Some people say hip-hop glorifies violence. We think they don't know what violence is...yet.
Violent hip-hop generally falls into three distinct categories: gun clapping, physical beating, or slasher flick-style horrorcore songs. M.O.P., Grand Daddy I.U. and Big L prefer to reign down hot lead on all "foes and enemies," while Kool G Rap and The Convicts subscribe to the belief that a punch in the face can solve all of the world's problems. Meanwhile, serial killers and cannibals are the violent protagonists of choice for Esham, Gangsta N.I.P. and the Gravediggaz. We'll explore these all in depth herein.
Ranging from the hilariously ridiculous to the eerily realistic, here are the 10 most violent rap songs of all time,
10. Immortal Technique "Dance with the Devil" (2001)
Body count: 2
Best threat: "The shirt covered her face, but she screamed and clawed/So Billy stomped on the bitch, until he broke her jaw/The dirty bastards knew exactly what they were doing/They kicked her until they cracked her ribs and she stopped moving"
Album: Revolutionary, Vol. 1
Producer: 44 Caliber
Label: Viper
Never one to mince his words, this brutal morality tale from Immortal Technique describes a character named Billy Jacobs going to any length to move up the ranks in the drug game. Challenged to prove himself once and for all, he offers to rape an innocent woman to demonstrate his heartlessness, and is later driven to suicide after the identity of his victim is revealed. In the final verse, Tech places himself into the narrative to blur the line between fact and fiction. He explains that the song is, "Really about how we are killing ourselves and destroying the most valuable resource that the Latino/Black community has, our women." The central scene itself is also intensely violent, hence its inclusion here, as the details of the abduction and the attack are delivered with a vivid clarity.
9. Grand Daddy I.U. "We Got Da Gats" (1994)
Body count: 6
Best threat: "I'm firm, my gun bust off like sperm/Plus my hobby and job is buckin' niggaz full-term"
Album: Lead Pipe
Producer: Grand Daddy I.U., Kay Cee
Label: Epic
In response to the "put your weapons away and let's box" train of thought, Grand Daddy I.U. argues the case against putting your fists up as he explains that he'd rather shoot you in the face than "shoot a fair one." This continued the long standing argument that's floated around for years, with the Geto Boys' Willie D recording "Put the Fuckin' Gun Away" and Kool G Rap insisting that everyone "Go For Your Guns" instead. Following accusations that he sounded too similar to fellow Strong Island native Rakim on his debut, I.U. adopted a more aggressive vocal delivery for his second album, which also spilled over into the content. "To hell with swingin' a right try to fight/I ain't throwin' love taps, I bust caps, aight?" It's tough to argue with that kind of logic, as even for the most loyal fans of the "sweet science" would have an uphill battle against lines like "Claim you got a knuckle game, boy, you get deaded."
8. Apache "A Fight" (1992)
Body count: No fatalities but plenty of beatings
Best threat: "Crack that jaw, what's more bring it/I'll rip your fuckin' arm out the socket if you swing it"
Album: Apache Ain't Shit
Producer: S.I.D. Reynolds
Label: Tommy Boy
Flavor Unit representative Apache hit the charts in 1993 with the Q-Tip produced "Gangsta Bitch," a dedication to all the bad-ass broads of the day. For this uptempo album cut, Apache manages to cram in every racial epithet ever invented about Caucasians as he threatens bodily harm on any cracker foolish enough to step to him, even going as far to suggest a game of Pin The Tail On The Honky. Was this an early attempt to troll the rap music media or did Apache really just not eff with paleface at all? "I won't attack a cracker for nothin'," he explains at the end of the first verse. "If a black and a white's in a fight, I'm jumpin' in!" Best song about beating up whites ever?
7. M.O.P. f/ Kool G Rap "Stick to Ya Gunz" (1996)
Body count: 6
Best threat: "Buckin at all you sucka cluckin' niggas that want the ruckus/We'll be three niggas who's clappin' but we ain't applaudin' you motherfuckers"
Album: Firing Squad
Producer: DJ Premier
Label: Relativity
The Mash Out Posse specialize in violent rap, and this is a prime example of their finest work, thanks in no small part to stellar contributions from Kool G Rap and DJ Premier. When Billy Danze declares that "the most beautifullest thing in the world is a fo' fo' Desert Eagle," it sounds closer to a church sermon than an anti-social Gun Rap song. KGR offers another show-stopping cameo with his talk of how you "ain't gotta go rush to Toys "R" Us to get your Cabbage Patch'd, kids," while Fizzy Wo promises to "bust open your head like avocados." Scared to death, scared to look.
6. Live Squad "Murderahh" (1992)
Body count: 5
Best threat: "Well the job is done, now we can go/What about the baby?/Throw it out the window"
Album: N/A
Producer: Live Squad
Label: Tommy Boy
Another casualty of the post "Cop Killer" fallout which saw record labels pressured into putting a lid on violent rap, this was the only single from Live Squad (although they also managed to get their Game of Survival short film released before Tommy Boy dropped them). Telling the story of the dude orphaned in "Heartless" (the other side of the single), the hilarious video opens with the protagonist randomly shooting a kid walking down the street before setting off on a killing spree that involves some dude who dissed his sister, a failed shooter, and a nosy cop. Sadly, lead rapper Stretch was later executed in a gangland-style hit in what many believe was retaliation for his involvement in Tupac getting robbed and shot in New York, despite the two being friends.
