Albert Johnson, aka Prodigy, (left) and Kejuan Muchita, aka Havock, of the hip hop duo Mobb Deep in New York in 2006. Johnson died on June 20, 2017 in Las Vegas, Nev.
(AP Photo/Jim Cooper)
By what myths did Prodigy live? His 2012 autobiography suggested he saw himself as living in a mythical world of dual and conflicting forces.
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Eminem has routinely used the lead singles from his studio albums to reintroduce himself. And Houdini is no different.
Canadian rapper Drake at the Billboard Music Awards in May 2019. Drake’s recent beef with American rapper Kendrick Lamar highlights how Canadian rap is often seen as distant from American hip hop culture.
(Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP)
Beefs often target Drake’s race, constructing him as a Canadian who is not Black enough to claim an authentic connection to African-American hip hop culture.
Rappers Kendrick Lamar (left) and Drake have released a series of diss tracks attacking each other recently as part of a growing feud.
(AP Photo)
The diss tracks released by rappers Drake and Kendrick Lamar raise interesting questions about defamation in music lyrics.
Canadian police and television reporters gather outside the rapper Drake’s Toronto mansion after a shooting there in May 2024.
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Since rap’s emergence, artists have boasted about themselves in ways that were funny and sometimes violent, vulgar and sexist. The popularity of the music and its exploitation can be dangerous.
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A reconsideration of Nas’s literary clout, 30 years after the release of Illmatic.
Beth, lead singer and accordionist of band NoGood Boyo.
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Wales has a rich musical heritage, and the next generation is ready to take centre stage.
Megan Thee Stallion, Freddie Mercury, Monie Love and Roxanne Shanté.
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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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Modern music education is giving students more and more opportunities to create their own tracks.
Dizzee Rascal in 2011.
EPA/Balazs Mohai
The lyrics illustrate what it means to grow up young, black and deprived on the fortress like council estates of London.
Phife and Q-Tip of A Tribe Called Quest perform in 1994.
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In many parts of the world, hip-hop has become a way for Muslim artists to assert their belonging and identity.
Rapper’s Delight was one of the first hip-hop tracks ever released.
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It’s 50 years since the legendary party that birthed hip hop.
Hip-hop culture spread quickly – to places like London, seen here in 1984.
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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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Afrofuturism, a mix of science fiction, magic realism and liberation politics, has shaped some hip-hop artists’ work for decades.
The popular phrase ‘knowledge of self’ – invoked by numerous rappers who adhere to Islam – is nearly a millennium old.
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A scholar explains how a concept that appeared in Nation of Islam literature nearly a century ago essentially defines hip-hop’s consciousness today.