Robert James Ritchie, known professionally as Kid Rock, is an American singer, songwriter and rapper. After having established himself in the Detroit hip hop scene, he broke through into mainstream success with a rap rock sound before shifting his performance style to country rock. A self-taught musician, he has said that he can play every instrument in his backing band and has overseen production on all but two of his albums.
Christopher George Latore Wallace, better known by his stage names the Notorious B.I.G., Biggie Smalls, or simply Biggie, was an American rapper. Rooted in East Coast hip hop and particularly gangsta rap, he is cited in various media lists as one of the greatest rappers of all time. Wallace became known for his distinctive laid-back lyrical delivery, offsetting the lyrics' often grim content. His music was often semi-autobiographical, telling of hardship and criminality, but also of debauchery and celebration.
Curtis James Jackson III, known professionally as 50 Cent, is an American rapper, actor, television producer, and businessman. Born in the South Jamaica neighborhood of Queens, Jackson began pursuing a musical career in 2000, when he produced Power of the Dollar for Columbia Records; however, days before the planned release, he was shot, and the album was never released. In 2002, after 50 Cent released the mixtape Guess Who's Back? he was discovered by Eminem and signed to Shady Records, under the aegis of Dr. Dre's Aftermath Entertainment and Interscope Records.
Ashanti Shequoiya Douglas is an American singer and actress. She was first discovered as a teenager and later signed to Murder Inc. Records in 2002. That year, she was featured on Fat Joe's "What's Luv?" and Ja Rule's "Always on Time", both of which became two of the biggest hit songs of 2002. She became the first female artist to occupy the top two positions on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart simultaneously with "Foolish" and "What's Luv?" at numbers one and two, respectively.
Rap metal is a fusion genre which combines hip hop with heavy metal. It usually consists of heavy metal guitar riffs, funk metal elements, rapped vocals and sometimes turntables.
John David Jackson, better known by his stage name Fabolous, is an American rapper. Raised in Brooklyn, he first gained recognition while still a senior in high school, when he performed live on American music executive DJ Clue's radio show, then on Hot 97. Jackson subsequently signed to DJ Clue's Desert Storm imprint, and later secured a distribution deal with major-label, Elektra. Jackson gained prominence with his first release, Ghetto Fabolous (2001), which spawned the hit singles "Can't Deny It" and "Young'n ". His second release was 2003's Street Dreams, which was supported by two US top 10 singles, "Can't Let You Go" and "Into You".
Australian hip hop traces its origins to the early 1980s and is largely inspired by hip hop and other urban musical genres from the United States. As the form matured, Australian hip hop has become a commercially viable style of music that is no longer restricted to the creative underground, with artists such as The Kid Laroi, Manu Crooks, Onefour, Iggy Azalea, Hilltop Hoods, Bliss n Eso and Youngn Lipz, having achieved notable fame. Australian hip hop is still primarily released through independent record labels, which are often owned and operated by the artists themselves. Despite its genesis as an offshoot of American hip-hop, Australian hip hop has developed a distinct personality that reflects its evolution as an Australian musical style.
Bernard James Freeman, known professionally as Bun B, is an American rapper. He is best known as one half of the southern rap duo UGK, a group he formed in 1987 alongside Pimp C. Aside from his work with UGK, Bun B has released five solo albums, including 2010's Trill OG, which received the rare 5-mic rating from The Source.
Adario Strange is a New York–based writer, film director, and artist. He is best known for his documentary film The NYU Suicides detailing a year of strange deaths at the famed university. In recent years he was Editor-in-Chief of the weekly newspaper New York Press, and a technology writer for Wired, the SyFy channel, and PC Magazine.
Alan Daniel Maman, professionally known as the Alchemist, is an American record producer, DJ, rapper and songwriter. He began his music career in 1991 in the hip hop duo The Whooliganz under the moniker Mudfoot, along with now-actor Scott Caan. He has produced music since the 1990s.
Clifford Joseph Harris Jr., better known by the stage names T.I. and Tip, is an American rapper. Born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia, Harris is known as one of the pioneers of the hip hop subgenre trap music, along with fellow Atlanta-based rappers Jeezy and Gucci Mane. Harris signed his first major-label record deal in 1999 with Arista Records subsidiary LaFace. In 2001, he released I'm Serious, his solo debut and only album with the label, as well as formed the southern hip hop group P$C. Upon being dropped from Arista, Harris signed to Atlantic and soon co-founded his own label imprint, Grand Hustle Records, which he launched in 2002.
