Many cite the birthplace of Hip Hop soul as the offices of New York's Uptown Records, the label owned by Andre Harrell, one half of the...

"News from the east, Sire. Rick the Ruler has returned..." You heard about the song before you ever actually heard it. On the back of the...

He was MC 2.0 in an age of rapping roman numerals. Lyrically, next level when his peers couldn't find the stairs (much less an elevator)....

No other MC would do more to define New York's version of gangsta-isms than Kool G Rap. Known as much for his machine-gunned delivery as...

As the sun was setting in the '80s, it was about to rise on a cultural awakening. Lyte was an undisputed master, but there was a teenager...

17-year-old Brooklyn girl named Lana Moorer, aka MC Lyte, who in 1988, broke out with her debut album, Lyte As A Rock. Suddenly, all bets...

One name, million songs: Roxanne. How could U.T.F.O., Whodini's former dancers, have seen Roxanne Shante coming? By mid '84 Hip Hop was...

"I'm Sha-Rock and I can't be stopped for all the fly guys gonna hit the top" when Sha-Rock walked into her first Kool Herc jam and took...

It took one moist, lumbering, Budweiser-lubricated "HYEAHH-HHHH!" for Hip-Hop to welcome the last suburban holdouts to Planet Rock....

Hip Hop has fought an internal war since its inception as recorded music. A war about authenticity. About who or what best represents the...

What are the chances? You're a Brooklyn-born, Queensborough Community College freshman (emphasis on the fresh) majoring in liberal arts...

There's three of us, but we're not The Beatles." - Run-DMC, "King Of Rock." Beg to differ. In the crucial years of rap's graduation from...

With their military-style security force, organizational structure, and urgent rhymes decrying racism, Public Enemy have often been...

Grandmaster Caz, formerly known as DJ Casanova Fly commanded the microphone and turntables alongside DJ Disco Wiz before forming a group...

Kurtis Blow didn't only change the game- he showed up early and laid the Astroturf, chalked the yard lines, sketched out the plays, and...

Unable to produce a comparable contemporary touchstone thoughtful observers likened Rakim's sheets speech to the flurried notes of...

One rhyme. That's all it took. In fact, it was one line within the rhyme that did it. Never mind that his wordplay and cadence in the...

How to accurately describe the asteroidlike impact KRS-One had on Hip-Hop... your might say it's a cross between that of Bob Marley and...

The Civil Rights Movement came about out of legalized racial segregation, containment, and economic/social/political oppression. The...

Lead singer of group Blondie, Debbie Harry was a bleach blonde rule-breaker making her mark on the New York club and punk scene. In...

During the mid-'00s Don Campbell visited Russia. In his mid-fifties, the father of locking L.A loose-limbed, improvisational dance style...

Though Kool Herc, Afrika Bambaataa, and Grandmaster Flash are often cited as the holy trinity of Hip Hop music pioneers, Luis "DJ Disco...

Some DJs, like Jazzy Jay, made the transition from party to studio, from cutting up names to making beats. Others remained local, like...

Grand Mixer D.ST was one of the Roxy's first resident DJs. Born Derek Showard in the South Bronx's Edenwald Houses, D.ST was raised on...

Some DJs couldn't be bothered with headphones and backspins, and just nailed the break by dropping the needle. A 15-year-old named Grand...

Using two copies of Karen Young's "Hot Shot", Grandmaster Flash dazzled the crowd. His quick-mix and backspin techniques were born from...

Herc said he just wanted to see people having a good time. A hulking 6'5" in a cowboy hat, Kool Herc was named after Greek mythology's...

Of Hip-Hop's many-splendored Four Elements, writing holds the patents to several "firsts": first Hip-Hop medium to fully flower...

Queens-bred artist Sandra "Lady Pink" Fabara, widely considered the most influential female writer in the history of subway art, also...

Graffiti was the first of the four Hip Hop elements to take form, with Greek American teenager Taki 183, a messenger from the Washington...

Tom Moulton, who invents the remix when he breaks Don Downing's cult 1975 single "Dream World" down to its basics, reconstructing the...

Poets rise up, just like the griots in old-world Africa, to tell stories and sing the praises of the dead and wounded, using words like...

The Watts Prophets mold themselves from the ashes of the 1965 Watts Riots. They're street-embedded poets, welding serrated words to music...

James Brown seizes the flashpoint moment and elevates himself from dazzling R&B showman to global icon. With a straightening comb and...