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Hip-hop or hip hop (originally disco rap) is a popular music Music genre that emerged in the early 1970s from the African-American community of New York City. The style is characterized by its synthesis of a wide range of musical techniques. Hip-hop includes rapping often enough that the terms can be used synonymously. However, "hip-hop" more properly denotes an entire hip-hop culture. Other key markers of the genre are the disc jockey, turntablism, scratching, beatboxing, and instrumental tracks. Cultural interchange has always been central to the hip-hop genre. It simultaneously borrows from its social environment while commenting on it.
The hip-hop genre and culture emerged from block parties in ethnic minority neighborhoods of New York City, particularly The Bronx. DJs began expanding the instrumental breaks of popular records when they noticed how excited it would make the crowds. The extended instrumental breaks provided a platform for Breakdancing and rappers. These breakbeats enabled the subsequent evolution of the hip-hop style. Many of the records used were disco due to its popularity at the time.
This disco-inflected music is known as old-school hip-hop. The genre became more stylistically diverse in the 1980s as electro music started to inform new-school hip-hop. The transition between the mid-1980s and 1990s became known as hip-hop's Golden age as the genre started to earn wide critical acclaim and generate massive sales.
The popularity of hip-hop music expanded throughout the late 1990s and into the 21st century, where it became a worldwide phenomenon. Most countries have local variations on the style. By 2017, hip-hop had become the bestselling genre of popular music.
A common variation on "hip hop" is "hippity hop", which was in wide usage by the 19th century. It appears in works like a poem from 1882 where four children sing, "Hippity hop to the candy Shop!"Cummings, Elizabeth. " Spring Weather", Wide Awake, vol. 16. Boston: D. Lothrop & Company, 1883. 388–9 It was a common refrain in skipping games.Douglas, Norman. London Street Games. St. Catherine Press, 1916. 51, 76–7.
Many dance steps include a hop. By the 18th century, "hop" began to be used interchangeably with "dance" as both a noun and a verb." Hop, N. (2)", Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford UP, September 2024.
In another version of Starsky's tale, he coined "hip-hop" with Keef Cowboy from Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five as they traded jibes at a friend who was going into the Army.Caramanica, Jon. " Lovebug Starski, Hip-Hop Trailblazer, Is Dead at 57". The New York Times, February 9, 2018. B8. Kidd Creole recalls the scene without Lovebug present, "Cowboy was on the mic playin around doing that Army cadence: Hip/Hop/Hip/Hop...Disco was king at the time, and the Disco crowd referred to us as those 'Hip Hoppers', but they used it as a derogatory term. But Cowboy was the first one I heard do that to music, as part of his crowd response."JayQuan, " Remembering Keef Cowboy", Furious5.net. Archived March 17, 2006.Ewoodzie, Joseph C. Break Beats in the Bronx: Rediscovering Hip-Hop's Early Years. University of North Carolina Press, 2017. 129.
The phrase was in common usage by the time The Sugarhill Gang recorded "Rapper's Delight" in 1979.Chang, Jeff. " How Hip-Hop Got Its Name". Medium. April 10, 2016. The chorus begins, "I said a hip-hop, the hippie, the hippie/To the hip, hip-hop and you don't stop the rockin'".Sugarhill Gang. "Rapper's Delight". Sugar Hill, 1979.
By the early 80s, hip-hop's defintion had expanded into "the all inclusive tag for the rapping, breaking, graffiti-writing, crew fashion wearing street sub-culture".Holman, Michael. " An Interview with DJ Africa Bambaata of the Zulu Nation," East Village Eye. January 1982, 22. Afrika Bambaataa was instrumental in turning the term into a positive force through his Universal Zulu Nation. The VIBE History of Hip-Hop. Edited by Alan Light. Three Rivers Press, 1999. Their social movement was anti-drug and anti-violence.Stearns, David Patrick. " Hip-Hop Makes its Mark". News-Press, July 6, 1984. 43.Hager, Steven. Hip Hop: The Illustrated History of Break Dancing, Rap Music, and Graffiti. St Martins Press, 1984.
As rappers began to dominate hip-hop, the terms became synonymous. However, hip-hop's definition has always applied to its entire culture.Randel, Don Michael, editor. "Hip Hop." The Harvard Dictionary of Music, 4th ed., Harvard University Press, 2003.Tate, Greg, Light, Alan, Ray, Michael. " Hip-hop", Encyclopædia Britannica. Apr 14, 2025 Its four principal elements include rapping, DJing, breakdancing, and graffiti art." Hip-hop, N." Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford University Press, December 2024.Kugelberg, Johan. Born in the Bronx. Oxford University Press, 2007. 17.Chang, Jeff. Can't Stop Won't Stop: A History of the Hip Hop Generation. St. Martin's Press, 2005. Knowledge is sometimes described as a fifth element, underscoring its role in shaping the values and promoting empowerment and consciousness-raising through music.Gosa, Travis L. " The Fifth Element: Knowledge." The Cambridge Companion to Hip-Hop. Ed. Justin A. Williams. Cambridge University Press, 2015. 56–70.
KRS-One identified additional elements: self-expression, street fashion, street language, street knowledge, and street entrepreneurialism. He also recognized girls' double-dutch jump rope as a key stylistic component of breakdancing.McCabe, Allyson. " How the Fantastic Four took Double Dutch to new heights", Oregon Public Broadcasting. Dec 6, 2022.
In addition to borrowing from the culture, hip-hop simultaneously comments on it. From its roots in the Bronx to its current global reach, hip-hop has served as a voice for the disenfranchised, shedding light on issues such as racial inequality, poverty, and police brutality.Nasir, Noreen. " In the beginning, there was the Bronx", Associated Press. August 9, 2023.
Nowhere was this cross-pollination of musics better typified than in the Caribbean island of Jamaica where AM Radio signals from Miami, Florida were audible. The U.S. stations played much more invigorating music than the staid BBC which was syndicated by the island's only radio channel, Jamaica Broadcasting Corporation. American DJs like Jocko Henderson and Jockey Jack introduced R&B records and jive talking to the island. Local DJs soon began setting up sound systems for outdoor parties.Brewster, Bill and Frank Broughton. Last Night a DJ Saved My Life. Headline, 1999. A vibrant music scene emerged. The jive of American DJs transmuted into toasts in Jamaican Patois.Augustyn, Heather. " Spinning Wheels: The Circular Evolution of Jive, Toasting, and Rap," Caribbean Quarterly 61 (1). 2015. 60–74.
Jive talk popularized black-appeal stations in the post-war era. Its double entendres were a godsend to radio, re-invigorating ratings at flagging outlets. It emerged from traditions like call and response, signifyin', the dozens, and jazz poetry.Hilmes, Michele. Radio Voices: American Broadcasting, 1922-1952. University of Minnesota Press, 1997. 273. The transition from oral tradition to the commercial airwaves was exemplified by WDIA disc jockeys like Nat D. and Rufus Thomas. Their on-air jive was honed during their hosting duties at the Palace Theatre's Amateur Night on Beale Street in Memphis, Tennessee.Patton, William. A Guide to Historic Downtown Memphis. Arcadia Publishing Incorporated, 2010. D.J's like Chicago's Al Benson (WYLL), Austin's Doctor Hep Cat (KVET), and Atlanta's Jockey Jack (WERD) spoke the same rhyming, cadence-laden rap style.George, Marsha Washington. Black Radio...Winner Takes All: America's 1St Black DJs. Xlibris US, 2002. 100f They might introduce a great musician like, "Here is a guy that will move you in from the outskirts of town because he breathes natural gas...so droop to listening to a real gone cat whose loaded his knowledge box in the house of the righteous, and can lo blow."Dr. Hepcat. The Jives of Dr. Hepcat. Lavada Durst, 1953. 7. Many white DJ's like John R Richbourg on Nashville's WLAC emulated the southern 'mushmouth' and jive talk, and switched out swing music for blues and bebop." John R. Richbourg", Tennessee Radio Hall of Fame. Accessed May 21, 2025.Cox, Jim. Music Radio: The Great Performers and Programs of the 1920s Through Early 1960s. McFarland, 2024. 157f. The jive-talking rappers of 1950s radio inspired musical comedians like Rudy Ray Moore, Pigmeat Markham, and Blowfly, along with Soul music singer James Brown. They have been called "godfathers" of hip-hop music.
The rhythmic speech of rap is an ancient practice, first codified by the Greeks. In 20th-century Western music, it was a widely used practice in everything from sprechstimme to the talking blues. The roots of rapping in African-American music are easily traced to the griots in West African culture.Ted Gioia. The History of Jazz, 3rd Edition. Oxford University Press, 2021. 8.Campbell, K.E. Gettin' Our Groove On: Rhetoric, Language, and Literacy for the Hip Hop Generation. Wayne State University Press, 2005. 30ff. Bo Diddley made several influential talking records, and the gospel group The Jubalaires' 1946 song "Noah" is frequently seen as a forerunner of Rapping.Sarachik, Justin. " The Jubalaires Were Doing Gospel Rap Back in the 1940s". Rapzilla. July 11, 2016. Other notable talking records were Muhammad Ali's I Am the Greatest (1963) and Pigmeat Markham's "Here Comes the Judge" (1968)." The Artist" in Muhammad Ali: A Transcendent Life, University of Louisville Muhammad Ali Institute and the University Libraries. 2021.Taylor, Yuval and Jake Austen. Darkest America: Black Minstrelsy from Slavery to Hip-Hop. W. W. Norton, 2012. 236. Ali's patter was an enormous influence on hip-hop. He was known as a "rhyming trickster" due to the funky delivery of his boasts, trash talk, and indelible phrases.Reeves, Mosi. " Muhammad Ali: World's Greatest Boxer Was Also Hip-Hop Pioneer", Rolling Stone. June 4, 2016. Many of his monologues were Freestyle rap improvisations which would become a vital skill Old-school hip-hop rappers.Rubin, Mik. " Muhammad Ali: 4 Ways He Changed America". Rolling Stone. June 5, 2016.
In New York City, spoken word poetry by artists like The Last Poets, Jalal Mansur Nuriddin, and Gil Scott-Heron had a significant impact on the post-civil rights era. They helped establish the cultural environment in which hip-hop music was created.Cepeda, Raquel. And It Don't Stop: The Best American Hip-Hop Journalism of the Last 25 Years. Faber & Faber, 2004. xvi. "Jalal Mansur Nuriddin: farewell to the 'grandfather of rap'", The Guardian, 6 June 2018.
During these proto-rap years in America, Jamaican music regularly featured talking records like U-Roy and Peter Tosh's "Righteous Ruler" and King Stitt's "Fire Corner" in 1969. Jamaican DJs were also heavily remixing recorded music to generate new sounds. Duke Reid would preside over his sound system, tweaking knobs until the record he was playing became unrecognizable. In the studio, artists like King Tubby would strip the vocals out of records to create a new version. The public appetite for these remixes became so strong that singles were released with the original on one side and the "version" on the other.