Radric Delantic Davis, known professionally as Gucci Mane, is an American rapper and record executive. He helped pioneer the hip hop subgenre of trap music alongside fellow Atlanta-based rappers T.I. and Young Jeezy, particularly in the 2000s and 2010s. In 2005, Gucci Mane debuted with Trap House, followed by his second and third albums, Hard to Kill in 2006 and Back to the Trap House in 2007.
Brazilian hip hop is a national music genre in Brazil. From its earliest days in the African-Brazilian communities of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, the genre has grown into a countrywide phenomena. Rappers, DJs, break dancers and graffiti artists are active across the complete spectrum of society blending Brazil's cultural heritage with American hip hop to form a contemporary musical fusion.
Marshall Bruce Mathers III, known professionally as Eminem, is an American rapper, songwriter, and record producer. He is credited with popularizing hip hop in middle America and is critically acclaimed as one of the greatest rappers of all time. Eminem's global success and acclaimed works are widely regarded as having broken racial barriers for the acceptance of white rappers in popular music. While much of his transgressive work during the late 1990s and early 2000s made him widely controversial, he came to be a representation of popular angst of the American underclass and has been cited as an influence for many artists of various genres.
Illmatic is the debut studio album by American rapper Nas. It was released on April 19, 1994, by Columbia Records. After signing with the label with the help of MC Serch, Nas recorded the album in 1992 and 1993 at Chung King Studios, D&D Recording, Battery Studios, and Unique Recording Studios in New York City. The album's production was handled by DJ Premier, Large Professor, Pete Rock, Q-Tip, L.E.S., and Nas himself. Styled as a hardcore hip hop album, Illmatic features multi-syllabic internal rhymes and inner-city narratives based on Nas' experiences growing up in the Queensbridge Houses in Queens, New York City.
Hip hop music or hip-hop music, also known as rap music and formerly known as disco rap, is a genre of popular music that originated in the Bronx borough of New York City in the early 1970s by African Americans, and it had been around for years prior before mainstream discovery. This genre of music originated as anti-drug and anti-violence, while consisting of stylized rhythmic music that commonly accompanies rapping, a rhythmic and rhyming speech that is chanted. According to the professor Asante of African American studies at Temple University, "hip hop is something that blacks can unequivocally claim as their own". It was developed as part of hip hop culture, a subculture defined by four key stylistic elements: MCing/rapping, DJing/scratching with turntables, break dancing, and graffiti art. Other elements include sampling beats or bass lines from records, and rhythmic beatboxing. While often used to refer solely to rapping, "hip hop" more properly denotes the practice of the entire subculture. The term hip hop music is sometimes used synonymously with the term rap music, though rapping is not a required component of hip hop music; the genre may also incorporate other elements of hip hop culture, including DJing, turntablism, scratching, beatboxing, and instrumental tracks.
Juaquin James Malphurs, known professionally as Waka Flocka Flame, is an American rapper. Signing to 1017 Brick Squad and Warner Bros. Records in 2009, he became a mainstream artist with the release of his singles "O Let's Do It", "Hard in da Paint", and "No Hands", with the latter peaking at number 13 on the US Billboard Hot 100. His debut studio album Flockaveli was released in 2010. His second studio album Triple F Life: Friends, Fans & Family was released in 2012 and was preceded by the lead single "Round of Applause".
Colson Baker, known professionally as Machine Gun Kelly (MGK), is an American musician, rapper, singer, songwriter, and actor. He is noted for his genre duality across alternative rock with hip hop.
Adam Briggs, who performs as Briggs and self-describes as Senator Briggs, is an Indigenous Australian rapper, record label owner, comedy writer, actor, and author. Briggs became well known as a "solo rapper", signing with Golden Era Records in 2009, before co-founding the hip hop duo A.B. Original in 2016.
Trap is a subgenre of hip hop music that originated in the Southern United States in the 1990s. The genre gets its name from the Atlanta slang word "trap house", a house used exclusively to sell drugs. Trap music uses synthesized drums and is characterized by complex hi-hat patterns, tuned kick drums with a long decay, and lyrical content that often focuses on drug use and urban violence. It utilizes very few instruments and focuses almost exclusively on snare drums and double- or triple-timed hi-hats.
