Frost: The Rise Of A Chicano Rap Legend

Love him or hate him, one Chicano rapper has written the blueprint everyone else follows.

Hip hop might have first emerged in the 70s against a backdrop of cocaine fueled optimism, but the commercial pinnacle of hip hop emerged in the 90s against a backdrop of uncertainty—a tumultuous age that likewise gave birth to the Los Angeles riots and hundreds of gang related homicides each year.

The latest incarnation of hip hop, which the media would dub “gangster rap,” not only terrified middle-class America at its sheltered core, but unapologetically offered an entire generation of angst-ridden youth an unfiltered microphone.

But beyond the unrest was an evolving musical form. While in the east, a ruckus trio known as the Beastie Boys catapulted to commercial prominence by mixing rock and rap a few years earlier. In the west, a new form of rap blended Mexican and American culture and shed light on the harsh realities of life in the barrio.