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Kendrick Lamar in the spotlight performing a concert.

Bad Beef

Rap beef is form of capitalist accumulation that enriches artists—and, most of all, the corporate suits that run their record labels.
by Austin McCoy via Public Books on January 9, 2025
Buffy of the Fat Boys playing turntables in 1985.

Questlove’s Personal History of Hip-Hop

An elegiac retelling of rap's origins, "Hip-Hop Is History" also ends with a sense of hope.
by Bijan Stephen via The Nation on August 27, 2024
A group of hip hop artists talking in the documentary “As We Speak.”

Rap Is Art, Not Evidence

A new documentary chronicles efforts to keep rap lyrics from being used by prosecutors, combatting a long-standing trend of criminalizing this art form.
by Kelsey Brown via YES! on May 14, 2024
Black and white photo of the outside of a bar, with "CB GB: OMFUG" written on an overhang, and graffiti and posters on the walls and windows

Real Estate Developers Killed NYC’s Vibrant ’70s Music Scene

In the 1970s and early ’80s, NYC’s racially and ethnically diverse working-class neighborhoods nurtured groundbreaking rap, salsa, and punk music.
by Kurt Hollander via Jacobin on February 11, 2024
Nicki Minaj and the autobiography of Malcolm X written by Alex Haley.

It’s Bigger Than Hip-Hop

We cannot understand the last fifty years of U.S. history—certainly not the first thing about Black history—without studying the emergence and evolution of rap.
by Austin McCoy via The Baffler on January 9, 2024
A drawing of a family tree of white rappers connecting Eminem and Macklemore.

A Brief Cultural History of the White Rapper

Why do they exist? Where did they come from? Can they be defended? The most pressing questions, answered.
by Alex Skopic via Current Affairs on November 29, 2023
Snoop Dogg.

The Snoop Dogg Manifesto

A pop star’s road map to decadence.
by Armond White via National Review on November 15, 2023
Grandmaster Flash, DJ Kool Herc, Afrika Bambaataa and Chuck D.
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Hip-Hop's Black Caribbean Roots

The relationship between the DJ and his MC derived from a Jamaican “toasting” tradition and its related “sound clash” culture.
by Alex La Rotta via Made By History on November 6, 2023
Members of the Wu-Tang Clan.

'Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)' Turns 30

How the album pays homage to hip-hop's mythical and martial arts origins.
by Marcus Evans via The Conversation on October 31, 2023
Hip hop nightclub.

Golden-Era Rap Music and the Black Intellectual Tradition

In Hip hop’s “golden era,” the period from 1987 to 1994, rappers used their platforms to bring attention to issues plaguing poor and working-class Black communities.
by Antoine S. Johnson via Black Perspectives on August 15, 2023
Universal HipHop Museum construction site.

On 50th Anniversary, Hip Hop Rises Again in the Bronx

The Universal Hip Hop Museum is poised to bring an economic and cultural infusion to the borough where the genre was born and bred.
by Brentin Mock via CityLab on August 11, 2023
A man wearing sunglasses holding a sign

Kool Herc and the History (and Mystery) of Hip-Hop's First Day

Even as the world celebrates hip-hop turning 50, the debate over rap's birth date spins on.
by David Browne via Rolling Stone on August 11, 2023
The Sugarhill Gang's Wonder Mike, Master Gee and Hen Dogg in November 2019.

The Unlikely Origins of ‘Rapper’s Delight,’ Hip-Hop’s First Mainstream Hit

The Sugarhill Gang song remains one of rap's most beloved. But it took serendipity, a book of rhymes, and an agreement to settle a lawsuit for it to survive.
by Kim Bellware via Retropolis on August 8, 2023
Puff Daddy performs at his annual White Party.

Hip-Hop’s Midlife Slump

It’s been 25 years since Puff Daddy went to the Hamptons. What’s changed?
by Xochitl Gonzalez via The Atlantic on July 3, 2023
Sha-Rock tells her story to a crowd at the Bronx Music Heritage Center, 2023.

"You Gotta Fight and Fight and Fight for Your Legacy"

Sha-Rock claims her place as the first female MC in hip-hop history.
by Sidney Madden, Rodney Carmichael, Mano Sundaresan via NPR on March 23, 2023
The original members of the hip-hop group De La Soul.

