Asked by the producer what he wanted to make, DeMarco replied: “We’re smoking cigars. I am 25 per cent Italian. People talk a lot about ‘gangster rap.’ A lot of Italian-Americans in the movies are ...

For fans and critics who intellectualize it, gangsta rap, or “reality rap,” is serious business. For them, the defining genre of West Coast hip-hop represents true stories from the ’hood as told by ...