By Curtis Scoon
Rap music, or hip hop as some refer to it, has come a long way from the 1970s when I was growing up in New York City, where it originated. The city’s financial crisis during those years sparked the creativity of teens who had very limited recreational options. High unemployment and budgetary cuts in a city teetering on bankruptcy left young people with idle hands. Although some got involved in criminal activity and gangs, many turned to music and dance competitions held at local block parties, playgrounds and house parties, none of which required a cover charge. While disco was popular with adults, rap was beginning to trend with the kids, and it became their primary musical outlet. In its initial phase, the music was underground and circulated on coveted cassette tapes from live performances in venues such as “Fantasia,” “The Disco Fever,” and “Harlem World” across the city’s five boroughs. Studio recorded rap made a brief cameo on a Fatback Band song, titled “King Tim III,” back in early 1979 – but later that year Sugar Hill Gang’s seminal song, “Rapper’s Delight,” became the very first mainstream rap hit. The success of “Rapper’s Delight” heralded the arrival of a new youth-driven musical genre reminiscent of early rock-n-roll.
Rap’s commercial success posed a conundrum for music executives. They didn’t know how to categorize it, and therefore, had no idea how to market it. Rappers couldn’t sing, play instruments or read music. Further confusing matters, “Rapper’s Delight” was recorded over a disco track, in spite of it not being a disco song. The executives wasted no time tinkering with rap’s original hierarchical structure that centered on DJing. The disc jockey was the early foundation of the genre, but they relied on live performances and music produced by established artists. In commercial rap, DJs were quickly relegated to supporting-role players as producers eclipsed them, and musical tracks were often getting played from Digital Audio Tape (DAT) players during live appearances. Moreover, the Sugar Hill Gang’s usage of Chic’s “Good Times” instrumental track for “Rapper’s Delight” led to the creation of sampling laws to compensate the actual owners of the intellectual property. Royalties had to be paid, and publishing ownership now dictated everything. Rap borrowed so heavily from preexisting musical styles and artists in its bid for broader acceptance that its musical contemporaries didn’t take it seriously for some time.
Commercialism eventually transformed the music into a major global marketing tool. Rappers were utilized as “pitchmen” and enlisted as brand ambassadors in lucrative endorsement deals to sell merchandise and promote decadent overindulgence. Essentially, they sold lifestyle packaged as music. As the artists’ influence increased, they began to even propagate political ideologies in ways that surpassed any of their artistic predecessors. What began with inner city kids manually manipulating the breakdown in songs on two turntables, and reciting basic rhymes over the rhythm, evolved into a powerful psychologically suggestive tool. The creative innovation served as a cheap but effective substitute for their lack of musical equipment and formal training. Even though the kids didn’t truly appreciate the gravity of their influence, a more sophisticated clique of tastemakers saw the full potential.
I grew up in Hollis, Queens, home to rap’s first crossover superstars, Run-DMC. The rapping duo embraced the street aesthetic of the time as opposed to emulating the fashion sense of mainstream acts. They wore fedoras, similar to one worn by the fictional Michael Corleone in the epic film, “The Godfather.” That particular gangster fashion style was mimicked by young men who wished to project the power and respect of the Corleone character. The group also adopted the gaudy jewelry style popularized by young crack dealers, whose presence was becoming increasingly impactful among the youth in the 1980s. The adolescent dealers were seen as fearless, anti-establishment and affluent, all of which exuded the power and freedom rappers sought to convey. Their combined hubris and charisma created an aura found fashionable by entertainers who had no compelling identity or backstory of their own. This fixation with criminal aesthetics would prove to be a slippery slope in years to come as the emulation progressed far beyond appearances and into actual criminal participation. The popularity of street outlaws during rap’s formative years made it almost inevitable.
Joseph “Run” Simmons and Darryl “DMC” McDaniels were my close childhood friends. We all attended St. Pascal Baylon in St. Albans, Queens and were classmates from 2nd grade through 8th grade. Run’s older brother, Russell “Rush” Simmons, co-founded Def Jam Records with Rick Rubin. My earliest recollection of Russell Simmons is that of a college party promoter. His younger brother, Run, worked the coat check at Russell’s college parties until he was allowed to share the stage with talent Russell had booked. Run proudly showed me the promotional flyer of his first real performance. The billing read, “Kurtis Blow and his disco son, DJ Run.” Needless to say, this changed the course of his life. I vividly recall Run wanting to be a DJ not a rapper, which is why he called himself “DJ Run.” Again, it was the DJ who was typically the main attraction in any rap/hip hop ensemble. However, commercialization forced many DJs to either become producers or transition to rapping to remain involved.
