Hardcore hip hop is a form of hip hop music that has confrontational, often violent lyrics, and generally sparse, gritty urban beats. The genre began in the mid- to late 1980s with artists like Boogie Down Productions on the East Coast and Ice-T on the West. Soon after, hardcore hip hop evolved into gangsta rap with the emergence of N.W.A. and similar West Coast groups, who dominated the genre for several years. Groups such as O N Y X, with their debut album Bacdafucup and The Wu-Tang Clan's debut Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) (see 1993 in music), re-energized East Coast hardcore, and the style soon dominated music charts with stars like Jay-Z and DMX.
Hardcore hip hop is also the title of a single by DJ Shadow.
Rap may have been nothin' but a New York thing for most of the '80s, but the West Coast was about to rise up, and it didn't sound anything like the Eagles.
A year later, Ice T hit with the most controversial song in the history of rap, "Cop Killer." Arriving in the wake of the Rodney King incident and just before the L.A. riots, it was written from the perspective of a man out to "get even" for police brutality.
Reflecting on the hardcore style of rap'sgangstas and street reporters of the '90s, Nelson George says, "What was really serious was the fact that crack was overwhelming all these neighborhoods.
Hardcorerap is tough, streetwise, intense, and often menacing (although the latter isn't always the case; there is room for humour and exuberance as well).
Gangstarap is the style most commonly associated with hardcorerap, but not all hardcorerap revolves around gangsta themes, even though there is a great deal of overlap, especially among hardcore rappers of the '90s.
The first hardcorerap came from the East Coast during the late '80s, when artists began to move away from party rhymes and bragging about their microphone skills; their music and language began to reflect the gritty, often harsh urban surroundings in which it was usually created and enjoyed.
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