Veal, Michael E. Dub: Songscapes and Shattered Songs in Jamaican Reggae. Wesleyan University Press, 2007. 52.Moskowitz, David V. Caribbean Popular Music: An Encyclopedia of Reggae, Mento, Ska, Rock Steady, and Dancehall. ABC-CLIO, 2005. 94. The eclectic stew of production techniques came to be known as dub music, and it is the strongest artistic precedent for hip-hop.Bruno Blum. Le Rap Est Né En JamaïQue. Castor Astral, 2009.
Breakdancers prized originality. They created signature moves that other breakers would only imitate in order to outdo them.Vernon, Jim. Hip Hop, Hegel, and the Art of Emancipation: Let's Get Free. Springer International Publishing AG, 2018. 108. The emphasis on creativity extended to DJs who would battle each other. They would even replicate the Jamaican practice of removing record labels to keep their breaks a secret from other DJs. Many early hip-hop DJs were immigrants from the Caribbean. The techniques they used to generate new material from existing vinyl records was familiar to Jamaican dub music. The Sound Of Channel One: King Tubby Connection. Liner Notes. Motion Records, 1999.Davis, Stephen. Reggae Bloodlines: In Search of the Music and Culture of Jamaica. Da Capo Press, 1992. Hip-hop began to develop its own moral code that prized truth and ingenuity over limpid mimicry.KRS-One. The Gospel of Hip Hop: First Instrument. Powerhouse Books, 2009.
DJs found certain breaks to be extremely popular from records like Baby Huey's "Listen To Me", James Brown's "Give It Up or Turnit a Loose", Dennis Coffey's "Son of Scorpio", Cymande's "Bra", Dynamic Corvettes' "Funky Music Is the Thing", Jeannie Reynolds' "Fruit Song", as well as the Incredible Bongo Band's "Apache" and "Bongo Rock". DJ Kool Herc figured out a way to prolong these breaks by crossfading between two copies of the same record. Herc's initial claim to fame was his sound system which featured a McIntosh Laboratory amplifier and two columns of Shure speakers. He dubbed it "The Herculords", and it earned him a massive following.
His method of playing breaks was extremely crude, however. Herc would just estimate where the break was as he tried to extend it. Often, he would have to talk over the transition as the breaks did not match up. It was DJs like Grand Wizzard Theodore, Jazzy Jay, and Grandmaster Flash who perfected the technique. They developed a technique known as needle dropping by precisely cuing up the breaks in headphones in order to create a perfect transition between the two phonographs. As the first break finished, they would crossfade to the second turntable which was cued up at the beginning of the break. While the second record played, they would spin the first record backwards to the beginning of the break and crossfade into it when the second break was over. This method allowed a break to be prolonged indefinitely. These extended breaks became known as a "". When a playing record is reversed, the sound is distorted. The effect became trendy and eventually evolved into the hip-hop technique known as "scratching".
Turntablist techniques – such as rhythmic "scratching" (pushing a record back and forth while the needle is in the groove to create new sounds and , an approach attributed to Grand Wizzard TheodoreHuey, Steve. " Grand Wizard Theodore", AllMusic. Accessed April 26, 2025.), beat mixing or beatmatching, and beat juggling – eventually developed along with the percussion breaks, creating a musical accompaniment or base that could be rapped over in a manner similar to signifying.Katz, Mark. Groove Music: The Art and Culture of the Hip Hop DJ. Oxford University Press, 2012. 127.
Kool Herc's style attracted a following that outgrew the rec room. He eventually joined the thriving block party scene in the Bronx. DJs would hook their sound systems up to the street lights. These outdoor parties became a means of expression and an outlet for teenagers, where "instead of getting into trouble on the streets, teens now had a place to expend their pent-up energy." Tony Tone, a member of the Cold Crush Brothers, stated that "hip hop saved a lot of lives".Chang, Jeff. " It's a Hip-hop World". Foreign Policy no. 163, November–December 2007. 58–65. For inner-city youth, participating in hip-hop culture became a way of dealing with the hardships of life as minorities within America, and an outlet to deal with the risk of violence and the rise of gang culture. MC Kid Lucky mentions that "people used to break-dance against each other instead of fighting". A typical hip-hop event was a triple bill featuring the DJ, MC, and breakdancers. Graffiti artists would decorate the stage and design flyers and posters.
Rose, Tricia. Black Noise. Wesleyan University Press, 1994. Much of the graffiti, rapping, and Breakdancing at these parties were artistic variations on the one-upmanship of Gang. Sensing that gang members' often violent urges could be turned into creative ones, Afrika Bambaataa founded the Zulu Nation, a loose confederation of street-dance crews, graffiti artists, and rap musicians.
A second key musical element in hip-hop music is emceeing (also called MCing or rapping). Emceeing is the rhythmic spoken delivery of and wordplay, delivered at first without accompaniment and later done over a beats. This spoken style was influenced by the African American style of "capping", a performance where men tried to outdo each other in originality of their language and tried to gain the favor of the listeners. The basic elements of hip-hop—boasting raps, rival "posses" (groups), uptown "throw-downs", and political and social commentary—were all long present in African American music. MCing and rapping performers moved back and forth between the predominance of songs packed with a mix of boasting, 'slackness' and sexual innuendo and a more topical, political, socially conscious style. The role of the MC originally was as a Master of Ceremonies for a DJ dance event. The MC would introduce the DJ and try to pump up the audience. The MC spoke between the DJ's songs, urging everyone to get up and dance. MCs would also tell jokes and use their energetic language and enthusiasm to rev up the crowd. Eventually, this introducing role developed into longer sessions of spoken, rhythmic wordplay, and rhyming, which became rapping.
During the New York City blackout of 1977, DJ equipment was heavily looted due to the popularity of the emerging genre. Kool Herc recalls, "The next day there were a thousand new D.J.'s."Rosen, Jody. " A Rolling Shout-Out to Hip-Hop History", The New York Times. February 12, 2006. B1.
By 1978, Billboard magazine was taking notice of the popularity of "B-beats" in the Bronx.Ford Jr., Robert. " B-Beats Bombarding Bronx", Billboard. July 1, 1978. 6.Neal, Mark Anthony. That's the Joint! The Hip-hop Studies Reader. Routledge, 2004.
The lyrical content of many early rap groups focused on social issues, most notably in the seminal track "The Message" by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, which discussed the realities of life in the housing projects. "Young black Americans coming out of the civil rights movement have used hip hop culture in the 1980s and 1990s to show the limitations of the Hip Hop Movement." Hip-hop gave young African Americans a voice to let their issues be heard; "Like rock-and-roll, hip hop is vigorously opposed by conservatives because it romanticises violence, law-breaking, and gangs". It also gave people a chance for financial gain by "reducing the rest of the world to consumers of its social concerns."Diawara, Manthia. In Search of Africa. United States, Harvard University Press, 2000. 237.
In late 1979, Debbie Harry of Blondie took Nile Rodgers of Chic to such an event, as the main backing track used was the break from Chic's "Good Times". The new style influenced Harry, and Blondie's later hit single from 1981 "Rapture" became the first single containing hip-hop elements to hit number one on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100—the song itself is usually considered new wave and fuses heavy pop music elements, but there is an extended rap by Harry near the end.
DJ Kool Herc and Coke La Rock provided an influence on the vocal style of rapping by delivering simple poetry verses over funk music breaks, after party-goers showed little interest in their previous attempts to integrate reggae-infused toasting into musical sets. DJs and MCs would often add call and response chants, often consisting of a basic chorus, to allow the performer to gather his thoughts (e.g. "one, two, three, y'all, to the beat"). Later, the MCs grew more varied in their vocal and rhythmic delivery, incorporating brief rhymes, often with a sexual or scatological theme, in an effort to differentiate themselves and to entertain the audience. These early raps incorporated the dozens, a product of African American culture. Kool Herc & the Herculoids were the first hip-hop group to gain recognition in New York, but the number of MC teams increased over time.
Often these were collaborations between former , such as Afrikaa Bambaataa's Universal Zulu Nation—now an international organization. Melle Mel, a rapper with the Furious Five is often credited with being the first rap lyricist to call himself an "MC". During the early 1970s B-boying arose during block parties, as b-boys and b-girls got in front of the audience to dance in a distinctive and frenetic style. The style was documented for release to a worldwide audience for the first time in documentaries and movies such as Style Wars, Wild Style, and Beat Street. The term "B-boy" was coined by DJ Kool Herc to describe the people who would wait for the break section of the song, showing off athleticism, spinning on the stage to 'break-dance' in the distinctive, frenetic style.Schloss, Joseph G. Foundation: b-boys, b-girls, and hip-hop culture in New York. Oxford University Press, 2009.
Although there were some early MCs that recorded solo projects of note, such as DJ Hollywood, Kurtis Blow, and Spoonie Gee, the frequency of solo artists did not increase until later with the rise of soloists with stage presence and drama, such as LL Cool J. Most early hip-hop was dominated by groups where collaboration between the members was integral to the show.David Toop. Rap Attack II: African Rap To Global Hip Hop. New York: Serpent's Tail, 2000. An example would be the early hip-hop group Funky Four Plus One, who performed in such a manner on Saturday Night Live in 1981.Bynoe, Y. (2006). Encyclopedia of rap and hip-hop culture, Greenwood Press
The earliest hip-hop music was performed live, at house parties and block party events, and it was not recorded. DJs would play breaks from popular songs using two turntables and a DJ mixer. Prior to 1979, recorded hip-hop music consisted mainly of Public address recordings of live party shows and early hip-hop mixtapes by DJs. Puerto Rican DJ Disco Wiz is credited as the first hip-hop DJ to create a "mixed plate", or mixed dub recording, when, in 1977, he combined sound bites, special effects and paused beats to technically produce a sound recording.Hess, Mickey. Hip Hop in America: A Regional Guide: Volume 1: East Coast and West Coast. Greenwood, 2009. xxxiii. The first hit hip-hop record was the Sugarhill Gang's "Rapper's Delight" from 1979. The opening verse also widely disseminated the term "hip-hop". However, much controversy surrounds this assertion as some regard the March 1979 single "King Tim III (Personality Jock)" by the Fatback Band, as a rap record.Chris Heard, Thursday, October 14, 2004, 08:52 GMT 09:52 UK. "Silver jubilee for first rap hit" , BBC News. There are various other claimants for the title of first hip-hop record.
By the early 1980s, all the major elements and techniques of the hip-hop genre were in place, and by 1982, the electronic (electro) sound had become the trend on the street and in dance clubs. New York City radio station WKTU featured Warp 9's "Nunk", in a commercial to promote the station's signature sound of emerging hip-hop Though not yet mainstream, hip-hop had begun to permeate the music scene outside of New York City; it could be found in cities as diverse as Los Angeles, Atlanta, Chicago, Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Dallas, Kansas City, San Antonio, Miami, Seattle, St. Louis, New Orleans, Houston, and Toronto. Indeed, "Funk You Up" (1979), the first hip-hop record released by a female group, and the second single released by Sugar Hill Records, was performed by the Sequence, a group from Columbia, South Carolina which featured Angie Stone.Greenberg, Steve; Light, Alan ed. (1999). The VIBE History of Hip Hop. Three Rivers Press. p. 28. Despite the genre's growing popularity, Philadelphia was, for many years, the only city whose contributions could be compared to New York City's. Hip-hop music became popular in Philadelphia in the late 1970s. The first released record was titled "Rhythm Talk", by Jocko Henderson.
