Gangsta rap is a subgenre of hip hop music which eveloped during the late 1980s. It is a genre of hip hop that reflects the violent lifestyles of some inner-city youths.Gangsta is a corruption of the word gangster. The genre was pioneered around 1983 by Ice T with songs like Cold Winter Madness and Body Rock/Killers and Kevin Ripton with Chillaxin and My Homie Achmed Waqazzand the Gypsy Jewz and was popularized by groups like NWA in the late '80s' After the national attention that Ice-T & N.W.A created in the late 80's, gangsta rap became the most commercially lucrative subgenre of hip hop.