“The smooth criminal on beat breaks / Never put me in your box if your shit eats tapes,” rapped Nas on his 1994 classic “N.Y. State of Mind.” Like other underground genres that hit their stride in the ...

From having the country “talm ‘bout innit” to getting name-checked on “Whim Whammie,” one of the year’s buzziest breakthrough ...

January 2025 kicked off with a major ice storm across the U.S. and Canada dumping more than a foot of snow across multiple states and provinces. And the frost isn’t going anywhere anytime soon, with ...

New books collecting objects central to rap’s physical history demonstrate the importance of celebrating these relics before they vanish. Credit... Supported by By Jon Caramanica For the last year, ...

Recency bias is real. As 2021 races to a close and music obsessives rush to build their personal year-end lists, those tallies will likely be skewed toward releases that have hit the web since the ...

Everywhere I go people (usually those in their 30s or 40s) are always bellyaching about the current state of rap music. Granted, things have changed tremendously since the days of televised music ...

As playlisting has become more and more popular over the last decade, it’s reasonable to ask: Do full-length rap projects still matter? To me, they do. Sure, there are standalone songs I play all the ...

Learn about Harlem rapper Max B, his influence on the “wave” sound in hip-hop, his collaborations with French Montana, and ...

Hip-hop is officially middle-aged, but its mortality is hardly in question. Half a century after the genre’s birth, the GRAMMY Museum celebrated the lovechild of funk and DJ culture with an expansive ...

2012 was a chaotic year for rap music. Just as important as ever were mixtapes, the free semi-albums that rappers put out online. Ultimately, the mixtape catalogue of 2012 provides an eclectic mix of ...