The New York Times had dubbed Philadelphia the "Graffiti Capital of the World" in 1971. Philadelphia native DJ Lady B recorded "To the Beat Y'All" in 1979, and became the first female solo hip-hop artist to record music. Schoolly D, starting in 1984 and also from Philadelphia, began creating a style that would later be known as gangsta rap.
The disco sound had a strong influence on early hip-hop music. Most of the early rap/hip-hop songs were created by isolating existing disco bass-guitar and dubbing over them with MC rhymes. the Sugarhill Gang used Chic's "Good Times" as the foundation for their 1979 hit "Rapper's Delight", generally considered to be the song that first popularized rap music in the United States and around the world. In 1982, Afrika Bambaataa released the single "Planet Rock", which incorporated electronica elements from Kraftwerk's "Trans-Europe Express" and "Numbers" as well as YMO's "Riot in Lagos". The Planet Rock sound also spawned a hip-hop electronic dance trend, electro music, which included songs such as Planet Patrol's "Play at Your Own Risk" (1982), C Bank's "One More Shot" (1982), Cerrone's "Club Underworld" (1984), Shannon's "Let the Music Play" (1983), Freeez's "I.O.U." (1983), Midnight Star's "Freak-a-Zoid" (1983), Chaka Khan's "I Feel For You" (1984).
DJ Pete Jones, Eddie Cheeba, DJ Hollywood, and Love Bug Starski were disco-influenced hip-hop DJs. Their styles differed from other hip-hop musicians who focused on rapid-fire rhymes and more complex rhythmic schemes. Afrika Bambaataa, Paul Winley, Grandmaster Flash, and Bobby Robinson were all members of third s latter group. In Washington, D.C. go-go emerged as a reaction against disco and eventually incorporated characteristics of hip-hop during the early 1980s. The DJ-based genre of electronic music behaved similarly, eventually evolving into underground styles known as house music in Chicago and techno in Detroit.
In 1980, the Roland Corporation launched the TR-808 Rhythm Composer. It was one of the earliest programmable drum machines, with which users could create their own rhythms rather than having to use preset patterns. Though it was a commercial failure, over the course of the decade the 808 attracted a cult following among underground musicians for its affordability on the used market, ease of use, and idiosyncratic sounds, particularly its deep, "booming" bass drum. It became a cornerstone of the emerging electronic, dance, and hip-hop genres, popularized by early hits such as Afrika Bambaataa and the Soulsonic Force's "Planet Rock". The 808 was eventually used on more hit records than any other drum machine; its popularity with hip-hop in particular has made it one of the most influential inventions in popular music, comparable to the Fender Stratocaster's influence on rock.
Over time sampling technology became more advanced. However, earlier producers such as Marley Marl used drum machines to construct their beats from small excerpts of other beats in synchronisation, in his case, triggering three Korg sampling-delay units through a Roland 808. Later, samplers such as the E-mu SP-1200 allowed not only more memory but more flexibility for creative production. This allowed the filtration and layering different hits, and with a possibility of re-sequencing them into a single piece. With the emergence of a new generation of samplers such as the AKAI S900 in the late 1980s, producers did not have to create complex, time-consuming tape loops. Public Enemy's first album was created with the help of large tape loops. The process of looping a break into a breakbeat now became more commonly done with a sampler, now doing the job which so far had been done manually by the DJs using turntables. In 1989, DJ Mark James, under the moniker "45 King", released "The 900 Number", a breakbeat track created by synchronizing samplers and vinyl records.
The lyrical content and other instrumental accompaniment of hip-hop developed as well. The early lyrical styles in the 1970, which tended to be boasts and clichéd chants, were replaced with metaphorical lyrics exploring a wider range of subjects. As well, the lyrics were performed over more complex, multi-layered instrumental accompaniment. Artists such as Melle Mel, Rakim, Chuck D, KRS-One and Warp 9 revolutionized hip-hop by transforming it into a more mature art form, with sophisticated arrangements, often featuring "gorgeous textures and multiple layers"Toop, David (2000). Rap Attack 3: African Rap To Global Hip Hop (Expanded Third Edition), London: Serpent's Tail, p. 151, . The influential single "The Message" (1982) by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five is widely considered to be the pioneering force for conscious rap.
Independent record labels like Tommy Boy, Prism Records and Profile Records became successful in the early 1980s, releasing records at a furious pace in response to the demand generated by local radio stations and club DJs. Early 1980s electro music and rap were catalysts that sparked the hip-hop movement, led by artists such as Cybotron, Hashim, Afrika Bambaataa, Planet Patrol, Newcleus and Warp 9. In the New York City recording scene, artists collaborated with producer/writers such as Arthur Baker, John Robie, Lotti Golden and Richard Scher, exchanging ideas that contributed to the development of hip-hop.Toop, David. " A-Z of Electro", Wire no. 145. March 1996. Some rappers eventually became mainstream pop performers. Kurtis Blow's appearance in a Sprite soda pop commercial marked the first hip-hop musician to do a commercial for a major product. The 1981 songs "Rapture" by Blondie and "Christmas Wrapping" by the new wave band the Waitresses were among the first pop songs to use rap. In 1982, Afrika Bambaataa introduced hip-hop to an international audience with "Planet Rock".
Prior to the 1980s, hip-hop music was largely confined within the context of the United States. However, during the 1980s, it began its spread and became a part of the music scene in dozens of countries. Greg Wilson was the first DJ to introduce electro hip-hop to UK club audiences in the early 1980s, opting for the dub or instrumental versions of Nunk by Warp 9, Extra T's "ET Boogie", Hip Hop, Be Bop (Don't Stop) by Man Parrish, Planet Rock and Dirty Talk.
In the early part of the decade, Breakdancing became the first aspect of hip-hop culture to reach Japan, Australia and South Africa. In South Africa, the breakdance crew Black Noise established the practice before beginning to rap later in the decade. Musician and presenter Sidney Duteil became France's first black TV presenter with his show H.I.P. H.O.P.MCM retrospective on Sidney: « on peut dire aujourd'hui que Sidney est le papa du hip-hop français. Concepteur de l'émission H.I.P. H.O.P. en 1984 (1ère émission rap au monde diffusée à l'époque le dimanche à 14h00 avant Starsky & Hutch), ce Dj/rappeur/breakeur extravagant fait découvrir cette nouvelle tendance américaine aux Français, à peine remis de la vague disco, et crée des vocations (Joey Starr, Passi, Stomy Bugsy...) » H.I.P H.O.P – L'émission Mythique de Sidney which screened on TF1 during 1984, a first for the genre worldwide. Sidney is considered the father of French hip-hop. Radio Nova helped launch other French hip-hop stars including Dee Nasty, whose 1984 album Paname City Rappin along with compilations Rapattitude 1 and 2 contributed to a general awareness of hip-hop in France.
Hip-hop has always kept a very close relationship with the Hispanic community in New York. DJ Disco Wiz and the Rock Steady Crew were among early innovators from Puerto Rico, combining English and Spanish in their lyrics. the Mean Machine recorded their first song under the label "Disco Dreams" in 1981, while Kid Frost from Los Angeles began his career in 1982. Cypress Hill was formed in 1988 in the suburb of South Gate outside Los Angeles when Sen Dog (born in Havana) and his younger brother Ulpiano Sergio (Mellow Man Ace) moved from Cuba to South Gate with his family in 1971. They teamed up with DVX from Queens (New York), Lawrence Muggerud (DJ Muggs) and Louis Freese (B-Real), a Mexican/Cuban-American native of Los Angeles. After the departure of "Ace" to begin his solo career, the group adopted the name of Cypress Hill named after a street running through a neighborhood nearby in South Los Angeles.
Japanese hip-hop is said to have begun when Hiroshi Fujiwara returned to Japan and started playing hip-hop records in the early 1980s. Japanese hip-hop generally tends to be most directly influenced by old school hip-hop, taking the era's catchy beats, dance culture, and overall fun and carefree nature and incorporating it into their music. Hip-hop became one of the most commercially viable mainstream music genres in Japan, and the line between it and pop music is frequently blurred., from left to right: Joseph Simmons, Jason "Jam Master Jay" Mizell, and Darryl McDaniels]]
The new school of hip-hop was the second wave of hip-hop music, originating in 1983–84 with the early records of Run-DMC and LL Cool J. As with the hip-hop preceding it (which subsequently became known as old-school hip hop), the new school came predominantly from New York City. The new school was initially characterized in form by drum machine-led minimalism, with influences from rock music, a hip-hop "metal music for the 80s–a hard-edge ugly/beauty trance as desperate and stimulating as New York itself."name: Toop p.151 It was notable for taunts and boasts about rapping, and socio-political commentary, both delivered in an aggressive, self-assertive style. In image as in song its artists projected a tough, cool, street Breakdancing attitude.
These elements contrasted sharply with much of the previous funk- and disco-influenced hip-hop groups, whose music was often characterized by novelty hits, live bands, synthesizers, and "party rhymes" (not all artists prior to 1983–84 had these styles). New-school artists made shorter songs that could more easily gain radio play, and they produced more cohesive LP albums than their old-school counterparts. By 1986, their releases began to establish the hip-hop album as a fixture of mainstream music. Hip-hop music became commercially successful, as exemplified by the Beastie Boys' 1986 album Licensed to Ill, which was the first rap album to hit No. 1 on the Billboard charts.
By the end of the decade, the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences decided to create a Grammy Award for Best Rap Performance. The inaugural statue was given in 1989 to DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince for "Parents Just Don't Understand".Reeves, Marcus. Somebody Scream! Rap Music's Rise to Prominence in the Aftershock of Black Power. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2009. 80.
The golden age is noted for its innovation – a time "when it seemed that every new single reinvented the genre"Coker, Cheo H. " Slick Rick: Behind Bars", Rolling Stone, March 9, 1995. according to Rolling Stone. Referring to "hip-hop in its golden age",Jake Coyle of Associated Press, "Spin magazine picks Radiohead CD as best" , published in USA Today, June 19, 2005. Spins editor-in-chief Sia Michel says, "there were so many important, groundbreaking albums coming out right about that time",
and MTV's Sway Calloway adds: "The thing that made that era so great is that nothing was contrived. Everything was still being discovered and everything was still innovative and new".Scott Mervis, "From Kool Herc to 50 Cent, the story of rap – so far" , Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, February 15, 2004. Writer William Jelani Cobb says "what made the era they inaugurated worthy of the term golden was the sheer number of stylistic innovations that came into existence... in these golden years, a critical mass of mic prodigies were literally creating themselves and their art form at the same time".Cobb, Jelani William, 2007, To the Break of Dawn, NYU Press, p. 47.
