gangsta rap

Hardcore rap music style reflecting the violent street life of the US ghettos. Ice Cube put gangsta rap in the pop charts with such albums as Amerikkka's Most Wanted (1990) and The Predator (1992), and Ice-T with Original Gangsta (1991). Throughout the 1990s gangsta rap became increasingly appropriated into the mainstream, with artists such as Puff Daddy embracing the pop market and tempering some of the aggressive excesses of the style.