I think it was always around I was shooting slingshot like that since I was a kid the style comes from archery guys who grow up with archery naturally would use that same style in there slingshot shooting it probably goes back since the beginning.
Interesting - in the 40s and 50s, I shot kids' longbows before I shot kids' catapults, and the norm in UK, at the time, was to hold longbows and catapults upright. The holding hand position was the same - handle upright.
We were brainwashed from an early age with pictures of lower class Welsh archers with longbows shooting upper class French armoured knights on horseback. This, we were taught, was a Good Thing. There were a lot of Welsh archers, so shooting the longbows Gangsta style, they might have got in each others way, and changed the outcome of the Battle of Agincourt, and godknowswhat thereafter.
This may have been my first exposure to the concept of the Class System. Using cheap labour to do the real work for you.
It was probably also the last time I heard the English saying anything good about the Welsh.
Later, we were told, King Richard I, "the Lionheart", was shot by a lower class CROSSBOW archer from the battlements of a French castle. This was sneaky, and simply NOT FAIR, considering that he only wanted to enter the castle, rape/kill most of the people who were not worth capturing for ransom, remove anything of value, and burn down the town.
This dastardly incident severely impeded the Lionheart from doing all the things the English loved him for - like never learning to speak English, only ever spending about 6 weeks in England, massacring thousands of citizens of Acre, and bleeding England dry of gold and valuables to pay for his armour, horses, Crusades and some other things that they did not tell us about at school. And needing to be ransomed from a shrewd captor in Germany, who received something like England's annual GNP (Gross National Product) for releasing Richard to his loving subjects.
So we got the impression that CROSSBOWS, shot Gangsta style, were kind of CHEATING, and a Bad Thing.
Sorry, what were we talking about?
Really the question you should be asking who is the first person to use the term "gangster" to describe that style on the internet that you could track down probably. As far as who orginally started it I have feeling it goes back to the beginning. With people independently learning that way. I have seen videos of kids in Africa India all over the world shooting like that to some it just comes naturally to shot slingshots that way basically turning your slingshot into a bow which is the closest thing to a slingshot in operation there is .
Yes, thanks, I really meant the style, not the word "Gangsta" or "Gangster".