Early rap producers heavily sampled soul icon James Brown. Despite being anointed “godfather” of rap by its aficionados, Brown was initially very critical of rap’s lack of musicality. The musical legend acknowledged that rap seemed to be the “next thing,” but he wasn’t fond of its lack of traditional instrumentation and singing vocals. The drum break in Brown’s single “Funky Drummer” is the single most sampled recording in rap music. Prior to rap, if musical artists used someone else’s work it was credited as a cover song, and not presented as an original composition. This lack of originality made rap the equivalent of a musical chameleon as its artists scrambled to piggyback on not only other musical genres, but social issues as well. In 1982, Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five released “The Message,” which expanded rap’s subject matter into social commentary. The song was a hit and it demonstrated the potential of the genre to be more than just adolescent bravado over heavy basslines and percussion. The evolution of what had begun as just kids making music for kids transformed it into a powerful voice of dissent and social consciousness, the way rock-n-roll did during the 1960s. Acts like: Public Enemy, X-Clan, Dead Prez and Immortal Technique, continued that legacy within the genre. They represented some of the more socially conscious acts under an ever-expanding rap “umbrella.”
As the industry experts searched for ways to further capitalize on the new genre, they encountered lines that couldn’t be crossed for the sake of decency. Originally, there was no profanity or racial epithets in the music like what exists today. No talk of murder and mayhem, or objectification of scantily clad young women. No promotion of street gangs or criminality, either. The vast majority of the music execs, then and now, were white and often Jewish. Whether they personally cared about the optics or not is immaterial. None could afford to be seen as blatantly exploiting Black dysfunction and indecency for profit. Civil rights organizations and the Black church would never have stood for any of that back then. After all, these were just imaginative, creative teenagers being thrust onto the world stage. Their content was limited to playful braggadocio, lyrical sparring, and humorous storytelling. An extensive vocabulary went a long way in keeping simplicity entertaining. The way rap started was not how it would remain.
The first major arena rap tour was called “Fresh Fest” in 1984 and it was sponsored by Swatch. Russell Simmons produced the 27-date national tour headlined by Run-DMC. The young men from Hollis laid the foundation that every rapper who followed them would stand on. Their street persona, arena tours and corporate sponsorship clearly distinguished them from any rappers that preceded them. They were like the Beatles of rap. The national exposure had an unintended effect among Black youth. Young people across America aspired to be rappers as well. However, there was a stark contrast between rappers from New York City and elsewhere. The lyrics coming out of New York did not reflect the urban violence of the environment. New York’s murder rate during the crack era started at 1,398 murders annually in 1985 around the time commercial rap took off.
The homicides peaked in 1991 with over 2,200. Despite the magnitude of the city’s population, those are staggering numbers for any municipality. It breaks down to roughly four to six killings per day over the course of an entire year, yet none of it was reflected in the music of the original commercial artists. Instead, the craft served as a form of escapism. For violence to be so environmentally prevalent, the subject matter of the top-selling rap artists like LL Cool J, Run DMC, the Fat Boys, Whodini, were devoid of such content. This can be attributed to several factors. Principally, violent and vulgar lyrics were not socially acceptable for the mainstream in that era. Not on radio, and certainly not on television. Profanity was not palatable for mass consumption, especially coming from adolescents.
On March 21, 1990, 29-year-old Luther “Luke Skywalker” Campbell and 2 Live Crew made their television debut on the nationally syndicated Phil Donahue show. The group was there to promote their lewd artistry under the guise of freedom of speech and performed a “clean” version of their raunchy tune, “The Fuck Shop.” Several scantily clad Black women accompanied them as “backup dancers.” The lyrics were crass and the dancing was tantamount to dogs gyrating in heat. Luke’s gimmick was to make strip club friendly rap music, and take it mainstream. Unlike his northern musical peers, Campbell was a grown man with lowbrow adult interests, catering to an audience of a similar mindset. The Donahue audience was aghast.
Not even a full week after his appearance on Donahue, Campbell was sued by George Lucas, the creator of the iconic Star Wars film series, for trademark infringement of the Luke Skywalker name. As usual, rap latched onto a popular cultural touchstone, and the character named Luke Skywalker was the star of Lucas’ blockbuster sci-fi series. Campbell proceeded to play the victim and made his media run promoting his particular brand of degeneracy as “Black culture.” By labeling the debasement in his music culture, Campbell provided the perfect cover to suppress non-Black criticism. Ironically, it also made it safe for the same white and Jewish executives who once had reservations about risqué content to now accelerate the exploitation of the culture.
