According to Gene Borrello Blood and crip gang members love Italian mob guys

[Pogo The Clown]

"I don't mean White like Caucasian." - Tony when Melfi asks him if he doesn't consider himself White.


Pogo

[PolackTony]

"I don't mean White like Caucasian." - Tony when Melfi asks him if he doesn't consider himself White.


Pogo

Exactly what I was getting at in my previous comment. "White" is semantically slippery, conflating race and ethnicity in the American context. Just as some of the people I grew up around, Tony is grappling with the fuzziness or dual layers of what it means to be white in an American context as the product of a family of working class, European immigrant origin. Particularly when ethnic solidarity and community ties form such a strong part of that working class, immigrant-derived identity and the group had a long history of cultural and social exclusion from the American Anglo-Protestant mainstream.

Just as Tony feels like he got in at the end of something in regards to LCN, the same is true of Italian American identity as a cohesive ethnic community. His was the last generation to grow up in the old inner-city enclaves of ethnic solidarity, binding familial ties, and vital social instutions such as the church and social club. With his children now fully a product of upper middle-class suburbia, they symbolize the twin paths of bourgeois decadence in a post-modern American future -- affluent entitlement vs. nihilism and apathy.

[CabriniGreen]

This influence goes both ways...... I knew I saw it in a DIA report, there were some Ndrangheta youths, from a powerhouse family making " Trap" music and posting it online. So that's Teens in Naples, Albania, South America, Calabria, when you see it crossover like that... it's clear its outlaw culture, and the aesthetics of it being driven by American influence.....


https://www.ft.com/content/285732c9-e96 ... 31e09003e6

[eboli]

I think you're right to point to the Gotti trials as setting the stage culturally for the mafioso rapper era. And I do think Kool G Rap probably provided some of the first overt mafia references in hip hop, mentioning Pacino and that iconic Maserati/Gotti line. But I don't recall G Rap saying the Giancana stuff until his 2002 album, don't remember any of that on his albums with DJ Polo.

I'd really give the credit of course to Raekwon/Ghost. Only Built For Cuban Linx was the apogee of mafioso Rap, to the point of reinventing a whole new "Wu-Gambinos" persona. What's notable too is that Rae and Ghost are of course from SI. Not that you have Italian social clubs in the middle of the Stapleton Houses, but they had a proximity to the remaining center of Italian-American New York life unlike rappers from Harlem, Bed Stuy, etc.

Yeah, the GIancana stuff came later, but the mob shit started with Live and Let Die, the last album he had with DJ Polo in 1992. I guess that's why some people reference him as the 'godfather of mafioso rap'. There were people before him, like Tim Dog, etc. Later in the 90s you had Raekwon, Wu Tang, Big L, BIg Pun and pretty much half of the east coast rapping about mafia shit. My point being once the sensationalist news died down, so did the pop culture references, and so did rap references and so on.

[NJShore4Life]

Wu -Tang was/is with the Gambinos. The FBI even investigated the connections between Wu-Tang Clan and the Gambinos. Merlino and Ligambi were financing Philly rappers in the late 1990s / early 2000s as well. Hip- Hop and LCN have always crossed paths. The Shines love Italians!

[NJShore4Life]

https://mycitypaper.com/articles/2002-08-15/cb3.shtml

[Jbravo]

Wu was never with Gambinos..
Closest they ever got was with Lord Mike Caruso who was with Chris Binger back in the days...

[RI_Guy]

Well they made the track "wu gambinos" , seems legit lol. But on a serious note, like someone else in the thread said earlier, they're from Stapleton, few minutes drive from south shore, im sure they've been around some people, can't think of where I've seen it but I think some of the members were close to being hit with a rico a few years back. Obviously not lcn connected tho

[CabriniGreen]

Well they made the track "wu gambinos" , seems legit lol. But on a serious note, like someone else in the thread said earlier, they're from Stapleton, few minutes drive from south shore, im sure they've been around some people, can't think of where I've seen it but I think some of the members were close to being hit with a rico a few years back. Obviously not lcn connected tho

You know that Graziano chick, from the show was Ghostfaces stylist, right?

[Grouchy Sinatra]

You can see it on social media, a lot of black guys have Italian names/nicknames as username, Vito Genovese, Jimmy Two Times, x Gambino, etc.