5. Brotha Lynch Hung "Meat Cleaver" (2013)
Body count: 5
Best threat: "Cut niggas up, sector by sector/Next to her dead, first cousin and nephew/Next to her head, bloody intestines/Next to her bed, other intestines"
Album: Mannibalector
Producer: Seven
Label: Strange Music
Brotha Lynch Hung's Mannibalector album is the greatest thing to happen to the Cannibal Rap genre since Gangsta N.I.P. first hit the scene. No surprise that "Meat Cleaver" details cutting up potential meals, cooking body parts in Crisco, eating brains, and "sticking dick in a corpse." Unlike the majority of this list, this song was released this year, indicating that horrorcore rap will never die as long as there are warm bodies to dismember.
4. Necro "Dead Body Disposal" (2001)
Body count: 3
Best threat: "For dismemberment gentlemen I recommend/Heavy-duty bone saws that cut through gentle limbs like pendulums"
Album: Gory Days
Producer: Necro
Label: Psycho+Logical
Get your Walter White on with this step-by-step guide to getting rid of corpses from the hardest working man in Death Rap himself. Ever wanted to hear Necro singing about cadavers to the tune of Salt 'N Pepa's "Let's Talk About Sex"? We got you. What the track lacks in variety it makes up for in grisly detail, including how to best drain the blood from a dead body and discourage local wildlife from making a meal out of the remains (pro tip: use pepper spray). Admittedly, you can get most of this information from watching The Sopranos or Goodfellas, but any hip-hop track that teaches you useful life skills is always worth a spin.
3. Ganksta N-I-P "Psycho" (1992)
Body count: 10+
Best threat: "A muthafuckin' psycho, I need to be dead /Took the knife out of my neck and ate the meat out my own head"
Album: The South Park Psycho
Producer: N/A
Label: Rap-A-Lot, Priority
Many Houston rappers seemed to be trying to outdo each other in terms of how offensive they could be on record during the early ’90s. Carrying on the Rap-A-Lot horrorcore tradition started by the Geto Boys, Gangsta N.I.P. took it to new heights of ridiculousness as he promised to "breastfeed newborn babies with unleaded gas," marry your moms before murdering her on the honeymoon, and perform various acts of cannibalism on his hapless victims (including himself). While labelmates Too Much Trouble (a.k.a. The Baby Geto Boys) took the crown for the most disturbing rap track ever created with the pro-rape "Take The Pussy," N.I.P. delivered his gruesome atrocities with the same sense of humor associated with A Nightmare On Elm Street, and has been able to stretch the idea over the course of nine albums so far. Must be all the human stomach meat tacos that keep him going...
2. Geto Boys "Mind of a Lunatic" (1989)
Body count: 3
Best threat: "She begged me not to kill her, I gave her a rose/Then slit her throat, and watched her shake till her eyes closed" - Bushwick Bill
Album: Grip It! On That Other Level
Producer: Doug King
Label: Rap-A-Lot
While New York was busy exploring its "conscious" phase in 1989, Houston's Geto Boys offered a welcome alternative to the sudden flood of "edutainment" with the ultra-violence of the Grip It! On That Other Level album. This precursor to their classic "My Mind's Playing Tricks On Me" and a follow-up of sorts to "Assassins," "Mind of a Lunatic" details the disturbed psychological conditions of the trio's characters. Bushwick plays a murderous rapist who enjoys a side order of necrophilia; Scarface smokes so much embalming fluid that he flips out and slits the throat of his cokehead girlfriend's grandma and winds up in an asylum; and Willie D is a ruthless killer willing to catch the body of anyone aged "nine to 99" once he has a bellyful of E&J, including cripples and the blind, or just blow up your entire family if you really piss him off. The stage was now set for endless variations of "horrorcore" rap in the years that followed, but few did it as well as the G.B's.
1. Kool G Rap "Hey Mister Mister" (1995)
Body count: 0
Best threat: "Bitch why you lyin', bitch you've been cheatin'/Now I gotsta to give your motherfuckin' ass a beatin/I punched her in the ribcage and kicked her in the stomach/Take off all my motherfuckin' jewellery, bitch run it/I stomped her and I kicked her and I punched her in the face"
Album: N/A
Producer: T-Ray
Label: N/A
This song is so offensive that no record label on the planet would even dream of releasing it, but thanks to the magic of white-label bootlegging, this timeless piece of ignorance eventually saw the light of day. Drawing on his experiences as a teenage pimp, Kool G Rap details several graphic beatings that he dishes out to his unfortunate victims. Starting with a dame he suspects of being unfaithful, he pistol-whips her unconscious in the street while threatening onlookers to mind their business before tracking down a hooker who's stashing cash and punishing her with a beating and a mouthful of trouser snake. Nothing short of brutal.
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