Enough is Enough: Gangsta Rap

The title Enough is Enough: Gangsta Rap apparently expresses the fondest wishes of MTV. Watching this squirmy half hour, you get the feeling the music-video outlet would like this nasty gangsta rap stuff to just go away. But it won’t. This uncompromising rap subdivision, whose worst trait is its all-too-common misogyny, continues to sell millions of records and exert real pop-cultural impact. This documentary offers the usual justifications (”All we’re doing is being reporters like Connie Chung, and telling you what’s going on,” remarks one interviewee) along with a few unexpectedly pointed ones, such as a narration that cites ”the dismantling of social programs in the early ’80s” and ”the crack trade” as two of the reasons for an increased feeling of hopelessness in both rap music and life. Some even quibble with the name of the genre itself; rapper-actor Tupac Shakur says, ”Is Frank Sinatra a ‘gangsta singer’? Is Steven Seagal a ‘gangsta actor’?” His point is well-taken; there were tough customers in entertainment long before this strain of hip-hop came along. B-