The golden age spans approximately from 1986 to 1997. In their article "In Search of the Golden Age Hip-Hop Sound", music theorists Ben Duinker and Denis Martin of Empirical Musicology Review use "the 11 years between and including 1986 and 1996 as chronological boundaries" to define the golden age, beginning with the releases of Run-DMC's Raising Hell and the Beastie Boys' Licensed to Ill, and ending with the deaths of Tupac Shakur and the Notorious B.I.G. The Boombox writer Todd "Stereo" Williams also cites the May 1986 release of Raising Hell (which sold more than three million copies) as the start of the period and notes that over the next year other important albums were released to success, including Licensed to Ill, Boogie Down Productions' Criminal Minded (1987), Public Enemy's Yo! Bum Rush the Show (1987), and Eric B. & Rakim's Paid in Full (1987). Williams views this development as the beginning of hip-hop's own "album era" from the late 1980s to the late 1990s, during which hip-hop albums earned an unprecedented critical recognition and "would be the measuring stick by which most of the genre's greats would be judged".
N.W.A is the group most frequently associated with the founding of gangsta rap. Their lyrics were more violent, openly confrontational, and shocking than those of established rap acts, featuring incessant profanity and, controversially, use of the word "nigga". These lyrics were placed over rough, rock guitar-driven beats, contributing to the music's hard-edged feel. The first blockbuster gangsta rap album was N.W.A's Straight Outta Compton, released in 1989. Straight Outta Compton would establish West Coast hip hop as a vital genre, and establish Los Angeles as a legitimate rival to hip-hop's long-time capital, New York City. Straight Outta Compton sparked the first major controversy regarding hip-hop lyrics when their song "Fuck tha Police" earned a letter from FBI Assistant Director, Milt Ahlerich, strongly expressing police's resentment of the song.
Controversy surrounded Ice-T's album Body Count, in particular over its song "Cop Killer". The song was intended to speak from the viewpoint of a criminal getting revenge on racist, brutal cops. Ice-T's rock song infuriated government officials, the National Rifle Association of America and various police advocacy groups. Consequently, Time Warner Music refused to release Ice-T's upcoming album Home Invasion because of the controversy surrounding "Cop Killer". Ice-T suggested that the furor over the song was an overreaction, telling journalist Chuck Philips "...they've done movies about nurse killers and teacher killers and student killers. Actor Arnold Schwarzenegger blew away dozens of cops as the Terminator. But I don't hear anybody complaining about that." In the same interview, Ice-T suggested to Philips that the misunderstanding of Cop Killer and the attempts to censor it had racial overtones: "The Supreme Court says it's OK for a white man to burn a cross in public. But nobody wants a black man to write a record about a cop killer."
The subject matter inherent in gangsta rap more generally has caused controversy. The White House administrations of both George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton criticized the genre. "The reason why rap is under attack is because it exposes all the contradictions of American culture ...What started out as an underground art form has become a vehicle to expose a lot of critical issues that are not usually discussed in American politics. The problem here is that the White House and wanna-bes like Bill Clinton represent a political system that never intends to deal with inner city urban chaos," Sister Souljah told The Times. Due to the influence of Ice-T and N.W.A, gangsta rap is often viewed as a primarily West Coast phenomenon, despite the contributions of East Coast acts like Schoolly D and Boogie Down Productions in shaping the genre.
MC Hammer hit mainstream success with the multi-platinum album Please Hammer, Don't Hurt 'Em. The record reached No. 1 and the first single, "U Can't Touch This" charted on the top ten of the Billboard Hot 100. MC Hammer became one of the most successful rappers of the early nineties and one of the first household names in the genre. The album raised rapping to a new level of popularity. It was the first hip-hop album certified diamond album by the RIAA for sales of over ten million. It remains one of the genre's all-time best-selling albums. To date, the album has sold as many as 18 million units. Released in 1990, "Ice Ice Baby" by Vanilla Ice was the first hip-hop single to top the Billboard Billboard charts in the U.S. It also reached number one in the UK, Australia among others and has been credited for helping diversify hip-hop by introducing it to a mainstream audience.
Despite the lack of support from some black radio stations, hip-hop became a best-selling music genre in the mid-1990s and the top selling music genre by 1999 with 81 million CDs sold. By the late 1990s hip-hop was artistically dominated by the Wu-Tang Clan, Sean Combs and Fugees. The Beastie Boys continued their success throughout the decade crossing color lines and gaining respect from many different artists. Record labels based out of Atlanta, St. Louis, and New Orleans also gained fame for their local scenes. The midwest rap scene was known for fast vocal styles from artists such as Bone Thugs-n-Harmony, Tech N9ne, and Twista. By the end of the decade, hip-hop was an integral part of popular music, and many American pop songs had hip-hop components.
Hip-hop has been described as a "mainstream subculture". The main reasons why hip-hop culture secured its subcultural authority despite becoming a part of the mass media and mainstream industries can be summarized as follows. First, hip-hop artists promoted symbolic and conspicuous consumption in their music from a very early stage. Second, the continuing display of resistance in hip-hop has continuously attracted new generations of rebellious fans. Third, owing to the subcultural ideal of rising from the underground, the hip-hop scene has remained committed to its urban roots. Fourth, the concept of battle rap has prevented hip-hop music from excessive cultural dilution. Finally, the solidarity within the African American community has shielded the subculture from erosion through mainstream commercialization.
The success of albums such as Nas' Illmatic and Notorious B.I.G.'s Ready to Die in 1994 cemented the status of the East Coast during a time of West Coast dominance. In a March 2002 issue of The Source Magazine, Nas referred to 1994 as "a renaissance of New York City Hip-Hop." The productions of RZA, particularly for the Wu-Tang Clan, became influential with artists such as Mobb Deep due to the combination of somewhat detached instrumental loops, highly compressed and processed drums, and gangsta rap lyrical content. Wu-Tang solo albums such as Raekwon's Only Built 4 Cuban Linx..., Ghostface Killah's Ironman, and GZA's Liquid Swords are now viewed as classics along with Wu-Tang "core" material. The clan's base extended into further groups called "Wu-affiliates". Producers such as DJ Premier (primarily for Gang Starr but also for other affiliated artists, such as Jeru the Damaja), Pete Rock (with CL Smooth, and supplying beats for many others), Buckwild, Large Professor, Diamond D, and Q-Tip supplied beats for numerous MCs at the time, regardless of location. Albums such as Nas' Illmatic, O.C.'s Word...Life (1994), and Jay-Z's Reasonable Doubt (1996) are made up of beats from this pool of producers.
The rivalry between the East Coast and the West Coast rappers eventually turned personal. Later in the decade the business acumen of the Bad Boy Records tested itself against Jay-Z and his Roc-A-Fella Records and, on the West Coast, Death Row Records. The mid to late 1990s saw a generation of rappers such as the members of D.I.T.C. such as the late Big L and Big Pun. On the East Coast, although the "big business" end of the market dominated matters commercially the late 1990s to early 2000s saw a number of relatively successful East Coast indie labels such as Rawkus Records (with whom Mos Def and Talib Kweli garnered success) and later Def Jux. The history of the two labels is intertwined, the latter having been started by EL-P of Company Flow in reaction to the former, and offered an outlet for more underground artists such as Mike Ladd, Aesop Rock, Mr Lif, RJD2, Cage and Cannibal Ox. Other acts such as the Hispanic Arsonists and slam poet turned MC Saul Williams met with differing degrees of success.
Detached from this scene were other artists such as Freestyle Fellowship and the Pharcyde, as well as more underground artists such as the Solesides collective (DJ Shadow and Blackalicious amongst others), Jurassic 5, Ugly Duckling, People Under the Stairs, Tha Alkaholiks, and earlier Souls of Mischief, who represented a return to hip-hop's roots of sampling and well-planned rhyme schemes.
Atlanta hip-hop artists were key in further expanding rap music and bringing southern hip-hop into the mainstream. Releases such as Arrested Development's 3 Years, 5 Months and 2 Days in the Life Of... in 1992, Goodie Mob's Soul Food in 1995 and Outkast's ATLiens in 1996 were all critically acclaimed. Other distinctive regional sounds from St. Louis, Chicago, Washington D.C., Detroit and others began to gain popularity.
During the golden age, elements of hip-hop continued to be assimilated into other genres of popular music. The first waves of rap rock, rapcore, and rap metal — respective fusions of hip-hop and rock, hardcore punk, and heavy metal — became popular among mainstream audiences at this time; Run-DMC, the Beastie Boys, and Rage Against the Machine were among the most well-known bands in these fields. In Hawaii, bands such as Sudden Rush combined hip-hop elements with the local language and political issues to form a style called na mele paleoleo.
Digable Planets' 1993 release Reachin' (A New Refutation of Time and Space) was an influential jazz rap record sampling the likes of Don Cherry, Sonny Rollins, Art Blakey, Herbie Mann, Herbie Hancock, Grant Green, and Rahsaan Roland Kirk. It spawned the hit single "Rebirth of Slick (Cool Like Dat)" which reached No. 16 on the Billboard Hot 100.
Many of the rappers who achieved mainstream success at this time, such as Nelly, Puff Daddy, Jay-Z, the later career of Fat Joe and his Terror Squad, Mase, Ja Rule, Fabolous, and Cam'ron, had a pop-rap-oriented style, while others such as Big Pun, Fat Joe (in his earlier career), DMX, Eminem, 50 Cent and his G-Unit, and the Game enjoyed commercial success at this time with a grittier style. Although white rappers like the Beastie Boys, House of Pain, and 3rd Bass previously had some popular success or critical acceptance from the hip-hop community, Eminem's success, beginning in 1999 with the platinum The Slim Shady LP, surprised many. Hip-hop influences also found their way increasingly into mainstream pop during this period, particularly in genres such as R&B (e.g. R. Kelly, Akon, TLC, Destiny's Child, Beyoncé, Ashanti, Aaliyah, Usher), neo soul (e.g. Lauryn Hill, Erykah Badu, Jill Scott), and nu metal (e.g. Korn, Limp Bizkit).
Dr. Dre remained an important figure in this era, making his comeback in 1999 with the album 2001. In 2000, he produced The Marshall Mathers LP by Eminem, and also produced 50 Cent's 2003 album Get Rich or Die Tryin', which debuted at number one on the U.S. Billboard 200 charts. Jay-Z represented the cultural triumph of hip-hop in this era. As his career progressed, he went from performing artist to entrepreneur, label president, head of a clothing line, club owner, and market consultant—along the way breaking Elvis Presley's record for most number one albums on the Billboard magazine charts by a solo artist.
Glitch hop is a fusion genre of hip-hop and glitch music that originated in the early to mid-2000s in the United States and Europe. Musically, it is based on irregular, chaotic , glitchy and other typical sound effects used in glitch music, like skips. Glitch hop artists include Prefuse 73, Dabrye and Flying Lotus. Wonky is a subgenre of hip-hop that originated around 2008, but most notably in the United States and United Kingdom, and among international artists of the Hyperdub music label, under the influence of glitch hop and dubstep. Wonky music is of the same glitchy style as glitch hop, but it was specifically noted for its melodies, rich with "mid-range unstable synths". Scotland has become one of the most prominent wonky scenes, with artists like Hudson Mohawke and Rustie.
