Tags: Genre, Music Genre, Topical Concept.
Gangsta rap is a subgenre of hip hop music that evolved from hardcore hip hop. The genre was pioneered in the mid-1980s by rappers such as Schoolly D and Ice-T 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 attracted in the late 1980s and early 1990s gangsta rap became the most commercially lucrative subgenre of hip hop.