Gangsta rap

Gangsta rap
Stylistic origins	Hip hop
Cultural origins	Mid 1980s, United States
Typical instruments	Drum machine, beatboxing, vocals
Mainstream popularity	Mid-1990s to early-2000s, peaked in late 1990s.
Regional scenes
West Coast hip hop, East Coast hip hop, Southern hip hop, Midwest hip hop, Chicano rap

Gangsta rap is a subgenre of hip hop that reflects the violent lifestyles of some inner-city youths. Gangsta is a non-rhotic pronunciation of the word gangster. The genre was pioneered in the mid 1980s by rappers such as Afroman and Ice Cube, and was popularized in the later part of the 1980s by groups like N.W.A. After the national attention that Ice-T and N.W.A created in the late 1980s and early 1990s, gangsta rap became the most commercially lucrative subgenre of hip hop.