Glitch hop and wonky are popular among a relatively smaller audience interested in alternative hip-hop and electronic music (especially dubstep); neither glitch hop nor wonky have achieved mainstream popularity. However, artists like Flying Lotus, the Glitch Mob and Hudson Mohawke have seen success in other avenues. Flying Lotus's music has earned multiple positive reviews on the independent music review site Pitchfork.com as well as a prominent (yet uncredited) spot during Adult Swim commercial breaks. Hudson Mohawke is one of few glitch hop artists to play at major music festivals such as Sasquatch! Music Festival.
Other journalists say the music is just as popular as it ever was, but that fans have found other means to consume the music, such as illegally downloading music through P2P networks, instead of purchasing albums and singles from legitimate stores. For example, Flo Rida is known for his low album sales regardless of his singles being mainstream and having digital success. His second album R.O.O.T.S. sold only 200,000+ total units in the U.S., which could not line up to the sales of the album's lead single "Right Round". This also happened to him in 2008. Some put the blame on hip-hop becoming less lyrical over time, such as Soulja Boy's 2007 debut album souljaboytellem.com which was met with negative reviews. Lack of sampling, a key element of early hip-hop, has also been noted for the decrease in quality of modern albums. For example, there are only four samples used in 2008's Paper Trail by T.I., while there are 35 samples in 1998's Moment of Truth by Gang Starr. The decrease in sampling is in part due to it being too expensive for producers.
In Byron Hurt's documentary Hip Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes, he claims that hip-hop had changed from "clever rhymes and dance beats" to "advocating personal, social and criminal corruption." Despite the fall in record sales throughout the music industry, hip-hop had remained a popular genre, with hip-hop artists still regularly topping the Billboard 200 Charts. In the first half of 2009 alone artists such as Eminem, Rick Ross, the Black Eyed Peas, and Fabolous all had albums that reached the No. 1 position on the Billboard 200 charts. Eminem's album Relapse was one of the fastest selling albums of 2009.
The alternative hip-hop movement was not limited only to the United States, as rappers such as Somali people-Canadian poet K'naan, Japanese rapper Shing02, and Sri Lankan British artist M.I.A. achieved considerable worldwide recognition. In 2009, Time magazine placed M.I.A in the Time 100 list of "World's Most Influential people" for having "global influence across many genres." Global-themed movements have also sprung out of the international hip-hop scene with microgenres like "Islamic Eco-Rap" addressing issues of worldwide importance through traditionally disenfranchised voices.
Due in part to the increasing use of music distribution through social media and blogging, many alternative and non-alternative rappers found acceptance by far-reaching audiences, hence why this era of hip-hop is sometimes termed the "blog era". Several artists, such as Kid Cudi and Drake, managed to attain chart-topping hit songs, "Day 'n' Nite" and "Best I Ever Had" respectively, by releasing their music on free online without the help of a major record label. Emerging artists at the time such as Wale, Kendrick Lamar, J. Cole, Lupe Fiasco, the Cool Kids, Jay Electronica, and B.o.B were noted by critics as expressing eclectic sounds, sensitive life experiences, and vulnerable emotions that were rarely seen in the prior bling era.
Also at this time, the Auto-Tune vocal effect was bolstered in popularity by rapper T-Pain, who elaborated on the effect and made active use of Auto-Tune in his songs.Farber, Jim (2007). " Singers do better with T-Pain relief ", New York DailyNews. He cites new jack swing producer Teddy Riley and funk artist Roger Troutman's use of the talk box as inspirations for his own use of Auto-Tune. T-Pain became so associated with Auto-Tune that he had an iPhone Mobile app named after him that simulated the effect, called "I Am T-Pain". Eventually dubbed the "T-Pain effect", the use of Auto-Tune became a popular fixture of late 2000s and early 2010s hip-hop, examples being Snoop Dogg's "Sexual Eruption", Lil Wayne's "Lollipop", Kanye West's album 808s & Heartbreak, and the Black Eyed Peas' number-one hit "Boom Boom Pow".
Major artists to arise from the genre in the 2010s include Lil Nas X, Waka Flocka Flame, Future, Chief Keef, Migos, Young Thug, Travis Scott, Kodak Black, 21 Savage, Yung Lean, Lil Uzi Vert, XXXTentacion, Ski Mask the Slump God, Juice Wrld, Trippie Redd, Lil Pump, Smokepurpp, Rae Sremmurd, Tekashi 6ix9ine, NBA YoungBoy, Lil Baby, Fetty Wap, among others. Female rappers Nicki Minaj, Cardi B, Saweetie, Doja Cat, Iggy Azalea, City Girls, and Megan Thee Stallion also entered the mainstream. Trap artists that originated in the 2000s were able to recapture mainstream success in the 2010s with the rise of trap, including 2 Chainz, Gucci Mane and Juicy J, becoming more successful in the latter part of their career than when they debuted. Trap producers to reach mainstream success include Metro Boomin, Pi'erre Bourne, London on da Track, and Mike Will Made-It.
Critics of the trap genre have used the term "mumble rap" to describe the heavily auto-tuned, and sometimes hard to understand- delivery of verses from a majority of the artists. Artists longstanding within the genre have had their own comments regarding the rise of mumble rap, such as Rick Rubin stating that Eminem was confused by it, and Snoop Dogg claiming that he can not differentiate between artists. Black Thought, lead rapper from the Roots, stated that the "game has changed. It's different. The standards are different, the criteria that's taken into consideration in determining validity is different. We're at a point in history where lyricism almost comes last in very many regards."
On July 17, 2017, Forbes reported that hip-hop/R&B (which Nielsen SoundScan classifies as being the same genre) had usurped rock as the most consumed musical genre, becoming the most popular genre in music for the first time in U.S. history.
In the 2010s, Atlanta hip-hop dominated the mainstream.
In the late 2010s and early 2020s, Brooklyn drill became popular since Pop Smoke emerged before his death. The 2020s decade began with Roddy Ricch as the first rapper to have a Billboard Hot 100 number-one entry.
The online audio distribution platform SoundCloud played a massive role in the creation of various artists' careers in the latter half of the 2010s. Mainstream acts to start on SoundCloud include Post Malone, Lil Uzi Vert, Russ, Bryson Tiller, Lil Xan, Lil Pump, Lil Peep, Lil Skies, Smokepurpp, Ski Mask the Slump God, XXXTentacion, Trippie Redd, Playboi Carti, YBN Nahmir, Tay-K, ZillaKami, Ugly God, Nav, and others. These songs are usually closely related to trap, but have also been labeled separately as SoundCloud and sometimes emo rap. They have been characterized as usually having moody, sad undertones, and usually feature lo-fi rough production. The genre has been met with criticism for its perceived low effort in lyrics and production, and the problematic nature of the artists to arise from it, such as Lil Peep's drug abuse that led to his death, the multiple assault charges to XXXTentacion, 6ix9ine pleading guilty to using a child in a sexual performance, and the murder charges on Tay-K. On the contrary, the image of artists such as XXXTentacion have been met with praise due to perceived character improvement since their controversies.
In 2021, the most streamed rappers were Doja Cat and Lil Nas X. Other rappers with high streams in 2021 were Drake, Eminem, Lil Baby, Polo G, Megan Thee Stallion, Cardi B, Moneybagg Yo, Masked Wolf, Pop Smoke, J. Cole, and Lil Durk. The most streamed rap album of all time on Spotify is XXXTentacion's second album, ? (2018).
Hispanics and people from the Caribbean played an integral role in the early development of hip-hop in New York, and the style spread to almost every country in that region. Hip-hop first developed in the South Bronx, which had a high Hispanic, particularly Puerto Rican, population in the 1970s. Some famous rappers from New York City of Puerto Rican origin are the late Big Pun, Fat Joe, and Angie Martinez. With Hispanic rap groups like Cypress Hill on the American charts, Mexican rap rock groups, such as Control Machete, rose to prominence in their native land.
In many Latin American countries, as in the U.S., hip-hop has been a tool with which marginalized people can articulate their struggle. Hip-hop grew steadily more popular in Cuba in the 1980s and 1990s through Cuba's Special Period that came with the fall of the Soviet Union. During this period of economic crisis, which the country's poor and black populations especially hard, hip-hop became a way for the country's Afro-descended population to embrace their blackness and articulate a demand for racial equality for black people in Cuba. The idea of blackness and black liberation was not always compatible with the goals of the Cuban government, which was still operating under the idea that a raceless society was the correct realization of the Cuban Revolution. When hip-hop emerged, the Cuban government opposed the vulgar image that rappers portrayed, but later accepted that it might be better to have hip-hop under the influence of the Ministry of Culture as an authentic expression of Cuban Culture. Rappers who explicitly speak about race or racism in Cuba are still under scrutiny by the government. An annual Cuban hip-hop concert, beginning in 1995, held at Alamar in Havana helped popularize Cuban hip-hop. Famous Cuban rap groups include Krudas Cubensi and Supercrónica Obsesión.
Black and indigenous people in Latin America and Caribbean islands have been using hip-hop for decades to discuss race and class issues in their respective countries. Brazilian hip hop is heavily associated with racial and economic issues in the country, where a lot of Afro-Brazilians live in economically disadvantaged communities, known in Brazil as . São Paulo is where hip-hop began in the country, but it soon spread all over Brazil, and today, almost every big Brazilian city, including Rio de Janeiro, Salvador, Curitiba, Porto Alegre, Belo Horizonte, Recife and Brasília, has a hip-hop scene. Some notable artists include Racionais MC's, Thaide, and Marcelo D2. One of Brazil's most popular rappers, MV Bill, has spent his career advocating for black youth in Rio de Janeiro.
Reggaeton, a Puerto Rican style of music, has a lot of similarities with U.S.-based hip-hop. Both were influenced by Jamaican music, and both incorporate rapping and call and response.
In Venezuela, social unrest at the end of the 1980s and beginning of the 1990s coincided with the rise of gangsta rap in the United States and led to the rise of that music in Venezuela as well. Venezuelan rappers in the 1990s generally modeled their music after gangsta rap, embracing and attempting to redefine negative stereotypes about poor and black youth as dangerous and materialistic and incorporating socially conscious critique of Venezuela's criminalization of young, poor, Afro-descended people into their music.
In Haiti, hip hop developed in the early 1980s. Master Dji and his songs "Vakans" and "Politik Pa m" are mostly credited with the rise of Haitian hip-hop. What later became known as "Rap Kreyòl" grew in popularity in the late 1990s with King Posse and Original Rap Stuff. Due to cheaper recording technology and flows of equipment to Haiti, more Rap Kreyòl groups are recording songs, even after the January 12 earthquake. Haitian hip-hop has recently become a way for artists of Haitian backgrounds in the Haiti and abroad to express their national identity and political opinions about their country of origin.
