While selling at the Roadium Open Air Market in Torrance, Kim noticed that the man selling records always had a line. In 1976, he and his wife, Boo Ja, and their three young children were among the first waves of immigrants who left South Korea for Los Angeles.ДЄt first, Kim and his wife sold womenвЂ™s hair clips and barrettes at outdoor swap meets around Southern California. Wan Joon Kim escaped his native North Korea in 1950, sailing down the coast to South Korea with his family in his fatherвЂ™s fishing boat. вЂњThey were good to me as I was good to them.вЂќ His son now runs the stall, selling Latin music to a changing demographic. вЂњMost of my customers were the gang-bangers and drug dealers, so I built a friendship with them,вЂќ said the now frail Kim, 79, in an interview interpreted by his son, Kirk. riots of 1992 created an indelible image of Korean immigrant shop owners in urban neighborhoods often in conflict with their African American customers, but that was hardly the whole story.

If it came straight outta Compton, the birthplace of gangsta rap, often it first went through Wan Joon Kim. Dre, Ice Cube - a far less likely figure pushed the music long before most folks knew it existed. gangsta rap figures who helped popularize the raw urban genre two decades ago - Suge Knight, Dr. Wilson went on to become an underground rap star. The cassette sold close to 15,000 copies over the next year.

News clips in gangsta rap made me do it