Two different civil cases involved the members of 2 Live Crew—one banning their album and another keeping them from performing. At the trial relating to the obscenity charges keeping the Crew off the stage, a Harvard professor defended the music, explaining it to be a crucial aspect of Black art and culture and one which takes skill and refinement. He argued that rap is meant to be humorous, joyful, or political, but not to incite violence or hatred. All the record store owners were acquitted. 2 Live Crew became the unlikely subjects of a victory for free speech in America. Meanwhile, Dr. Dre started working with Snoop Dogg and they produced music videos that drove Dre’s album The Chronic triple platinum, and it had a new, refined sound previously unknown to hip-hop. Dr. Dre was called a “pop music master” (164), and his music was designed to be fun and enjoyed by all. In this way, The Chronic was on the precipice between the old hip-hop and what was yet to come: hip-hop’s domination in the world sphere. With massive profits in the picture once again, white people seemed to give up their fear and hatred of hip-hop to make room for the money they were soon to make.

The Mercedes Ladies was “hip-hop’s first all-female crew” (166). They worked hard to perfect their routines and wanted to be known for their art rather than their sexuality. Women often outperformed men in rap battles but had to work double hard to earn a place on the stage. Male rappers were intimidated by them, and since they were the ones called to the first shows and record deals, they often intentionally neglected to tell powerful people like Sylvia Robinson about female crews. Rather than the Mercedes Ladies being the first female crew to produce a rap record, as was deserved, the title fell to a generic group called The Sequence—much like what occurred with the Sugarhill Gang. Despite this, their song “Funk You Up” was pivotal in propelling rap toward the popular music sphere, again much like the Sugarhill Gang. It even inspired Dr. Dre and in more recent times Bruno Mars. Female rappers put in as much or more effort and time into their hip-hop, but they did not receive nearly as much recognition as their male counterparts.

Roxanne Shanté was pivotal in helping women gain a place in the hip-hop world. She began the Roxanne Wars, hosting countless women at her battles. Because of her reputation, women who battled there were often noticed. In 1985, an important contest called the New Music Seminar Battle for World Supremacy was held to determine the best rap battlers. It was judged by Afrika Bambaataa, the Fat Boys, and others. Shanté entered at 15 and faced each opponent in succession, making her way to the finals. She aced it, but one of the judges held a grudge against her for a previous diss on one of her tracks, so he gave her a low score. She ended up losing, which she said caused her to lose respect for hip-hop because it did not seem to only be about talent. Years later, the judge claimed to have done it to save hip-hop because it was still new, and nobody would “take hip-hop serious if the best in the world was a fifteen-year-old girl” (169). There was also a new distinction placed between male and female rappers where none was before because even her friends would tell her she was the best female rapper. Salt-N-Pepa rose to fame shortly after with the help of rap producer Hurby “Luv Bug” Azor, and despite their success, Hurby’s expectations for them remained low. By their third album, their relationship was crumbling, and Salt was writing her own music. The success of “Let’s Talk About Sex” led Salt-N-Pepa to be asked to do an AIDS PSA and be part of a news special. Activism continued to be a part of their message moving forward. They slowly broke off their relationship with Hurby, writing their own music and reaching new levels of success. Salt-N-Pepa decided to pause their music career in the late 1990s but not before selling millions of records and inspiring millions of women and girls to follow in their footsteps “with their message of independence, empowerment, and consciousness” (172).

Queen Latifah would become another key influence, starting her career at age 18 and releasing her first album, All Hail the Queen, at age 19. She won awards, acted in several films, and produced as well. Queen Latifah financially invested in affordable housing for her hometown and “opened the Queen Collective to advance gender and racial equity in filmmaking” (175). She was inspired by Public Enemy and other similar groups because of their outspokenness and ability to communicate the things that were happening in the world. Her song “Ladies First” “unapologetically centered women in the man’s world that commercial hip-hop had become” (175). To Queen Latifah, being a queen is a state of mind and dignity.