To be more precise, they have Italian gangsters' nicknames. It's the gangsters they admire.

[Grouchy Sinatra]

Yep a ton use Gambino and Gotti names for sure as well as Sosa and shit from Scarface. If they only knew what most mafia guys thought of them.

Obvious anti black racism by mobsters aside, black people who admire the mafia are not the only group that does such and receives ridicule in return. The mafia doesn't think highly of anyone not connected, including Italians. They're nothing more than peasants to them. Also there are a lot of mobsters who do business with rappers and those rappers are held in higher regard to them than just regular white nobodies

[CabriniGreen]

You can see it on social media, a lot of black guys have Italian names/nicknames as username, Vito Genovese, Jimmy Two Times, x Gambino, etc.

To be more precise, they have Italian gangsters' nicknames. It's the gangsters they admire.

I made this point too.... like Biggie was Frank White.....didnt want to be white, he wanted to be King Of NY......

They at first, saw the street corner kid as " The Cool".... then I guess a combo of the Gotti name, Goodfellas n Casino movies, Scarface...... the grandiose criminal mastermind then became "Cool".........but it deeper than that...... a LOT of the early rappers were actually funded or backed by street guys, like Death Row, Rakim, tons of em..... Rap has always idolized the streets....



Scarface wasnt trying to be Cuban.....

Hell Noriega picked a dictator, lol

Nas called himself Escobar, I dont think he wanted to be Colombian, I dont think AZ/ Sosa was trying to be Bolivian.....

Jay-Z had the Carlito references, but I dont think he was trying to be Puerto Rican.....

The Buffalo guys are what... Griselda? Same shit.....

And actually Wu has some lines..." yall still paying the mob?".. I forget the exact song.....

[JeremyTheJew]

Does anyone here actually listen to rap???

Lol. I did a music video YESTERDAY and the amount of times that IM CALLED THE GODFATHER bc I'm white (and head of the label) is a constant thing

Just read some lyrics. Mafia goes hand and hand w rap.

Look a the last luke hit.... they HIRED BLOODS! you dont think that made it to a song somehwrre?

[Gabagool718]

Does anyone here actually listen to rap???

Lol. I did a music video YESTERDAY and the amount of times that IM CALLED THE GODFATHER bc I'm white (and head of the label) is a constant thing

Just read some lyrics. Mafia goes hand and hand w rap.

Look a the last luke hit.... they HIRED BLOODS! you dont think that made it to a song somehwrre?

I would exactly call that a Lucchese hit but good point nonetheless

[BobbyPazzo]

You can see it on social media, a lot of black guys have Italian names/nicknames as username, Vito Genovese, Jimmy Two Times, x Gambino, etc.

To be more precise, they have Italian gangsters' nicknames. It's the gangsters they admire.

Side note and this is a fact because a kid I grew up with is about to sign with Benny the butcher. Not only are they called Griselda but also black soprano family. Those guys are 1000 % friendly with the todaro’s and have connections to sly green. One having nothing to do with each other I’m just saying. They are always posting pictures at nova too. I’m not saying their in business with either one but Benny always says his first connect was sly green’s nehphew. But my boy said for sure they know the old Italians up there and neither one of us no dick about buffalo except that the bills play there. He’s not one to make shit up and he knew the name. Just thought it was relevant to this convo.


I made this point too.... like Biggie was Frank White.....didnt want to be white, he wanted to be King Of NY......

They at first, saw the street corner kid as " The Cool".... then I guess a combo of the Gotti name, Goodfellas n Casino movies, Scarface...... the grandiose criminal mastermind then became "Cool".........but it deeper than that...... a LOT of the early rappers were actually funded or backed by street guys, like Death Row, Rakim, tons of em..... Rap has always idolized the streets....



Scarface wasnt trying to be Cuban.....

Hell Noriega picked a dictator, lol

Nas called himself Escobar, I dont think he wanted to be Colombian, I dont think AZ/ Sosa was trying to be Bolivian.....

Jay-Z had the Carlito references, but I dont think he was trying to be Puerto Rican.....

The Buffalo guys are what... Griselda? Same shit.....

And actually Wu has some lines..." yall still paying the mob?".. I forget the exact song.....