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.
British hip hop, also known as UK hip hop, is a genre of music, and a culture that covers a variety of styles of hip hop music made in the United Kingdom. It is generally classified as one of a number of styles of R&B/Hip-Hop. British hip hop can also be referred to as Brit-hop, a term coined and popularised mainly by British Vogue magazine and the BBC. British hip hop was originally influenced by the dub/toasting introduced to the United Kingdom by Jamaican migrants in the 1950s–70s, who eventually developed uniquely influenced rapping in order to match the rhythm of the ever-increasing pace and aggression of Jamaican-influenced dub in the UK. Toasting and soundsystem cultures were also influential in genres outside of hip hop that still included rapping – such as grime, jungle, and UK garage.
Tommy Boy Entertainment is an American independent record label and multimedia brand founded in 1981 by Tom Silverman. The label is credited with helping and launching the music careers of Queen Latifah, Afrika Bambaataa, Stetsasonic, Digital Underground, Coolio, De La Soul, House of Pain, Naughty By Nature, and Force MDs. Tommy Boy is also credited with introducing genres such as EDM, Latin freestyle, and Latin hip hop to mainstream audiences in America.
Underground music is music with practices perceived as outside, or somehow opposed to, mainstream popular music culture. Underground music is intimately tied to popular music culture as a whole, so there are important tensions within underground music because it appears to both assimilate and resist the forms and processes of popular music culture.
Edan Portnoy, better known as Edan, is an American hip hop artist from Rockville, Maryland.
Peanuts & Corn is a Canadian independent record label, releasing hip hop recordings since 1994. They have also been a distributor of Canadian hip hop releases since 2002.
Visionary Underground are a technology driven, audio-visual collective from London. Their music is characterized by a mix of UK hip hop, ragga, soul, dub, and Asian genres.
Serbian hip hop refers to all genres of hip hop music in the Serbian language. The term is also sometimes used to refer to any hip hop music made by Serbs, including instrumental hip hop, as well as rap songs by members of the Serbian diaspora, often in languages other than Serbian. Some of most prominent hip hop groups include VIP, Sunshine, p.pop Beogradski Sindikat, Bad Copy. Popular solo artists include Juice, Gru, Struka, Ajs Nigrutin, Marčelo, Zli Toni, Fox, Surreal, Furi Djunta,Demonio,Voyage & Devito anonymously.
Simon Harris is a DJ, producer, remixer and pioneering electronic musician predominantly known for his record 'Bass, as the founder of the hip hop record labels 'WORKROOM' and Music of Life and producer of most of its catalogue of songs.
Cleopatra Records is an American independent record label based in Los Angeles, California. It was founded in 1992 by Brian Perera. The record label has since grown into a family of labels, including Hypnotic Records, Purple Pyramid Records, Deadline Music Records, and X-Ray Records, encompassing a variety of genres with emphasis on unique and experimental artists.
Mush Records is an American independent record label. It was founded by Robert Curcio and Cindy Roché in 1997.
OuterSpace is an underground hip hop duo from North Philadelphia. Originally a trio consisting of three Puerto Rican friends that then took the artist names Planetary, Jedeye and Crypt the Warchild. The founding member Mario Collazo (Planetary) was then attending 10th grade, while the other two, Richard Cruz (Jedeye) and Marcus Albaladejo, were in 8th grade.
William G. Shields, better known by his stage name Jehst, is an English rapper and co-founder of hip hop label YNR Productions.
Rude Boy Records is a European independent record label focusing in underground hip hop and rap based in Germany.
European hip hop is hip hop music created by European musicians. Hip hop is a style of music developed by African American and Caribbean communities in the United States during the mid-1970s, and became a large part of modern pop culture during the 1980s. Due to this success, it has gained worldwide popularity, especially in Europe where many diverse and unique styles of hip hop have been created. This diversity is especially apparent in the forms of hip hop music and culture emanating from settler communities from Europe's former colonies and peripheries.
Rafiek George, better known by his stage name Journalist, is an American rapper. He gives much of the credit for his success to his mother, who worked hard to raise five other family members. After graduating he went out to get a recording contract. Supporting himself as a public speaker, youth counselor, and taking parts in talent shows, Journalist eventually earned himself his first paycheck after triumphing in a talent search held at New Jersey's Stardust ballroom two years after graduating.
Hieroglyphics Imperium Recordings is an Oakland, California-based, independent hip hop record label founded and owned by underground hip hop collective, the Hieroglyphics. The label was created by the collective in 1995 to publish and market the collective's, and individual member, releases, as well as releases from other, affiliated artist's that major labels would deem not commercial enough for mass distribution.
Northwest hip hop is hip hop or rap music that originates from the Pacific Northwest of North America, encompassing major cities such as Portland (Oregon), Seattle (Washington), and other towns. Northwest hip hop music mixes elements from various genres of music to form a sound different from its southern neighbor, West Coast hip hop. For many years the scene existed mainly as an underground genre, but recently Northwest hip-hop has seen more and more mainstream acceptance, with artists such as Macklemore gaining nationwide attention.
A mixtape is a compilation of music, typically from multiple sources, recorded onto a medium. With origins in the 1980s, the term normally describes a homemade compilation of music onto a cassette tape, CD, or digital playlist. The songs are either ordered sequentially or made into a continuous programme by beatmatching the songs and creating seamless transitions at their beginnings and endings with fades or abrupt edits. Essayist Geoffrey O'Brien described this definition of the mixtape as "perhaps the most widely practiced American art form".
The Brotherhood were a pioneering UK hip-hop group with a solid following across the UK from the early 1990s. Releases with seminal UK Hip Hop label Bite It! Recordings were followed by a later move to Virgin. The 1996 album Elementalz has been described as one of the best UK hip hop albums ever made and "a staggering achievement in British music". The band finally split in 1998 and have since been credited as one of the most influential bands on the 90s UK hip-hop scene.