MTV first began airing in 1981 and started as a network featuring only music videos. Musicians who were photogenic but not necessarily as talented became wildly successful, and music sales overall doubled in the coming decade. However, MTV did not include Black artists at its release, making it “more of the same old thing” (178). The first Black artist to be featured on the network was Michael Jackson in 1983 with “Billie Jean.” A year later, Run-DMC would have their “Rock Box” video played, initiating hip-hop onto the network. At the time, two separate music charts existed, R&B and pop, and for a Black artist to cross over to the other meant crossing over to white audiences. In 1988, MTV hosted its first rap show, Yo! MTV Raps, which featured FAB 5 FREDDY as its host. It became MTV’s most watched show. By 1989, MTV featured 12 hours of rap per week, and white kids were becoming interested as well. Everyone found a part of themselves in the songs they were hearing. Hip-hop diversified into a lifestyle as Tommy Boy Records began cashing in with clothing, merchandise, and branding. American popular culture “was shifting from focusing on the middle-aged to youth, from suburban to urban, from whiteness to Blackness. Hip-hop artists defined the new cool” (179).

With the new mainstream success of hip-hop came new questions about white people exploiting Black artists, the stereotyping of Black people, why white people identified with Black music, and whether rap was providing an accurate and just representation of the Black community. In 1990, MC Hammer released his album Please Hammer Don’t Hurt ‘Em, and Vanilla Ice released To the Extreme. Each sold millions of copies, but both were met with criticism from the Black community—Vanilla Ice for being “a white faker” and Hammer for “selling out to white audiences” (180). On television, the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, starring rapper Will Smith, was one of the most popular shows. The Native Tongues, a group of artists including De La Soul, Queen Latifah, the Jungle Brothers, Monie Love, a Tribe Called Quest, and Black Sheep, formed in 1988 with the commitment to hip-hop as an art form “that represented Black collectivity, creativity, and intelligence” (181). Their albums between 1989 and 1991 showcased a new level of hip-hop sophistication and creativity, and the Native Tongues “vowed never to sell out” (182).

A new hip-hop underground formed, and a major hub of this underground was in the San Francisco Bay Area, which gave rise to DJs and MCs of a diverse range. The area became the second highest market for hip-hop in the United States. This was largely because several colleges existed in the area, each with radio stations always looking for something new to play. Hip-hop radio shows featuring up and coming artists popped up all over the area. The hip-hop underground brought a resurgence of the elements of hip-hop including b-boying and DJing. These underground hip-hop networks spread to other cities, magazines were published, and hip-hop journalism became a fruitful business. Open-mic battles became popular again as well. The underground clubs where these battles took place served as an outlet of expression for youth and a place for them to build their craft.

Samplers changed the way hip-hop artists made music. They “made DJs into producers […] and became world-builders” (187). Hip-hop could be chill, hyper, angry, or anything else. Artists began sampling old and rare jazz and soul records. Bobby “RZA” Diggs and his group the Wu-Tang Clan came from difficult backgrounds of being poor and living amid the drug trade and police brutality. RZA “lived in at least ten different projects” in his childhood and saw the projects as a sort of science project that produced either villains or heroes (187). He had each member of the Clan sign to different labels, forcing the labels to outbid each other and cooperate to increase sales. Inspired by kung fu films, RZA and his Clan “used the sampler to sound obscure and low-tech” (188), unlike other artists of the time. Each member had a unique personality with a unique style, and each had a story to represent. By the mid-1990s, the crossover into mainstream culture seemed to be complete, and MTV became completely desegregated, featuring diverse artists on the same programs rather than having unique programs for Black artists. Hip-hop was on its way to becoming “the bestselling musical genre, and a global pop culture force” (192), with Tupac Shakur and the Notorious B.I.G., along with their record labels and their feuds, leading the way.

