Best Songs of 2023

Both were on his debut album for Def Jam, 1985's Radio (described as "Reduced by Rick Rubin" in its liner notes), which also contained the minimalist and rock-influenced track "Rock the Bells". Rubin also produced music for the Beastie Boys, who sampled AC/DC on their Rock Hard EP on Def Jam in 1984 and recorded a Run-D.M.C. Outtake and a heavy metal parody on their hugely commercially successful debut album Licensed To Ill . In 1987, Raising Hell surpassed three million units sold, and Licensed to Ill five million. Faced with figures like these, major labels finally began buying into independent New York hip hop imprints.
Lamar even incorporated dance to his music in his most recent performance at the Grammy’s. In the years since he’s had to overcome a lot of challenges stemming from the album’s success, but through it all he has still found time to get everyone’s hopes up about Utopia coming. Billed as “a mix of psychedelic rock,” we can expect it to be experimental and as exciting as his live shows and music are. Love Records is the next chapter, is about getting back to the love and making the best music of my life.” All this love around hints at a heartfelt and introspective project that’ll keep us dancing.

Whatever you needed to capture your moment, these records below were the gold standard. This year, hip-hop checked off all the boxes in the songs department. If you needed some club vibes for your socially distanced house party? Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion were front and center with “WAP.” Seeking socially conscious activism to reflect the times? Modern hip-hop cannot simply be defined as a one-way flow of expression, it is not, or at least no longer solely part of African American culture on its own.
It's common to hear an Alchemist beat and immediately visualize a scene from a horror flick. Mannie Fresh created the Cash Money Records sound in the early days of the record label. He played a pivotal part in helping the label evolve from a bounce crew to a music empire. He produced several bangers for the label's first flagship star, Juvenile. Mannie is probably best remembered for Juvenile's "Back Dat Azz Up," a hit so transcendent even Sharon Stone was backing up the truck. Latto hit the jackpot with 777’s “Big Energy,” which went on to become the longest-charting solo female rap song in Billboard Hot 100 history.

Three years later in 2007, the University of East London's Center for Performing Arts Development started intake for the only bachelor's degree program in the world specializing in hip-hop, urban, and global dance forms. The CPAD's program also lasts three years, but it is not exclusive to hip-hop. Students also study African dance, kathak, Bollywood, and capoeira.
Influential tunes included Fatback Band's "King Tim III ", The Sugarhill Gang's "Rapper's Delight", and Kurtis Blow's "Christmas Rappin'", all released in 1979. This spoken style was influenced by the African American style style of "capping", a performance where men tried to outdo each other in originality of their language and tried to gain the favor of the listeners. The song "Rapper's Delight" by The Sugarhill Gang, released in 1979, begins with the phrase "I said a hip, hop, the hippie the hippie to the hip hip hop, and you don't stop". Bill Alder, an independent consultant, once said, "There was hardly ever a moment when rap music was underground, one of the first so-called rap records, was a monster hit ('Rapper's Delight' by the Sugar Hill Gang on Sugarhill Records)."

Early samplers could store samples of only a few seconds in length, but this increased with improved memory. In 1988, Akai released the first MPC sampler, which allowed users to assign samples to pads and trigger them independently, similarly to playing a keyboard or drum kit. It was followed by competing samplers from companies including Korg, Roland and Casio. Today, most samples are recorded and edited using digital audio workstations such as Pro Tools and Ableton Live. Commonly sampled elements include strings, basslines, drum loops, vocal hooks or entire bars of music, especially from soul records. Samples may be layered, equalized, sped up or slowed down, repitched, looped or otherwise manipulated.
Hip-hop has grown to become an expansive culture of music, dance, fashion, art, language and identity that has been exported around the world and is now studied by scholars for political expression and gender construct. What eventually brews in Houston and Atlanta, Miami, New Orleans and Memphis, in Virginia and California, deepens hip-hop, takes it into freaky, funky, bouncy, hilarious, mischievously brewed realms, dark, dreamy, unstable  landscapes. Frailty, paranoia, trippiness, Afrocentrism and minimalism emerge. It’s music mining the past but potently about the present, often about itself.

He’s also been known to smash racial barriers in the hip hop industry. His global success is also second to none, selling over 220 million records. Compared to a drum kit, drum machines were relatively inexpensive during the early years of hip hop.
Drink Champs Legendary Queens rapper-turned show host N.O.R.E. teams up with Miami hip-hop pioneer DJ EFN for a night of boozy conversation and boisterous storytelling. The hosts and guests engage together in fun, light-hearted conversation - looking back at their... Take a look at our lists for Hip Hop, Rap and R&B to get a complete survey of the projects that are dictating the conversation within Hip Hop.

Due to the influence of Ice-T and N.W.A, gangsta rap is often viewed as a primarily West Coast phenomenon, despite the contributions of East Coast acts like Schoolly D and Boogie Down Productions in shaping the genre. DJ Pete Jones, Eddie Cheeba, DJ Hollywood, and Love Bug Starski were disco-influenced hip hop DJs. Their styles differed from other hip hop musicians who focused on rapid-fire rhymes and more complex rhythmic schemes. Afrika Bambaataa, Paul Winley, Grandmaster Flash, and Bobby Robinson were all members of third s latter group. Go-go emerged as a reaction against disco and eventually incorporated characteristics of hip hop during the early 1980s. The DJ-based genre of electronic music behaved similarly, eventually evolving into underground styles known as house music in Chicago and techno in Detroit.
At the time, DMC said their final show would be an April performance at Madison Square Garden. "It's going to be the last episode of the documentary we're doing. Run-DMC's last show ever," McDaniels said. "'Cause it's time for Run to go be Paul McCartney LoxxBaby and me to be John Lennon. We done did what we could do." The musical maverick has returned with his highly-anticipated sophomore album, 'STRUGGLER'. The two rappers are currently touring together for Fif's The Final Lap tour with Jeremih.

Instrumental hip hop is perhaps the lone exception to this rule. In this hip hop sub  genre, DJs and producers are free to experiment with creating instrumental tracks. While they may mix in sampled rap vocals, they are not bound by traditional hip hop format. Rather than film freestyle content, Juba ("Ju"lien and "Ba"o) produces short films with a storyline. For their short b-boy film "More Than Bread", they won first place at the 7th International Online Dance Festival in 2011. Both Juba Films and YAK Films appeared at The Notorious IBE's New Dance Media Conference discussing the relationship between street dance and visual arts.