In Europe, Africa, and Asia, hip-hop began to move from the underground to mainstream audiences. In Europe, hip-hop was the domain of both ethnic nationals and immigrants. UK rap, for example, became a genre of its own and spawned artists such as Wiley, Dizzee Rascal, the Streets and many more. Germany produced the well-known Die Fantastischen Vier as well as several Turkish people performers like the controversial Cartel, Kool Savas, and Azad. In France, hip-hop music developed itself from the end of the 80s. It can be divided into three eras: The classical period, which extends from the end of the 1980s to the beginning of the 2000s marked by a majority of black artists like Oxmo Puccino, MC Solaar, Kery James (with IdealJ), IAM, NTM, the period of democratization from the 2000s, with groups and artists like Lunatic, Diam's, Sinik, Rim'K, Sefyu, Sniper, Rohff, La Fouine, which are beginning to affect the French population in general and to record the first significant commercial successes. Finally, from the 2010s, French-speaking rap experienced a rather paradoxical period of innovation, the logical start of new experiments that opened up French rap to new musical genres, such as Trap music, Drill music or "folk" rap. This period is distinguished by the great variety of French hip-hop music, where several movements beginning to separate, artists like Booba, Kaaris, JuL, Gims, Freeze Corleone, Ziak or Soolking try to innovate and look for new tracks to explore. In the Netherlands, important nineties rappers include the Osdorp Posse, a crew from Amsterdam, Extince, from Oosterhout, and Postmen. Italy found its own rappers, including Jovanotti and Articolo 31, grow nationally renowned, while the Polish scene began in earnest early in the decade with the rise of PM Cool Lee. In Romania, B.U.G. Mafia came out of Bucharest's Pantelimon neighborhood, and their brand of gangsta rap underlines the parallels between life in Romania's Communist-era apartment blocks and in the housing projects of America's ghettos.
One of the countries outside the US where hip-hop is most popular is the United Kingdom. Grime music, a genre of music derived from UK Garage and drum and bass and influenced by hip-hop, emerged in the early 2000s with artists such as Dizzee Rascal becoming successful. Although it is immensely popular, many British politicians criticize the music for what they see as promoting theft and murder, similar to gangsta rap in America. These criticisms have been deemed racist by the mostly Black British grime industry. Despite its controversial nature, grime has had a major effect on British fashion and pop music, with many young working-class youth emulating the clothing worn by grime stars like Dizzee Rascal and Wiley. There are many subgenres of grime, including "Rhythm and Grime", a mix of R&B and grime, and grindie, a mix of indie rock and grime popularized by indie rock band Hadouken!
In Germany and France, gangsta rap has become popular among youths who like the violent and aggressive lyrics. Some German rappers openly or comically flirt with Nazism; for example, Bushido (born Anis Mohamed Youssef Ferchichi) raps "Salutiert, steht stramm, Ich bin der Leader wie A" (Salute, stand to attention, I am the leader like 'A') and Fler had a hit with the record Neue Deutsche Welle (New German Wave) complete with the title written in Third Reich style Gothic print and advertised with an Adolf Hitler quote. These references also spawned great controversy in Germany. Meanwhile, in France, artists like Kery James' Idéal J maintained a radical, anti-authoritarian attitude and released songs like Hardcore which attacked the growth of the French far right. In the Netherlands, MC Brainpower went from being an underground battle rapper to mainstream recognition in the Benelux, thus influencing numerous rap artists in the region. In Israel, rapper Subliminal reaches out to Israeli youth with political and religious-themed lyrics, usually with a Zionist message.
In Nigeria, hip-hop gained popularity in the 80s, 90s and 2000s through artists like The Remedies, JJC Skillz, M.I Abaga and Sound Sultan, encompassing the incorporation of local languages and traditional hip-hop beats. In the 2010s and 2020s it developed further with rappers like Naeto C, Reminisce, Olamide, Phyno, Blaqbonez and Odumodublvck.
In Asia, mainstream stars rose to prominence in the Philippines, led by Francis Magalona, Rap Asia, MC Lara and Lady Diane. In Japan, where underground rappers had previously found a limited audience, and popular brought a style called J-rap to the top of the charts in the middle of the 1990s. Of particular importance is the influence on East Asian nations, where hip-hop music has become fused with local popular music to form different styles such as K-pop, C-pop and J-pop.
In South Africa, the hip-hop scene overlaps with kwaito, a music genre that emphasizes African culture and social issues. Rappers such as Pope Troy have harnessed the use of socio-economic issues plaguing the political spheres of South Africa and hip-hop as a whole whilst balancing his lingual approach in order to communicate with the masses about the technical aspects that are creating the issues, South African hip-hop has evolved into a prominent presence in mainstream South African music. Between the 1990s and 2010s, it had transcended its origins as a form of political expression in Cape Town to produce artists like HHP, Riky Rick and AKA. Prominent South African rappers include Stogie T, Reason, Da L.E.S, Cassper Nyovest, Emtee, Fifi Cooper, A-Reece, Shane Eagle, Nasty C, K.O, YoungstaCPT and Big Zulu.
Israel's hip-hop grew greatly in popularity at the end of the decade, with several stars both Palestinian (Tamer Nafar) and Israeli people (Subliminal). In Portugal hip-hop has his own kind of rapping, which is more political and underground scene, they are known for Valete, Dealema and Halloween. Russian hip hop emerged during last years of Soviet Union and cemented later, with groups like Malchishnik and Bad Balance enjoying mainstream popularity in the 1990s, while Ligalize and Kasta were popular in the 2000s. In former Yugoslavia hip-hop first appeared during the 1980s mostly with Serbian hip-hop with performers such as Breakdancing, the Master Scratch Band, Badvajzer, and others. During the late 1990s hip-hop had a boom, with Rambo Amadeus and later Beogradski sindikat becoming a major performer. Bosnian and Herzegovinian hip hop is nowadays dominated by Edo Maajka. In the region hip-hop is often used as a political and social message in song themes such as war, profiteering, corruption, etc. Frenkie, another Bosnian rapper, is associated with Edo Maajka, and has collaborated beyond Bosnian borders.
In the 2010s, hip-hop became popular in Canada particularly in Toronto, which has a large Afro-Caribbean and African population. The city expressed a new sub-genre called Toronto sound. After Drake achieved mainstream success, the Toronto sound began with works by producers T-Minus and Boi-1da.
Historical background
turntables with a Vestax PMC-06 Pro A mixer]]Hip-hop's initial medium was the turntable. Vinyl records were the primary source for DJs who reworked songs into new material for dancing. The process echoed the appropriation of styles that created jazz decades earlier. The genres hip-hop initially assimilated were wide-ranging, but its primary sources were disco and funk records.
Birth of hip-hop
Breaking
By the 1970s, The Bronx had been cut in half by the Cross Bronx Expressway. The construction accelerated "white flight" from the neighborhood and concentrated lower income African American, Latin Americans, and Caribbean residents in the southern half of the borough. This massive, multi-ethnic, working class community is where hip-hop was born. The traditions of these ethnicities all informed the emerging genre. (2025). 9780814213155, Ohio University Press. ISBN 9780814213155Thompson, Robert Farris. "Hip Hop 101." In Droppin'science: Critical essays on rap music and hip hop culture. Edited by William Eric Perkins . Temple University Press, 1996. http://ereserve.library.utah.edu/Annual/DANCE/1099/Christensen/hip.pdf As all music does, hip-hop reflected the social, economic, and political realities of its creators, who were sometimes disenfranchised and marginalized.
A big trend in the dance clubs was for dancers to wait for the break in a song to show off their best moves. Some would even forego dancing until the break in a record came on. The practice became known as "breakdancing", and it increased demand for breaks that DJs would soon supply. One of the most popular clubs was the Plaza Tunnel in the basement of the Concourse Plaza Hotel where DJ John Brown held sway. To keep people moving, he would mix a wide range of records like Jimmy Castor "It's Just Begun", The Isley Brothers' "Get Into Something", Earth, Wind & Fire's "Moment of Truth", Rare Earth's Get Ready, Redbone's "Maggie", and Chicago's "I'm a Man".
Block parties
in the southwest Bronx, site of Cindy Campbell's August 11, 1973 party.]]Herc first began extending breaks at a back-to-school rent party his sister Cindy Campbell hosted in the recreation room of their building at 1520 Sedgwick Avenue on the southwest side of the Bronx. The date of the party, August 11, 1973, has been aggressively marketed as the "Birth of Hip-Hop".Browne, David. " Kool Herc and the History (and Mystery) of Hip-Hop's First Day". Rolling Stone. August 11, 2023.Blatt, Ruth. " Why Rap Creates Entrepreneurs". Forbes. April 10, 2014Summers, Juana. " 50 years of hip-hop: A genre born from a backyard party". NPR. August 5, 2023. The Campbells emigrated from Jamaica when Herc was 12. Initially, Herc denied any connection between the Jamaican music scene and his work. Later in life, he embraced the parallels.Aprahamian, Serouj "Midus". The Birth of Breaking: Hip-Hop History from the Floor Up. Bloomsbury Academic & Professional, 2023.
Recordings
By the late 1970s, DJs were releasing 12-inch records where they would rap to the beat, such as Kurtis Blow's "The Breaks".Toop, David. The Rap Attack: African Jive to New York Hip Hop. Boston: South End Press, 1984.
Introduction of rapping
Hip-Hop evolved without rap as a requirement of the genre, but the two terms became functionally synonymous.The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. " Rap". Encyclopædia Britannica. April, 9 2025. Many early hip-hop tracks do not include rapping. The early rapping of hip-hop developed out of DJ and master of ceremonies' announcements made over the microphone at parties, and later into more complex raps. Yes Yes Y'All: The Experience Music Project Oral History of Hip Hop's First Decade. Edited by Jim Fricke and Charlie Ahearn. Da Capo Press, 2002. 128.
Rappers may write, memorize, or Freestyle rap, and they can perform a cappella or with a beat. Female rappers appeared on the scene in the late 1970s and early 80s, including Bronx artist MC Sha-Rock, member of the Funky Four Plus One, credited with being the first female MC and the Sequence, a hip-hop trio signed to Sugar Hill Records, the first all-female group to release a hit rap record, Funk You Up. (2010). 9780977825844, OuttaDaBluePublishing. ISBN 9780977825844
1980s: old-school and new-school
Transition to recording
Hip-hop's early evolution occurred around the time that sampling technology and drum-machines became widely available to the general public at a cost that was affordable to the average consumer—not just professional studios. Drum-machines and samplers were combined in machines that came to be known as MPC's or 'Music Production Centers', early examples of which would include the Linn 9000. The first sampler that was broadly adopted to create this new kind of music was the Mellotron used in combination with the TR-808 drum machine. Mellotrons and Linn's were succeeded by the Akai, in the late 1980s."With the invention of sound recording, it was only a matter of time until the device which records itself becomes the instrument. The moment in popular culture a sound playback device became the instrument was in early hip-hop. The use of the turntable, and particularly two turntables, is characteristic. You could set up two turntables with two identical records, and keep a break going forever. So the birth of sampling coincided with the birth of...the idea of the loop."