Both Tupac Shakur and Christopher “Notorious B.I.G.” Wallace were shot and killed in the prime of their lives and career. They had many other similarities: both were raised by single mothers, both were hard workers, and both were extremely talented artists “with the power to express the shared feelings of millions” (193). Both of their mothers grew up during the civil rights movement and the stripping back of segregation in America. Biggie’s mother described him as a kind and well-behaved but headstrong child. Because she was an immigrant, Christopher’s mother, Voletta, invested heavily in Christopher’s future, putting him in private schools. Tupac’s mother, Afeni, joined the Black Panthers during high school and became one of its leaders. She was arrested when police attempted to shut down the Black Panthers. Afeni was pregnant with Tupac while in prison but was acquitted just one month before his birth. Both families experienced poverty as America changed and the Reagan recession brought massive job loss. Christopher Wallace had a different outlook on life and was interested in the streets and the lifestyle there as well as what he saw as masculine men. Christopher got into rap in high school while selling drugs at the same time. Because of his size and stature, people called him Big; he was “larger than life, a joke-cracking everyday kind of kid” (197). When Big was arrested for selling drugs, he decided to put real effort into rap.

Tupac once explained that everyone with the last name Shakur is either eventually arrested or killed—this would soon include himself. Tupac was accepted into the Baltimore School for the Arts, where he excelled. He was artistic and sensitive and knew that he was among a majority of white people. He did not join gangs; instead he focused on his art. He saw himself as becoming famous one day. When his mother became addicted to crack, she sent Tupac and his sister to Marin City to live with her friend. The friend rejected them. At 17 Tupac was left to support his sister, and he was eventually forced to drop out of school to make the money to do so. Tupac got an offer to join the New Black Panther Party at age 19 but took the risk to choose rap. He began as a roadie and dancer but was soon recording and within a year had his own record deal. He released the single “Trapped,” which “in some ways […] Foreshadowed Tupac’s next six years” (199). He sings about prison, harassment by police, and finally being shot. Tupac was choked and beaten when two officers found him jaywalking and he swore at them. He was arrested and charged with resisting, and the incident scarred his face. Tupac had lived a difficult childhood and youth, but because he was never involved in gangs he had not experienced the level of brutality he did that day. The incident shook him, and he sued. The Oakland Police Department settled. Tupac “would remind interviewers for the rest of his life, ‘I had no police record all my life until I made a record’” (199). Tupac landed a role in the movie Juice, which was a huge success, as was his album 2Pacalypse Now. At a party Tupac attended in Marin City, he was confronted, and a fight ensued. Shots were fired and a six-year-old was killed. Tupac was accused but found not guilty; however, the incident affected him deeply. People also began claiming his music was influencing others to commit violent acts, and Tupac did find himself involved in several physical incidents throughout his career. In one incident, Tupac defended a stranger who was being harassed by two white, off-duty cops. The result was another gun fight in which Tupac shot both the cops, injuring them. He was found to have acted in self defense. Tupac also saw that life for Black people had not improved since his mother’s generation. He pointed out that the people who asked for support during the civil rights movement and Black Panther era were killed or jailed, and the result is their children will fight back harder: “I’m tired of waiting for my pass to get into society” (203). He pointed out that the media profits off the ghetto without helping it, and he faced a similar experience himself; the media seemed to want to profit off the drama in his life, but nobody wanted to actually help him.

Tupac Shakur and Christopher Wallace started out as friends who understood and admired each other, but they became enemies about two years into their friendship. Tupac was at the height of his success when he met Biggie, who had just released his first single, “Party and Bullshit,” which became Tupac’s favorite song. Tupac was inspired by Biggie and started inviting him over frequently and visiting Biggie when he went to Brooklyn. They performed shows together. Tupac was thrilled to be hanging with “real thugs and killers from Brooklyn” (204) and did not heed the warnings Biggie gave him about them. Biggie’s bold humor and life experience mixed with Tupac’s artistic style.