Around the same time Luther Campbell was “fighting” for free speech in the South, Eric “Eazy E” Wright partnered with a Jewish music veteran named Jerry Heller to form Ruthless Records in Compton, California. Eazy E was a Kelly Park, Compton “Crip” gang member, and self-professed drug dealer. He popularized “gangsta rap” with his group N.W.A. (Niggas Wit Attitude), which also featured producer Andre “Dr. Dre” Young and fellow rapper O’Shea “Ice Cube” Jackson. Gangsta rap was yet another iteration of the evolving genre, albeit a more violent one. N.W.A.’s debut album on Ruthless Records was titled “Straight Outta Compton,” featuring the hit single “Fuck Tha Police.” Just like 2 Live Crew, they were pressured to have “Parental Advisory” warning stickers placed on their albums. Rap music was no longer being made by kids, or for kids. It was now the domain of adults stuck in perpetual adolescence. Adults who were ready to sell their soul for the proverbial thirty pieces of silver and the Jerry Hellers of the world were all too eager to broker such deals.
The millions of records sold by Ruthless Records and N.W.A. inspired a slew of copycat rap impresarios. Boutique imprints with questionable funding following Eazy-E’s blueprint were popping up in the Midwest, South and West Coast. Former N.W.A. member Dr. Dre departed Ruthless Records for financial reasons and started ‘Death Row Records’ in 1991. He had the backing of imprisoned drug lord Michael “Harry-O” Harris, and a glorified nightclub bouncer named Marion “Suge” Knight, among others. Death Row signed actual gang members to record deals, and employed dozens of ex-con “Blood” gang members as “security.” The distributor of their debauched musical topics such as murder, misogyny and prison erotica was Interscope Records, co-founded by Jimmy Iovine in 1989. The Italian-American Iovine capitalized on rap’s cheap cost of doing business and high returns. It was like Hollywood’s “Blaxploitation” era all over again, but in music, not film.
A clear pattern of criminal elements providing seed money to start independent music labels was developing. Once the talent was secured and a buzz was created, they would seek out a distribution deal with a major company. In the case of Death Row Records, Jimmy Iovine negotiated a $10 million deal to finance and distribute its music. Interscope has since generated hundreds of millions from the sale of gangsta rap music. There is not a single music executive who has profited more from the commercialization of Black dysfunction and degeneracy than Jimmy Iovine. Death Row lived up to its name with murder and mayhem being its primary marketing tool. The emerging “gangsta” rap artists and entrepreneurs were the equivalent of minstrels in blackface, only more dangerous. Authenticity superseded creativity in this rendition of rap’s ever-changing identity. In 2013, Jimmy Iovine and his protégé Dr. Dre donated $70 million to the University of Southern California. Iovine’s daughter Jessica had graduated from the school the previous year. The students at USC were oblivious to the source of the blood money from which they benefitted.
As the gangsta ethos began permeating rap, the violence within the genre increased exponentially. The annual “Jack the Rapper” music convention in Atlanta ended abruptly in 1994 due to the violence that followed gangsta rap wherever it went. There was a major brawl on the first evening of the prestigious convention. The four-star hotel hosting the event resembled a prison yard riot at Pelican Bay from all the walking wounded. Gang members connected to Suge Knight’s Death Row Records battled the “Miami Boyz” with ties to Luther Campbell’s Luke Records in a bloody melee. Several participants were stabbed as sporadic gang assaults took place throughout the entire weekend at the actual convention site. If nothing else, Death Row was consistent in its marketing by mayhem strategy. The well documented shameful East Coast/West Coast feud involving Bad Boy Records in New York and Death Row Records in Los Angeles was the nadir of rap music. Black men were killing each other over “rap beef.” Bad Boy’s founder Sean Combs was bankrolled and distributed by Jewish executive Clive Davis at Arista Records. Davis and Iovine could have prevented it all from happening, but bloodshed was profitable and it wasn’t impacting their communities. It was all reminiscent of the infamous scene in The Godfather in which ‘Don Zaluchi’ discussed the distribution of drugs;
“In my city we’d keep the traffic to the dark people, the coloreds. They’re animals anyway, so let them lose their souls.”
As long as Black people were willing to claim the abhorrent behavior displayed in rap as their own culture the interlopers had no reason to stop monetizing it. Predictably, the rivalry ended with the deaths of two of the genre’s biggest stars. Tupac Shakur and the Notorious B.I.G. were murdered six months apart, and both became bigger in death than they were in life. As concisely stated by rapper Jadakiss in his song “We Gonna Make It,” – “You know dead rappers get better promotion.”
Between 1989 and 2026 there have been an estimated 285,000 black men murdered in America. That is more American casualties than every post-WWII military conflict and war combined. The glorification and monetization of black genocide during that same period seemingly has deeper roots than capitalism. A number of notable sources over the years have implied something far more nefarious than simply record sales brought about this shift. There have long been rumors about an alleged covert meeting in 1991 that determined rap would become a social engineering tool to fuel a pipeline to prison scheme for profit. In 2012, a purported “confession letter” from an anonymous music industry insider began circulating online. Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, first spoke on this conspiracy in 2001, and it has been covered on NPR as recently as 2020 in a piece titled, “Power, Protest and Paranoia.” Whether fact or fiction, it aligned perfectly with what is playing out.
