To Live and Defy in LA: How Gangsta Rap Changed America

by Felicia Angeja Viator

How gangsta rap shocked America, made millions, and pulled back the curtain on an urban crisis.How is it that gangsta rap—so dystopian that it struck aspiring Brooklyn rapper and future superstar Jay-Z as “over the top”—was born in Los Angeles, the home of Hollywood, surf, and sun? In the Reagan era, hip-hop was understood to be the music of the inner city and, with rare exception, of New York. Rap was considered the poetry of the street, and it was thought to breed in close quarters, the product of dilapidated tenements, crime-infested housing projects, and graffiti-covered subway cars. To many in the industry, LA was certainly not hard-edged and urban enough to generate authentic hip-hop; a new brand of black rebel music could never come from La-La Land.But it did. In To Live and Defy in LA, Felicia Viator tells the story of the young black men who built gangsta rap and changed LA and the world. She takes readers into South Central, Compton, Long Beach, and Watts two decades after the long hot summer of 1965. This was the world of crack cocaine, street gangs, and Daryl Gates, and it was the environment in which rappers such as Ice Cube, Dr. Dre, and Eazy-E came of age.By the end of the 1980s, these self-styled “ghetto reporters” had fought their way onto the nation’s radio and TV stations and thus into America’s consciousness, mocking law-and-order crusaders, exposing police brutality, outraging both feminists and traditionalists with their often retrograde treatment of sex and gender, and demanding that America confront an urban crisis too often ignored.

Genres: Nonfiction, Music, History, Race, Politics

344 pages, Kindle Edition

Published February 25, 2020

Reviews

[Briana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Calling all music aficionados, LA history buffs, and racial justice advocates. Felicia Viator drops readers in 1980's southeast Los Angeles with all its color, smells, sights, and most powerfully - its sounds. Viator's social history combines line-by-line lyrical analysis with the socio-political moment, one that feels all that more important as our country manages to still struggle to find answers to America's history of anti-blackness and police violence in the wake of the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. The book not only conveys the moment with so much detail, so much clarity that I feel transported to the studio and streets of LA. It's also made listening to the music of the era all more enjoyable as I can experience a window into a world hidden even to those Angelenos who were miles away from experiencing sunshine, palm trees, and Hollywood. This missing piece of California history and national cultural history is a must-read for anyone who wants to learn more about the LAPD's reign of terror and the subsequent cultural outcry from the streets, manifested from new accessible recording technologies.

This passage I've found myself coming back to time and time again, searching for answers to our modern predicament;

"In Southern California, the plight of those in living in low-income inner-city neighborhoods because especially acute in the early 1980s when Proposition 13, an initiative passed in 1978 that placed a strict two percent limit on annual property tax increases, caused state and local governments to slash spending on roads, parks, schools, libraries and fire, pandemic and police departments. In the wake of the tax revolt, Los Angeles County leaders put forth proposals for levying new local taxes to protect and expand public services but those efforts mostly failed. This meant that those families already confined to the poorest neighborhoods by low wages and limited employment opportunities saw public schools deteriorate further and municipal services like public transportation become increasingly unreliable. The shifts coincided with and resulted in, the further expansion of local street gangs, the rise in violent crime, and the spread of illicit industries, including guns and narcotics trafficking. These were devastating changes that gave the county's police agencies leverage to demand a larger proportion of public funds for crime control at a time when city budgets were in the red. By the early 1980s, residents in the most economically vulnerable regions of South Los Angeles county were struggling to adapt to deteriorating public services and worse job options and an increased police presence."

[Stephanie Kurek · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great history of LA in the 1980s. Brings together a social movement history of police accountability struggles, an institutional perspective on LAPD, a sector analysis of rap music and drug trafficking in South Central, plus the political economic context of the Reagan years to tell the story of gansta rap in a way that makes crazy stuff make sense, and the stuff that you thought made sense seem crazy.

