Living Gangsta in a Gangsta Film

When I was younger, throughout my teen years, I listened to quite a bit of gangsta rap. I was neither aware of the label the music I was hearing had been given nor the meaning of the lyrics that flew high above my head. My interest in this music was not substantive, but largely due to my aspirations for acceptance and coolness in the eyes of my punky white cousin from Albuquerque whose ‘thug’ bona fides were solidified by the Wu-Tang Clan and Kris Kross posters hanging on his bedroom wall. The political and social implications of the lyrics to which I was listening were not clear to me; I did not grasp the violence, anger, and specifically urban realities that were the focus of gangsta rap songs. Gangsta films of the 1990s relied heavily on the themes presented in gangsta rap music, and integrated hip-hop culture into these movies via plot and the casting of rap artists in important roles.

Keeling and Smith-Shomade both locate gangsta films as a particular convention of the 1990s, a time in which gangsta rap was not only beginning to rise, but had begun to dominate a large portion of the music scene. The presence of gangsta rap songs on the Billboard Top 100 indicates that this music was not limited in its appeal, but rather found a wide audience in the United States. Its inclusion, in thematic structure and also the prevalence of gangsta rappers in cinematic roles, in black-oriented cinema is not surprising. These films sought to represent and confront issues of daily black struggle, particularly in the post-industrial urban city. These “ghettocentric” films depict a very specific set of experiences (Keeling quotes Robin D.G. Kelley to pinpoint this genre’s focus): "the criminalization, surveillance, incarceration, and immiseration of black youth in the postindustrial city have been the central theme in gangsta rap, and at the same time, sadly, constitute the primary experiences from which their identities are constructed."

The confluence of gangsta rap and gangsta film is clearly articulated in many movies of the 90s, among them Set It Off. The film is set in urban Los Angeles, with the main characters living in an inner city housing project. The violence and danger inherent in “the projects,” in the lives of urban blacks, is asserted early: after Stoney’s brother tells her he is not going to college, despite everything she did to support him and acquire the money so that he could get a better life (including selling her body), he is gunned down by the police after being mistaken for a bank robber. Each one of the four main character’s lives are marked by violence and overt economic and personal struggle; they feel trapped in their realities (except Cleo) and are prohibited upward mobility by a system intent on keeping them (black bodies generally) down. The film introduces us to their experiences and realities, and by the time these women turn to crime, when they decide that robbing a bank is their best and perhaps only option, the audience empathizes with and understands this conclusion. The police violence/brutality, structural violence inherent in settings of urban poverty (Stoney’s prostitution), economic struggles, and struggles against the system are all tenants of the film that facilitate Set It Off’s inclusion in the ‘gangsta’ genre. The film engages with issues and political debates similar to those represented by the lyrics of gangsta rap, which Smith-Shomade identifies as: “murder, getting even, police harassment, drive-by shootings, and the incessant violence of gang warfare.”

The film highlights its alignment with gangsta films in two other important ways. According to Keeling, the success of gangsta films depended on the “films’ ability to capitalize […] on the popularity and profitability of […] existing forms of mass-produced entertainment (rap music and music video) to which the films were linked.” The casting of rapper Queen Latifah, as the main character Cleo, immediately links gangsta rap with gangsta film in the mind of the viewer. Latifah’s character represents the traditional ghettoized male body and experience. She is content being “‘nothin’ but a hood rat,’” and dies violently but heroically at the end after helping Frankie and Stoney to escape. Her gangsta persona is further cemented when, each time she steals a car, she refuses to drive until she has set the stereo to music she can “‘ride to,’" consistently rap music. In addition to Latifah, the casting of Dr. Dre as Black Sam is incredibly important in establishing the film’s connection to the lyrical themes of gangsta rap. Dr. Dre’s notoriety as a gangsta rapper was cemented with the release of one of the most fundamental gangsta rap songs, “Fuck Tha Police,” off NWA’s first album, Straight Outta Compton. (The reaction to which actually included a formal letter from the FBI condemning the sentiments expressed in the song.) Dre’s role in Set It Off is to provide the four leading women with the means to commit their crimes (by lending them guns), with the means to enact violence against the system that constrains them. As one of the founding fathers of gangsta rap, Dre’s portrayal of Black Sam is definitive/the embodiment of the “intersection of film and music genres, aesthetics, and politics” that the gangsta film generally, and Set It Off in particular, seeks to explore.