Not only have gangbangers established an identity of their own, they have created one that others crave to borrow.

When pampered suburban white kids turn their baseball caps around backwards, disport themselves in pants five sizes too big, and play rap odes to drive-by shootings and the proper disdainful treatment of "bitches," you know the gangbangers are onto something that resonates across the social strata.

In fact, their images, their symbols, their manner, their style have all proved so compelling that in the end, gangbanging has morphed into what may be contemporary society's most exalted state of being:  a brand.