[モーリー · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book started out very strong for me but I lost steam over the course of the narrative, especially in the last third or so, because of wanting less (repetition) and more (exploration of the topic) at the same time. Despite being from an academic press I found it very readable, and the author's perspective is refreshingly nuanced and appreciative of the full range of human reaction to living under the boot of a police state. (I wish this would be adopted by more news media, 30+ years later, covering the topics here that are still just as current.) The author very lays out the full context behind the initial development of LA gangsta rap and its cultural impact especially in the 80s, with so much rich detail (magazine articles, MTV, news, and interviews).

Once the story enters the early 90s, with NWA's members splintering into solo or other projects, the details started to feel more repetitive, and the broader context was not being made as clear. The story of the interplay between audience/consumer and musician, whether locally or nationally, was a strong and very interesting element of the "backstory" portion of the book, leading up to the mid-80s, and also as the reason why Eazy-E and NWA's early releases worked so well. If the repetitive language and content was cut overall it would probably be 30 pages shorter - and there is room in the narrative frame to explore audience reception and reaction in a more satisfying way, as in the earlier parts of this book.

Of course, the audience factor after NWA and its members became famous and influential beyond LA is a book-length topic in itself - reaction and reception, but also remixing, appropriation, and more. I wouldn't expect this to fit into one chapter at the end of a book that is mostly about the genre's very initial development and context. And yes, contemporary reactions to Ice Cube and Dr. Dre's different creative trajectories post-NWA are covered. But having less meat in comparison to the detailed exploration of LA's 80s mobile dance parties and gang violence at Run-DMC's first area show, though, left it feeling imbalanced.

Despite the verbal and content repetition driving me a little nuts toward the end (even someone unfamiliar with LA rappers can understand who uses which stage name after the fifth or sixth time we get reminded), this is both readable and relevant. If you're one of the millions of people (ahem, me) who encountered gangsta rap as it was getting started when you were younger and were drawn to it but didn't really get why these guys were so angry or "violent" -- after reading this, you will get it. As the author rightly puts it, you will understand why their music can just as well be described as liberation and rebellion.

[Mark R. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent, excellent, excellent. I don't know how a book about the beginnings, and lasting influence, of west coast gangsta rap could be any more informative or insightful than this one. Bow down before Felicia Angeja Viator; she knows what she's talking about. "To Live and Defy in LA" is exhaustingly researched, with an impressive list of sources at its end--and the book is highly entertaining as well.

To be clear, you won't find much in here about Tupac Shakur or Notorious B.I.G.; the years covered in "To Live and Defy in LA" go up to the early nineties, with a focus on Ice Cub, Eazy-E, and their wildly influential group NWA, explaining the catalysts and reasons for the emergence of this art form, in the decades leading up to the late eighties, when groundbreaking albums like "Eazy Duz It" and "Straight Outta Compton" were released upon an unprepared public.

If you are a fan of west coast gangsta rap, or even just rap in general, I implore you to buy a copy of this book.

[Carmen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm so grateful to have read this book. I sometimes feel like the world of American music is parallel universes, and I am so glad when I learn more about the parts I don't know. Like living in Texas when Selena was murdered, and having a giant world of parallel music opened up. Of course I know many of the names and artists in this story, but I didn't know the L.A. history, and the scope of the history, "L.A. gansta rappers, like blues singers, directly engaged with people on the fringes, even as they knowingly provoked, and elicited animus from, those with the power." Thank you, Ms. Viator, for putting this narrative together for those of us watching it from the outside.

[Austin Scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thoroughly enjoyed this text, though it is steeped deeply in the genesis and legacy as NWA as the groundbreaking provocateurs of street culture. it discusses in detail the inextricable relationship between gangsta rap and the LAPD, conjoining the militaristic force perpetrated by the police in LA county during the late 1980s and early 1990s and the burgeoning genre of rap and its many subcultures.

[Lynn Yu · Rating 4 out of 5]

"As Jonathan Gold understand, "Fuck tha Police" was an uncensored expression of powerlessness — a fantasy about scoring a victory when defeat was already a burning reality."

[Shauna · Rating 4 out of 5]

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