Hip-Hop at Fifty: An Elegy

A generation is still dying younger than it should—this time, of “natural causes.”
by Jelani Cobb via The New Yorker on March 16, 2023
Rap group Public Enemy: (Clockwise from bottom left) Flavor Flav, Professor Griff, Terminator X, S1W, and Chuck D

How Rap Taught (Some of) the Hip Hop Generation Black History

For members of the Hip Hop generation who came of age during the Black Power era, “reality rap” was an entry into the political power of Black history.
by Julia Métraux, Daniella Ann Cook, Pero Gaglo Dagbovie via JSTOR Daily on February 26, 2023
Pubs and Bars having colorful lights and decorations in the French Quarter

Sex, Race, and Gender in Bounce Music Culture

Bounce is defined by its “up-tempo, call-and-response, heavy base, ass-shaking music” and by its transgressively liberatory power.
by Hettie Williams via Black Perspectives on October 25, 2022
Two DJs, DJ Aladdin on the left.

Scratch Cyborgs: The Hip-Hop DJ as Technology

Hip-hop DJ culture provides a rich site for exploring how culture and industry can converge and collaborate, as well as how they need each other to move forward.
by André Sirois via The MIT Press Reader on September 22, 2022
Bad Bunny performs for the 2022 MTV Video Music Awards.

Bad Bunny and the Political History of Reggaeton

The genre is the product of migration, rebirth, and the struggle to be heard.
by Catherine Osborn via Foreign Policy on September 2, 2022
Dancing crowds and a DJ at the 2022 Capitol Hill Block Party in Seattle, Washington

How the Block Party Became an Urban Phenomenon

“That spirit of community, which we all talk about as the roots of hip-hop, really originates in that block party concept.”
by Briana A. Thomas via Smithsonian on August 10, 2022
Biggie Smalls posing for the camera, with three friends looking on from behind.

Behind the Scenes of Ready to Die

An intimate look at the creation of an iconic album.
by Justin Tinsley via Literary Hub on May 20, 2022
Almighty Kay Gee, of the Cold Crush Brothers, throwing out posters of the group at Harlem World, circa 1981.

The Photographer Who Captured the Birth of Hip-Hop

As a teen-ager, Joe Conzo, Jr., took intimate pictures of the Bronx music scene. He’s lived several lives in the time since.
by Hua Hsu via The New Yorker on June 12, 2021
A graffiti mural in Los Angeles

The Emergence Of Gangsta Rap

A review of "To Live and Defy in LA: How Gangsta Rap Changed America."
by Katherine Rye Jewell via The Metropole on March 30, 2021
Vanilla Ice in front of an American flag

The Rise and Fall of Vanilla Ice, As Told by Vanilla Ice

Thirty years after "Ice Ice Baby," Robert Van Winkle is ready to talk about it all—his rise, his fall, and that infamous night on the balcony.
by Jeff Weiss via The Ringer on October 6, 2020
Photo of KRS-One superimposed on photo of NY subway station in the Bronx

How KRS-One’s ‘Sound of Da Police’ Went From Anti-Cop Anthem to Theme Song and Back Again

The 1993 song reinvigorated the rap legend’s career — and against all odds became a Hollywood (and police) favorite
by Eric Ducker via Medium on July 25, 2020
Rapper YG, one of a crowd of people at a protest over the death of George Floyd.

Hip-hop Is the Soundtrack to Black Lives Matter Protests

Songs from Public Enemy and Ludacris have been heard at marches, continuing a tradition that dates back to the blues.
by Tyina Steptoe via The Conversation on June 25, 2020
Demonstrators against police brutality.
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The Explicit Anthem of Anti-Racist Protest

Rap group N.W.A. understood vulgarity and controversy were necessary to draw attention to police brutality.
by Felicia Angeja Viator via Made By History on June 22, 2020
Dr. Dre.

The Complicated Truths of Dr. Dre’s ‘The Chronic’

No rap album has quite the mythology attached to it—as a game changer, a king maker, a genre expander. But legends aren’t exactly fact.
by Justin Sayles via The Ringer on April 20, 2020

Dr. Dre: The Chronic

Revisiting the timeless 1992 debut from Dr. Dre, a historic moment in hip-hop that redefined West Coast rap.
by Sheldon Pearce via Pitchfork on December 15, 2019
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