East Coast rap was coming back thanks to Biggie’s Ready to Die album along with Nas’s Illmatic. On the West Coast, Tupac found himself in the throes of another scandal: this time a rape charge with three other men. Several of his shows were cancelled, and his upcoming acting role was denied. On November 30, 1994, Tupac and his friend were set up as he arrived at a recording studio in Times Square. Tupac was shot five times and robbed; he knew then that someone was out to kill him. Biggie was in the building with his record label manager Puff Daddy and saw Tupac after the incident but maintained he was not involved and did nothing but try to help Tupac in that moment. The next day, Tupac went to court in a wheelchair and bandages and was found guilty of the rape charge. He was sent to Rikers, and in an interview with Kevin Powell he implied that he believed Haitian Jack and Jimmy Henchman were behind the attack. He also suspected that Biggie knew about it beforehand. Tupac was sentenced to 1.5 to 4.5 years in jail for the rape conviction. Dexter Isaac did not admit to being paid to rob Tupac that night until 2011, but he had already been sentenced to life in prison for an unrelated murder charge. Jimmy Henchman and Haitian Jack were the ones who set it up. Unfortunately, this confession was decades late; “When 1995 had rolled around—with Tupac convinced that Bad Boy (Puff Daddy’s record label) wanted him dead—the die had been cast for both his and Biggie’s ends” (210).

In February 1995, Biggie’s song “Who Shot Ya” was released. It was recorded before Tupac was shot, but the timing meant that people speculated about its meaning, including Tupac. Tupac was now convinced that Biggie and Puff Daddy were his enemies. The media was reporting about this East Coast-West Coast beef. Biggie was winning awards for his album, and Tupac released an album while he was in jail titled Me Against the World. In desperation to save his career, Tupac signed with Death Row records, and the record label bailed him out of jail. He came out of jail with a sight for revenge against Biggie and Puff Daddy and “seemed more paranoid and unhinged and, at the same time, more in control than ever” (212). He released a double album four months after being released from jail. His focus was intense, and “California Love” (with Dr. Dre) became his biggest hit. Tupac remained outspoken politically, holding a demonstration against the end of affirmative action in California and planning a fundraiser concert. Tupac and his crew confronted Biggie and Suge Knight of Death Row Records after the Soul Train Awards, and Biggie was driven away to safety. In an interview with Vibe magazine, Biggie expressed his sorrow at the state of his relationship with Tupac. He called Tupac a good guy and vowed not to respond to his hate.

Eventually, even Tupac grew tired of the war and the money being made off it. He travelled with Suge Knight to Las Vegas to see a Mike Tyson fight in September 1996. After the fight, on September 7, Tupac was shot at a stoplight and killed. He died six days afterward at age 25. Biggie was “heartbroken and inconsolable” (215). Biggie’s son was born, and then Biggie suffered a car accident that temporarily left him in a wheelchair. He worked on his second album, Life After Death, which would be a double album. People questioned its lyrics, wondering if he was trying to cash in on Tupac’s death. In one interview, when asked if he was involved, he responded, “I ain’t that powerful—yet” (217). One of the songs, “Going Back to Cali,” spoke to Biggie’s desire to make peace with the West Coast. Biggie started talking about God, focusing on his family, and feeling grateful to be alive. He went to California to record a music video, and people there warned him it was not safe for him there. After a Soul Train Awards party on March 9, 1997, Biggie was on his way to an after party and was shot through the window of the car, just like Tupac. He died the same night, at age 24.

Hip-hop and violence seemed to be eternally wed, and people questioned its future. A meeting was held by Minister Louis Farrakhan of the Nation of Islam, a man respected by both the East and West Coasts. Rappers from all corners of the country attended, and the group discussed the way the hip-hop industry had become corrupted by violence. The rappers of the East described their distaste for what they deemed the West’s ruining of hip-hop with its gangsta rap. Ice Cube argued that they considered it no such thing; they considered themselves reporters of reality. Cube suggested that rap battling be put on pause to let tensions die down. Snoop Dogg, who was also in attendance, vowed to create songs that went in a new direction. The Minister reminded everyone that the media had always been attempting to divide and conquer the Black community by creating false divisions. An announcement was made “that the East Coast-West Coast feud had ended” (221), and hip-hop was set to change once again.