Looking back at the history of the diss track, it is the strength of female emcees that stands out.
Andrey Vladimirovich Menshikov, mostly known by his stage name ‘Legalize’, but also for his membership in D.O.B and Bad Balance, is used to grating the Kremlin.
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Vladimir Putin and his KGB men have steadily extinguished the artistic freedom the genre enjoyed in the 1990s, with Ukraine’s invasion adding yet another nail in the coffin.
Members of the Wu-Tang Clan perform at the Glastonbury Music Festival, Glastonbury, England, in June 2011.
(AP Photo/Joel Ryan)
Asian martial arts and films functioned as mythic models which inspired Black and brown youth in the making of ‘urban warriors,’ and later the Wu-Tang Clan.
Tsonga-inspired musician and writer Maya Wegerif AKA Sho Madjozi in Johannesburg.
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Costume, hair and dance allow her to modernise Tsonga culture – and help shape youth identity.
Snotty Nose Rez Kids, the rap duo from the Haisla Nation, perform at the Polaris Music Prize Awards in Toronto, in September 2022.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Young
Created as an art of resistance by Black artists in the U.S., hip-hop culture has inspired global struggles and youth culture across the world, including in Canada.
Brooklyn rapper 6ix9ine’s lyrics were used against him during his criminal trial in 2019.
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A critical race theory scholar explains why it’s problematic to use rap lyrics as evidence of a crime, and what some lawmakers are doing to protect artistic expression.
Music education has evolved and now includes more popular music genres, such as hip-hop.
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On Aug. 11, 1973, a block party in the Bronx spawned a genre that would go on to influence nearly all aspects of US culture – and the music, fashion and art of countries around the world.
The exhibit “Afrofuturism: A History of Black Futures” at the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C., on May 4, 2023.
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Dip hop artists move across the stage, hands flying through the air, as audiences pulse to the rhythm of a blasting bass beat.
Hip hop artists, from top left, clockwise, DMX, Lexii Alijai, Prince Markie Dee and Trugoy the Dove have all passed away within the past decade.
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As hip-hop turns 50, an unfortunate reality is that so many of its pioneering artists never live to see much more than 50 years themselves, a professor of hip-hop writes.
Busta Rhymes and P. Daddy’s song “Pass the Courvoisier” was a major hit in 2001, and reportedly led to a significant rise in the brand’s US sales.
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Legend has it that African Americans soldiers brought back a love of cognac after service in Europe in World War II. It’s a lovely story, but the history goes back much further.
MC Solaar, a pioneer of French rap.
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Composer Nicholas Britell festoons earnest Romantic music with sounds that gleefully desecrate it, underscoring the show’s emotional core: a lust for power joined by immense self-loathing.