Influence of disco
Hip-hop music was influenced by disco music, as disco also emphasized the key role of the DJ in creating tracks and mixes for dancers, and old school hip-hop often used disco tracks as beats. At the same time however, hip-hop music was also a backlash against certain subgenres of late 1970s disco. While the early disco was African American and Italian-American-created underground music developed by DJs and producers for the dance club subculture, by the late 1970s, disco airwaves were dominated by mainstream, expensively record producer music industry-produced disco songs. According to Kurtis Blow, the early days of hip-hop were characterized by divisions between fans and detractors of disco music. Hip-hop had largely emerged as "a direct response to the watered down, Europeanised, disco music that permeated the airwaves".nciMUSIC – History of Hip Hop nciMUSIC.com The earliest hip-hop was mainly based on hard funk loops sourced from vintage funk records. By 1979, disco instrumental loops/tracks had become the basis of much hip-hop music. This genre was called "disco rap". Ironically, the rise of hip-hop music also played a role in the eventual decline in disco's popularity.
Diversification of styles
The 1980s marked the diversification of hip-hop as the genre developed more complex styles.Benson, G. (2010). Lonely Planet USA, Lonely Planet New York City became a veritable laboratory for the creation of new hip-hop sounds. Early examples of the diversification process can be heard in tracks such as Grandmaster Flash's "The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash on the Wheels of Steel" (1981), a single consisting entirely of sampled tracksTalbot, M,.(2000). The musical work: reality or invention?, Liverpool University Press as well as Afrika Bambaataa's "Planet Rock" (1982), and Warp 9's "Nunk", (1982)Toop, David (2000). Rap Attack 3: African Rap to Global Hip Hop. (Expanded Third Edition) London: Serpent's Tail, pp. 150–151 . which signified the fusion of hip-hop music with electro music. In addition, Rammellzee & K-Rob's "Beat Bop" (1983) was a 'slow jam' which had a dub music influence with its use of reverb and echo as texture and playful sound effects. Warp 9's "Light Years Away" was a "cornerstone of early 80s beatbox afrofuturism".Fitzpatrick, Rob. " The 101 strangest records on Spotify: Warp 9 - It's A Beat Wave", The Guardian. May 14, 2014. In the 1970s, hip-hop music typically used samples from funk and later, from disco. The mid-1980s marked a paradigm shift in the development of hip-hop, with the introduction of samples from rock music, as demonstrated in the albums King of Rock and Licensed to Ill. Hip-hop prior to this shift is characterized as old-school hip hop.
1990s: golden age hip-hop
Hip-hop's "golden age" (or "golden era") is a name given to a period in mainstream hip-hop, produced between the mid-1980s and the mid-1990s,Carl Stoffers. " Hip hop's golden age: Where are they now?", New York Daily News. November 27, 2015. which is characterized by its diversity, quality, innovation and influence.Jon Caramanica, "Hip-Hop's Raiders of the Lost Archives" , New York Times, June 26, 2005.
Lonnae O'Neal Parker, "U-Md. Senior Aaron McGruder's Edgy Hip-Hop Comic Gets Raves, but No Takers", Washington Post, August 20, 1997.Jake Coyle of Associated Press, "Spin magazine picks Radiohead CD as best" , published in USA Today, June 19, 2005.
Andrew Drever, "Jungle Brothers still untamed" , The Age Australia, October 24, 2003. There were strong themes of Afrocentrism and political militancy in golden age hip-hop lyrics. The music was experimental and the sampling drew on eclectic sources.Roni Sariq, "Crazy Wisdom Masters" , City Pages, April 16, 1997.
Will Hodgkinson, "Adventures on the wheels of steel" , The Guardian, September 19, 2003. There was often a strong jazz rap in the music. The artists and groups most often associated with this phase are Public Enemy, Boogie Down Productions, Eric B. & Rakim, Brand Nubian, De La Soul, A Tribe Called Quest, Gang Starr, Big Daddy Kane and the Jungle Brothers.Per Hodgkinson, Drever, Thill, O'Neal Parker and Sariq above. Additionally:
Andrew Pettie, "'Where rap went wrong'" , Daily Telegraph, August 11, 2005.
Mosi Reeves, "Easy-Chair Rap" , Village Voice, January 29, 2002.
Greg Kot, "Hip-Hop Below the Mainstream", Los Angeles Times, September 19, 2001.
Scott Mervis, "From Kool Herc to 50 Cent, the story of rap – so far" , Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, February 15, 2004. The Digable Planets made unique contributions as well, earning a Grammy in 1993.
Gangsta rap and West Coast hip-hop
Gangsta rap is a subgenre of hip-hop that reflects the violent lifestyles of inner-city American black youths. Gangsta is a non-rhotic pronunciation of the word gangster. The genre was pioneered in the mid-1980s by rappers such as Schoolly D and Ice-T, and was popularized in the later part of the 1980s by groups like N.W.A. In 1985 Schoolly D released "P.S.K. What Does It Mean?", which is often regarded as the first gangsta rap song, which was followed by Ice-T's "6 in the Mornin'" in 1986. After the national attention and controversy that Ice-T and N.W.A created in the late 1980s and early 1990s, as well as the mainstreaming of G-funk in the mid-1990s, gangsta rap became the most commercially-lucrative subgenre of hip-hop. Some gangsta rappers were known for mixing the political and social commentary of political rap with the criminal elements and crime stories found in gangsta rap.
Mainstream breakthrough
In 1990, Public Enemy's Fear of a Black Planet was a significant success with music critics and consumers. The album played a key role in hip-hop's mainstream emergence in 1990, dubbed by Billboard editor Paul Grein as "the year that rap exploded". In a 1990 article on its commercial breakthrough, Janice C. Thompson of Time wrote that hip-hop "has grown into the most exciting development in American pop music in more than a decade." Thompson noted the impact of Public Enemy's 1989 single "Fight the Power", rapper Tone Lōc's single Wild Thing being the best-selling single of 1989, and that at the time of her article, nearly a third of the songs on the Billboard Hot 100 were hip-hop songs. In a similar 1990 article, Robert Hilburn of the Los Angeles Times put hip-hop music's commercial emergence into perspective:
(2025). 9780310274391, Zondervan. ISBN 9780310274391 In 1992 released The Chronic. As well as helping to establish West Coast gangsta rap as more commercially viable than East Coast hip-hop, this album founded a style called G-funk, which soon came to dominate West Coast hip-hop. The style was further developed and popularized by Snoop Dogg's 1993 album Doggystyle. However, hip-hop was still met with resistance from black radio, including urban contemporary radio stations. Russell Simmons said in 1990, "Black radio stations hated rap from the start and there's still a lot of resistance to it".
East vs. West rivalry
The East Coast–West Coast hip-hop rivalry was a feud between artists and fans of the East Coast hip hop and West Coast hip hop scenes in the United States. The rivalry began in the 1970s as hip-hop gained its popularity and the West Coast developed its own style. It intensified in the late 1980s and early 1990s and reached its peak in the mid-1990s. Focal points of the feud were East Coast-based rapper the Notorious B.I.G. (and his New York-based label, Bad Boy Records, founded by Sean Combs) and West Coast-based rapper Tupac Shakur (and his Los Angeles-based label, Death Row Records, founded by Dr. Dre). This rivalry started before the rappers themselves hit the scene. Because New York is the birthplace of hip-hop, artists from the West Coast felt as if they were not receiving the same media coverage and public attention as the East Coast. As time went on, both rappers began to grow in fame and as they both became more known the tensions continued to arise. Eventually both artists were fatally shot following drive-by shootings by unknown assailants in 1997 and 1996, respectively.
East Coast hip-hop
In the early 1990s East Coast hip-hop was dominated by the Native Tongues posse, which was loosely composed of De La Soul with producer Prince Paul, A Tribe Called Quest, the Jungle Brothers, as well as their loose affiliates 3rd Bass, Main Source, and the less successful Black Sheep and KMD. Although originally a "daisy age" conception stressing the positive aspects of life, darker material (such as De La Soul's thought-provoking "Millie Pulled a Pistol on Santa") soon crept in. Artists such as Masta Ace (particularly for SlaughtaHouse), Brand Nubian, Public Enemy, Organized Konfusion, and Tragedy Khadafi had a more overtly-militant pose, both in sound and manner. In 1993, the Wu-Tang Clan's Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) revitalized the New York hip-hop scene by pioneering an East Coast Hardcore hip-hop equivalent in intensity to what was being produced on the West Coast. According to Allmusic, the production on two Mobb Deep albums, The Infamous (1995) and Hell on Earth (1996), are "indebted" to RZA's early production with the Wu-Tang Clan.
West Coast hip-hop
After N.W.A broke up, former member Dr. Dre released The Chronic in 1992, which peaked at No. 1 on the R&B/hip-hop chart, No. 3 on the pop chart, and spawned a No. 2 pop single with "Nuthin' but a 'G' Thang". The Chronic took West Coast rap in a new direction, influenced strongly by Psychedelic funk artists, melding smooth and easy funk beats with slowly-drawled lyrics. This came to be known as G-funk and dominated mainstream hip-hop in the early-mid 1990s through a roster of artists on Suge Knight's Death Row Records, including Tupac Shakur and Snoop Dogg. As the Los Angeles-based Death Row built an empire around Dre, Snoop, and Tupac, it also entered into a rivalry with New York City's Bad Boy Records, led by Sean Combs and the Notorious B.I.G.
Further diversification
In the 1990s, hip-hop began to diversify with other regional styles emerging on the national scene. Southern rap became popular in the early 1990s. The first Southern rappers to gain national attention were the Geto Boys out of Houston, Texas. Southern rap's roots can be traced to the success of Geto Boy's Grip It! On That Other Level in 1989, the Rick Rubin produced The Geto Boys in 1990, and We Can't Be Stopped in 1991. The Houston area also produced other artists that pioneered the early southern rap sound such as UGK and the solo career of Scarface.
2000s: bling and blog
Commercialization and new directions
During the late 1990s, in the wake of the deaths of Tupac Shakur and the Notorious B.I.G., a new commercial sound emerged in the hip-hop scene, sometimes referred to as the "bling era" (derived from B.G.'s "Bling Bling"), "jiggy era" (derived from Will Smith's "Gettin' Jiggy wit It"), or "shiny suit era" (derived by metallic suits worn by some rappers in music videos at the time, such as in "Mo Money Mo Problems" by the Notorious B.I.G., Sean Combs, and Mase). Before the late 1990s, gangsta rap, while a huge-selling genre, had been regarded as well outside of the pop mainstream, committed to representing the experience of the inner-city and not "selling out" to the pop charts. However, the rise of Sean "Puff Daddy" Combs's Bad Boy Records, propelled by the massive crossover success of Combs's 1997 ensemble album No Way Out, signaled a major stylistic change in gangsta rap (and mainstream hip-hop in general), as it would become even more commercially successful and popularly accepted. Silky R&B-styled hooks and production, more materialist subject matter, and samples of hit soul music and pop songs from the 1970s and 1980s were the staples of this sound, which was showcased by producers such as Combs, Timbaland, Trackmasters, the Neptunes, and Scott Storch. Also achieving similar levels of success at this time were Master P and his No Limit label in New Orleans; Master P built up a roster of artists (the No Limit posse) based out of New Orleans, and incorporated G-funk and Miami bass influences in his music. The New Orleans upstart Cash Money label was also gaining popularity during this time, with emerging artists such as Birdman, Lil Wayne, B.G., and Juvenile.
