Thug Culture
When rap music started becoming worldwide through the likes of the NWA, Queen Latifah and Ron D Mc, a ghetto fabulous trend followed.
Unfortunately, over here in UK, young and impressionable teenagers misinterpreted the content of the artists lyrics.
They tried to emulate the crimes that the artists address in their tunes. But this is not what the artists were trying to achieve. They were trying to teach the young generation about what they had been through and why. Youth started trying to be like their idols and to do this they turned to gang and guns crimes.
Main cities like London are now full of gangs who commit crimes, just to achieve respect from their peers or because they want the latest pair of kicks (trainers).
London must be like the major US cities here now....plagued by drugs and gangs in certain areas.
I don't think, though, there was a "misinterpretation" of rap lyrics. Most of the articles on rap music say the lyrics are filthy, violent, and shouldn't even be allowed on the airwaves in a civilized country.
Gangs are a self-organizing principle when civilisation is falling to ruin and the moral order of the previous civilisation has collapsed. Without any sense of people, nation, responsibility, rites and ceremonies, gangs arise creating structures akin to these often perverse and depraved but filling a void that human beings cannot endure for long.