One of the most prominent voices to take on rap during this period was politician and civil rights activist C. Delores Tucker. She condemned rap’s sexually explicit, violent and misogynistic lyrics, which she also claimed threatened the moral foundation of the Black community. She was not wrong. Tucker went as far as buying stock in entertainment companies to protest at shareholder meetings. She organized boycotts of music retailers and lobbied Congress for stricter parental advisory regulations. Tucker rightfully went after the record companies and the entire industry ecosystem. The travesty in it all is the white music executives didn’t have to say a word in their own defense. The Black artists and fans freely did their bidding by attacking Tucker mercilessly. She was widely ridiculed and the subject of lewd rap lyrics. Death Row artist Tupac Shakur, targeted her in the song “Wonda Why They Call U Bitch.” Ironically, Shakur succumbed to the very violence in the music Tucker tried to stop. In so many ways she attempted to save him and others. The artists were willing to kill each other and die for the financial opportunity and fame rap offered. As determined as she was, there was no way she could take on that level of wickedness by herself and win.
Tucker’s prediction that white owned corporations would commercialize, weaponize and profit off the most violent and degrading aspect of Black-street life has come to pass. The corporations make the profits and their Black lackeys either get murdered or face incarceration. Bad Boy CEO Sean Combs is now serving time in federal prison. Death Row CEO Marion “Suge” Knight is serving decades for manslaughter. Six rappers with alleged ties to Empire Distribution have died violently since 2018: Young Dolph was brutally gunned down in Memphis in 2021, Drakeo the Ruler was also murdered in 2021. Florida rapper XXXtentacion was murdered in 2018. Nipsey Hussle was gunned down in 2019, Dallas rapper Mo3 was hunted down in traffic and killed in broad daylight in 2020. Chicago cult figure King Von also faced his violent demise in 2020 in an ongoing dispute with rival rappers.
Fellow Chicago drill rapper Durk ‘Lil Durk’ Banks, is facing conspiracy to commit murder for hire charges in a bid to avenge King Von’s death. Drill is a particularly demonic variant of rap where rappers kill their rivals and boast about it in songs and on social media. They “smoke a pack,” also known as high grade marijuana named after their victims. It’s a way of saying they “smoked” him or her. Durk is distributed by Interscope. Profiting from criminal activity is against the law, yet somehow the indictments never reach the corporate suites. Another Interscope artist, D4vd is currently facing murder, sexual abuse and body mutilation of a 14-year-old girl in Los Angeles. He was quietly dropped from the label before his arrest.
Meanwhile, Atlanta’s Jeffrey “Young Thug” Williams was brought up on state RICO charges (Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations) in 2022 along with 27 co-defendants in Georgia. The cross-dressing rapper and indicted gang leader was facing 120 years in prison. His own lyrics were used as evidence against him. Williams is signed to 300 Entertainment, a company founded by Lyor Cohen, Todd Moscowitz, Roger Gold, and Kevin Liles in 2012. Liles, the quintessential token negro, gets to be the black face insulating his Jewish partners from scrutiny and shame. They get to pretend to be decent business people while Liles faces the music. Pun intended. Liles testified during a bond hearing for Williams and sobbed while campaigning for Williams’ release. In a perfect world Liles and his partners at 300 Entertainment would have been Williams’ co-defendants along with the 27 others. They profited from his image, and the authenticity of his image relied heavily on his criminal activity. Instead, Williams pled guilty to gang, drugs and weapons charges, and was sentenced to 15 years’ probation. Liles and his cronies can effectively resume pushing their version of Black culture to the masses. A vile, genocidal version from which they personally maintain a safe distance.
In hindsight, C. Delores Tucker was way ahead of her time. Rap has now become a cancer in the Black community, one that has metastasized. It has gone from artistic expression to death cult; from promoting Swatch watches and Adidas sneakers to promoting drugs and alcohol; from promoting black pride to celebrating black genocide. The recent murder trial for the killers of rapper Julio Foolio revealed that prior to his execution he had allegedly desecrated the grave of one of their cohorts on social media. This is not how it was supposed to be. Rap stopped being entertainment a long time ago. Money changed everything. To reward a thing is to perpetuate it. By the mid-1990s rap was generating $10 billion annually. Today, that figure has more than doubled. A quote from the 19th century French novelist Honoré de Balzac sums it all up succinctly: “Behind every fortune is a crime.”
