From N.W.A to Mos Def: Examining hip hop’s love/hate relationship with guns

Some of the biggest names in hip-hop go beyond the lyrics to bring you a raw and unfiltered look at gun violence in urban communities. The producers of Lil Wayne’s The Carter, Tupac’s Thug Angel, and the BEEF series present Number One with a Bullet.

Ice Cube, Mos Def, and Fat Joe are among the hip-hop luminaries explaining how they used music as weapons to tell the stories of the violence they experienced growing up in the streets of L.A. and New York. For these artists, hip-hop isn’t just music, it’s a movement.

B-Real of Cypress Hill, Young Buck, Obie Trice, The Last Mr. Bigg, and 40 Glocc take you back to the scene of the crime where they were shot and almost lost their lives.