Rapper 50 Cent wearing a red Phillies cap and G-Unit Company shirt pointing at the camera

Rap

1979music genreclassic

Published September 24, 2026

Rap, also known as hip-hop, is a music genre built on rhymed vocals over sampled beats and drum machines that grew out of 1970s Bronx block parties into one of the biggest sounds worldwide. From Sugarhill Gang's 1979 breakout "Rapper's Delight" to Kendrick Lamar's 2015 opus "To Pimp A Butterfly," the genre also spawned steady parodies on South Park, The Simpsons, and Family Guy plus dedicated online fandoms on Reddit and 4chan.

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Overview

Rap pairs rhymed verses with sampled beats, drum machines, or live instrumentation, and common features include verses, hooks, ad-libs, and storytelling drawn in part from African-American oral traditions like "The Dozens," where two rivals trade insults until one taps out5. Rap parodies show up all over cartoons and comedy shows like South Park, The Simpsons, and Family Guy, while internet-facing subgenres like Meme Rap trace their roots to pop-culture-heavy albums such as Slick Rick's "The Great Adventures of Slick Rick" (1988) and De La Soul's "3 Feet High and Rising"6.

Style branches include gangsta rap (N.W.A., Ice Cube), East Coast lyricism (Nas, Wu-Tang Clan), and alternative rap led by A Tribe Called Quest and The Pharcyde1. On the experimental side, Death Grips dropped the mixtape "ExMilitary" in 2011 and the album "The Money Store" in 2012, both fixtures on 4chan's /mu/ board2. Modern mainstream centers on Drake, Kendrick Lamar, Nicki Minaj, Gucci Mane, and Kanye West, while producers like Flying Lotus and rappers like Danny Brown, Kid Cudi, and Run the Jewels pull from jazz, soul, and electronica7.

Origin & Background

Platform
Bronx block parties (NYC) / vinyl records
Key People
Unknown / multiple pioneers
Date
1979

Rap grew out of funk, soul, disco, spoken word, and Jamaican styles like toasting and dub, all filtered through Bronx block parties in the 1970s1. Late-1970s disco rap set the template, and Sugarhill Gang's "Rapper's Delight" (1979) is often called one of the earliest widely heard examples, alongside singles from Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five1. DJ Kool Herc pioneered the DJ side of the scene while Run-DMC built the visual and lyrical style of the early 1980s.

Two albums often called the kickstarters of the golden age are Eric B and Rakim's "Paid in Full" (1987) and N.W.A.'s "Straight Outta Compton" (1988), both credited with popularizing the rap-over-sampled-beat approach that came to define the sound of the decade that followed2.

How It Spread

The golden age ran from the mid-1980s through the late 1990s, with Public Enemy, Wu-Tang Clan, Nas, Notorious B.I.G., and Tupac Shakur becoming household names2. The mid-1990s East vs West feud between Bad Boy Records and Death Row Records played out in diss tracks and radio battles until both Biggie and Tupac were killed5. Alongside gangsta rap, alternative acts kept a sample-heavy, less commercial branch alive that later fed into experimental hip-hop from Madvillain, Deltron 3030, and Death Grips1.

Online, r/HipHopHeads grew into the main Reddit hub for the genre, and on July 24, 2014, user qazaibomb posted an essential-albums chart to the sub that pulled 707 upvotes. On March 15, 2015, Kendrick Lamar released "To Pimp A Butterfly," a Compton-rooted record that drew rave reviews and got a 10/10 from YouTube critic Anthony Fantano, only his third ever at that point3. Snoop Dogg's "Smoke Weed Everyday" line from "The Next Episode" also became one of the most reused rap catchphrases online, often paired with a Snoop dance clip4.

Timeline

1979

Sugarhill Gang releases "Rapper's Delight," one of the earliest widely heard rap tracks.

1987

Eric B and Rakim release "Paid in Full," a foundational rap-over-sample album.

1988

N.W.A. releases "Straight Outta Compton," cementing West Coast gangsta rap.

1996-09

Tupac Shakur is shot and killed in Las Vegas, escalating the East-West feud.

1997-03

Notorious B.I.G. is shot and killed in Los Angeles.

2011

Death Grips release the debut mixtape "ExMilitary," mixing punk, metal, and hip-hop.

2012

Death Grips release "The Money Store," pushing them to broader attention.

2014-07-24

Reddit user qazaibomb posts an essential hip-hop albums chart to r/HipHopHeads (707 upvotes).

2015-03-15

Kendrick Lamar releases "To Pimp A Butterfly," which draws a 10/10 from Anthony Fantano.

How to Use This Meme

Rappers typically write verses in rhymed couplets or more complex schemes and perform them over instrumentals built from sampled records, drum machines like the Roland TR-808, or live instrumentation. Common conventions include a hook or chorus between verses, ad-libs behind key lines, and boasting or storytelling drawn from traditions like "The Dozens"5. Meme Rap versions often lean on absurdist lyrics and pop-culture samples, following the template set by Slick Rick and De La Soul.

Frequently Asked Questions