Rise of alternative hip-hop
Alternative hip hop, which was introduced in the 1980s and then declined, resurged in the early-mid 2000s with the rejuvenated interest in indie music by the general public. The genre began to attain a place in the mainstream, due in part to the crossover success of artists such as Outkast, Kanye West, and Gnarls Barkley. Outkast's 2003 album Speakerboxxx/The Love Below received high acclaim from music critics, and appealed to a wide range of listeners, being that it spanned numerous musical genres – including rap, rock, R&B, punk, jazz, indie, country, pop, electronica, and gospel. The album also spawned two number-one hit singles, and has been certified diamond by selling 11 times platinum by the RIAA for shipping more than 11 million units, becoming one of the best selling hip-hop albums of all time. It also won a Grammy Award for Album of the Year at the 46th Annual Grammy Awards, being only the second rap album to do so. Previously, alternative hip-hop acts had attained much critical acclaim, but received relatively little exposure through radio and other media outlets; during this time, alternative hip-hop artists such as MF Doom, the Roots, Dilated Peoples, Gnarls Barkley, Yasiin Bey, and Aesop Rock began to achieve significant recognition.
Glitch hop and wonky music
Glitch hop and wonky music evolved following the rise of trip hop, dubstep and intelligent dance music (IDM). Both glitch hop and wonky music frequently reflect the experimental nature of IDM and the heavy bass featured in dubstep songs. While trip hop has been described as being a distinct British upper-middle class take on hip-hop, glitch-hop and wonky music have much more stylistic diversity. Both genres are of influence. Glitch hop contains echoes of 1980s pop music, Indian , eclectic jazz and West Coast rap. Los Angeles, London, Glasgow and a number of other cities have become hot spots for these scenes, and underground scenes have developed across the world in smaller communities. Both genres often pay homage to older and more well established electronic music artists such as Radiohead, Aphex Twin and Boards of Canada as well as independent hip-hop producers like J Dilla and Madlib.
Crunk music
Crunk is a regional hip-hop genre that originated in Tennessee in the southern United States in the 1990s, influenced by Miami bass. One of the pioneers of crunk, Lil Jon, said that it was a fusion of hip-hop, electro, and electronic dance music. The style was pioneered and commercialized by artists from Memphis, Tennessee and Atlanta, Georgia, gaining considerable popularity in the mid-2000s via Lil Jon and the Ying Yang Twins. Looped, stripped-down drum machine rhythms are usually used. The Roland TR-808 and 909 are among the most popular. The drum machine loops are usually accompanied by simple, repeated synthesizer melodies and heavy bass "stabs". The tempo of the music is somewhat slower than hip-hop, around the speed of reggaeton. The focal point of crunk is more often the beats and instrumental music rather than the lyrics. Crunk rappers, however, often shout and scream their lyrics, creating an aggressive, almost heavy, style of hip-hop. While other subgenres of hip-hop address sociopolitical or personal concerns, crunk is almost exclusively "party music", favoring call and response hip-hop slogans in lieu of more substantive approaches. Crunk helped southern hip-hop gain mainstream prominence during this period, as the classic East and West Coast styles of the 1990s gradually lost dominance.
Snap music and influence of the Internet
Snap rap (also known as ringtone rap) is a subgenre of crunk that emerged from Atlanta, Georgia in the late 1990s. Vibe, June 2006, "Oh Snap!" The genre gained mainstream popularity in the mid-late 2000s, and artists from other Southern states such as Tennessee also began to emerge performing in this style. Tracks commonly consist of a Roland TR-808 bass drum, hi-hat, bass, finger Finger snapping, a main groove, and a simplistic vocal hook. Hit snap songs include "Lean wit It, Rock wit It" by Dem Franchize Boyz, "Laffy Taffy" by D4L, "It's Goin' Down" by Yung Joc, and "Crank That (Soulja Boy)" by Soulja Boy. In retrospect, Soulja Boy has been credited with setting trends in hip-hop, such as self-publishing his songs through the Internet (which helped them go Viral video) and paving the way for a new wave of younger artists.
Decline in sales
Starting in 2005, sales of hip-hop music in the United States began to severely wane, leading Time magazine to question if mainstream hip-hop was "dying". Billboard magazine found that, since 2000, rap sales dropped 44%, and declined to 10% of all music sales, which, while still a commanding figure when compared to other genres, is a significant drop from the 13% of all music sales where rap music regularly placed. According to Courtland Milloy of The Washington Post, for the first time on five years, no rap albums were among the top 10 sellers in 2006. NPR culture critic Elizabeth Blair noted that, "some industry experts say young people are fed up with the violence, degrading imagery and lyrics." However, the 2005 report Generation M: Media in the Lives of 8–18 Year-Olds found that hip-hop music is by far the most popular music genre for children and teenagers with 65 percent of 8- to-18-year-olds listening to it on a daily basis.
Innovation and revitalization
By the late 2000s, alternative hip-hop had secured its place within the mainstream, due in part to the declining commercial viability of gangsta rap. Industry observers view the sales race between Kanye West's Graduation and 50 Cent's Curtis as a turning point for hip-hop. West emerged the victor, selling nearly a million copies in the first week alone, proving that innovative rap music could be just as commercially viable as gangsta rap, if not more so. Although he designed it as a melancholic pop album rather than a rap album, Kanye's following 808s & Heartbreak would have a significant effect on hip-hop music. While his decision to sing about love, loneliness, and heartache for the entirety of the album was at first heavily criticized by music audiences and the album was predicted to be a flop, its subsequent critical acclaim and commercial success encouraged other mainstream rappers to take greater creative risks with their music. During the release of The Blueprint 3, New York rap mogul Jay-Z revealed that next studio album would be an experimental effort, stating, "... it's not gonna be a #1 album. That's where I'm at right now. I wanna make the most experimental album I ever made." Jay-Z elaborated that like Kanye, he was unsatisfied with contemporary hip-hop, was being inspired by indie-rockers like Grizzly Bear, and asserted his belief that the indie rock movement would play an important role in the continued evolution of hip-hop.
2010s–2020s: trap and SoundCloud rap
in 2018]]Trap music is a subgenre of Southern rap that originated in the early 1990s. It grew in the 2000s to become a mainstream sensation, eventually reaching ubiquity in the mid-late 2010s and frequently having songs top the Billboard hip-hop charts. It is typified by double-time or triple-time sub-divided , heavy from the Roland TR-808 drum machine, layered synthesizers and an overall dark, ominous or bleak atmosphere. The strong influence of the sound led to other artists within the genre to move towards the trap sound, with a notable example being Jay-Z and Kanye West on their joint song, "H•A•M". Non-rappers have also experimented with trap, such as "7/11" by Beyoncé and "Dark Horse" by Katy Perry (featuring rapper Juicy J).
Age of streaming
The rise of streaming platforms such as Spotify and Apple Music in the mid-late 2010s greatly impacted the entire music business as a whole.[62] Despite being a free streaming-only mixtape with no commercial release, Chance the Rapper's Coloring Book won Best Rap Album at the 2017 Grammy Awards, being the first streaming album ever to win a Grammy Award. Kanye West has stated that his own album, Yeezus, marked the death of CDs, and thus his subsequent release, The Life of Pablo was only released digitally. The Life of Pablo was also nominated for 2017 Best Rap Album. In 2017, Drake released a free streaming-only project titled More Life, which he called a "playlist", insisting that it was neither a mixtape nor an album.
Female hip-hop artists
In today's society, hip-hop or even rap, recognizes mostly male artists. Oftentimes the female artists are overlooked. There are many women that have notably influenced the hip-hop culture. However, a few names that cannot go unsaid are MC Sha-rock, MC Lyte, Queen Latifah, Lauryn Hill, Missy Elliot, Lil Kim, Erykah Badu, Foxy Brown, Nicki Minaj and many more. Of this list MC Sha-rock is considered the historian/pioneer of female hip-hop culture. She started her career as a break-dancer in the Bronx, New York and later became "The hip-hop's culture's first female emcee/rapper". Her career has been long-lived. From being a former member of the Funky 4+1 more to having MC rhyming battles with groups such as Grandmaster Flash and Furious 5. Another notable pioneer of female hip-hop is the famous Queen Latifah, Born Dana Elaine Owens in Newark, NJ. Queen Latifah started her career from a young age, as early as 17. But, not long after it began it soon took-off. She released her first full length album, All Hail the Queen in 1989. As she continued to release music she grew more and more popular, and her fame increased amidst the hip-hop culture. However, Queen Latifah was not an ordinary rapper. She rapped about the issues surrounding being a black woman and overall social injustice issues that appear in the music industry. In 1993, she recorded an album called Black Reign that featured the song U.N.I.T.Y that confronted the anti-feminist rhetoric and domestic violence, which was prominent among male acts. As time passes, Queen Latifah has been recognized as a popular songwriter, actress, and producer. These early pioneers have led female rap culture and impacted today's popular female hip-hop artists. For example, such popular artists may include Cardi B, Megan Thee Stallion, Miss Mulatto, Flo Milli, and many others. Each artists has their own identity in the rap game, however as hip-hop evolves so does the style of music.
World hip-hop music
Hip-hop music has reached the cultural corridors of the globe and has been absorbed and reinvented around the world. Hip-hop music expanded beyond the US, often blending local styles with hip-hop. Hip-hop has globalized into many cultures worldwide, as evident through the emergence of numerous regional scenes. It has emerged globally as a movement based upon the main tenets of hip-hop culture. The music and the art continue to embrace, even celebrate, its transnational dimensions while staying true to the local cultures to which it is rooted. Hip-hop's impact differs depending on each culture. Still, the one thing virtually all hip-hop artists worldwide have in common is that they acknowledge their debt to the Black and Latino people in New York who launched the global movement. The Vinyl Ain't Final: Hip Hop and the Globalization of Black Popular Culture. Edited by Dipannita Basu, and Sidney Lemelle, Pluto Press, 2006. xiii.
(2025). 9780814213155 ISBN 9780814213155 Dancehall music and hip from the United States are both popular music in Puerto Rico, and reggaeton is the cumulation of different musical traditions founded by Afro-descended people in the Caribbean and the United States. (2025). 9780814213155 ISBN 9780814213155 Some of reggaeton's most popular artists include Don Omar, Tego Calderón, and Daddy Yankee.
(2025). 9780814213155 ISBN 9780814213155 Rappers have embraced the red and blue of the Flag of Haiti and rapping in Haitian Creole to display their national origin. In the Dominican Republic, a recording by Santi Y Sus Duendes and Lisa M became the first single of merenrap, a fusion of hip-hop and Merengue music.
See also
Further Reading
External links
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