Reality first appeared in the late 1980s-in the sense not of real life but rather of the TV entertainment genre inaugurated by shows such as Cops and America-s Most Wanted; the daytime gabfests of Geraldo, Oprah, and Donahue; and the tabloid news of A Current Affair. In a bracing work of cultural criticism, Eric Harvey argues that reality TV emerged in dialog with another kind of entertainment that served as its foil while borrowing its techniques: gangsta rap. Or, as legendary performers Ice Cube and Ice-T called it, -reality rap.-
Reality rap and reality TV were components of a cultural revolution that redefined popular entertainment as a truth-telling medium. Reality entertainment borrowed journalistic tropes but was undiluted by the caveats and context that journalism demanded. While N.W.A.-s -Fuck tha Police- countered Cops- vision of Black lives in America, the reality rappers who emerged in that group-s wake, such as Snoop Doggy Dogg and
