The Psycho Realm Blues: The Violence of Policing, Disordering Practices, and Rap Criticism in Los Angeles

In the 1990s, the Los Angeles Police Department's Rampart Division gained notoriety for its corruption charges and excessive use of force. The Rampart scandal was not an isolated incident but rather an expression of the normalized violence of the LAPD during the ongoing neoliberal restructuring of the city. As street reporters, the Psycho Realm, a Chicano hip-hop group, documented this violence through their rap albums. According to blues scholar Clyde Woods, hip hop is a "blues revival movement" that serves as a tradition of investigation and criticism. Following Woods's framework, I conduct a content analysis of the music of the Psycho Realm through a conjunctural analysis of 1990s Los Angeles to discuss the link between the violence of policing and neoliberal racial capitalism in the city. I argue that the music of the Psycho Realm provides a disordering narrative and practice that disrupt the normative understanding of policing, as well as political economy, and envisions an alternative social warrant. Analyzing the music of the Psycho Realm and the violence of policing in 1990s Los Angeles offers a lesson for ongoing debates revolving around police violence and reform policies.