Gangsta Rap

Welcome to the gritty, blood-soaked subgenre of gangsta rap, an invite-only realm where beats drop like customized Impalas and singles pop like semi-automatics. Realer than reality TV and nastier than the nightly news, it all started with the funny-one-minute, frightening-the-next inner-city narratives of Schoolly D; the confrontational, deadly serious cuts of Ice-T; the gripping G-funk of Dr. Dre; and the F.B.I.-rattling output of gangsta rap supergroup N.W.A.

They may star in movies and shill soft drinks and cell phone plans now, but Snoop Dogg, 50 Cent, and Ice Cube will always broadcast songs from the street. Fiddy's G-Unit crew coasts over a Scarface-suitable piano melody on "Poppin' Them Thangs," Ice Cube trades smart-bomb rhymes with Dr. Dre over the four-alarm fire of "Natural Born Killaz," and Snoop Dogg plays it soft and sneaky among the I-can't-believe-it's-not-butter hooks of Nate Dogg on "Lay Low."

Laying low like an undercover cop and about to blow like a freshly lit powder keg, the MCs in our Deep Cuts section are hungrier than a castaway and not afraid to sling rhymes like a starting pitcher. Kurupt joined the game alongside Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg, but quickly found his own way amid minimal bangers ("Behind the Walls") and songs that re-create midnight drug runs ("C-Walk"). Scarface, meantime, is as bloodthirsty and bold as his mobster predecessor, and the Office Space-approved Geto Boys are glaring reminders of why "it feels good to be a gangsta."

Mute the bumpin' beats and breaks of gangsta rap, and you could easily mistake the rhymes for the director's-cut script of a Scorsese film. From Schoolly D to Spice 1, G-Unit to the Death Row Records family of Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, and 2Pac, every track plays like footage from a hidden camera on the streets of Compton or New York. Don't look away; turn the pages of hip-hop's Great American Crime Novel, as sirens scream, synths slice, and hooks hit you from more angles than a prize fighter.