By the mid-1980s, rappers began developing complex techniques

Rapping has roots in numerous aspects of the Black oral tradition

Although “rapping” began in New York with hip-hop in the early 1970s, it can be traced back to griots, who were storytellers in West Africa, and “toasting,” which was a similar talk-sing style practiced by dancehall DJs in Jamaica.

Hear 50 years of iconic hip-hop samples

Hip-hop music began with the looping of popular breakbeats, but it evolved with DJs and producers learning to chop and flip samples from obscure records and turn them into rap classics. This video illustrates how sampling evolved through the music's five-plus decades.

Basquiat produced an early hip-hop classic

The 1983 track “Beat Bop” features emcees Rammellzee and K-Rob rapping over a beat produced and arranged by Basquiat. Though it leans into several tropes from the early days of hip-hop, it’s also singular, with elements of dub, funk, and disco blending over its 10 minutes.

Jazz built the template for hip-hop

Hip-hop was born out of obscure samples, including many that were taken from the annals of jazz. That style was especially popular in rap's early eras, with the subgenre "jazz rap" becoming an accurate descriptor for New York groups like A Tribe Called Quest and Gangstarr.

Southern rap redefined the sound of hip-hop in the '90s

In the 1980s, most attention focused on New York, the birthplace of hip-hop, and Los Angeles, the epicenter of its burgeoning gangsta variant. By the mid-90s, though, artists like Outkast, Master P, and Missy Elliott shifted the focus to the south.

Graffiti became an integral part of hip-hop culture

The visual art form began taking off in New York alongside the music of hip-hop. Both were postmodern forms of art that repurposed preexisting materials. For graffiti, that was by using the city as canvas. For rap, that was through sampling. This retrospective not only shows how the two forms intersected, but also how the public perception of both changed over time.

Hip-hop gained significant popularity in the 21st century

Although hip-hop and rap music were popular in the ‘80s and ‘90s, it was ubiquitous in the early 2000s, with 20 songs in the Billboard top 10 in 2003 alone. The surge was due in no small part to Jay-Z and Eminem, who were the biggest names in the genre.

Hear 50 years of iconic hip-hop samples, the genre's foundational looped tracks

Hip-hop lyrics are often used in criminal trials, blurring the line between art and evidence

Song lyrics from other genres are rarely used by prosecutors, but it's commonplace for hip-hop and rap. Legal scholars and rap artists say that's a problem, and that it fundamentally misunderstands the music by interpreting artistic expression as absolute fact.

Grandmaster Flash’s ‘The Message’ set the template for hip-hop composition

This 1982 single is one of the most recognizable beats in hip-hop history, thanks to some inspiration from popular disco and new wave records. The song’s bigger contribution, though, is that it pushed lyrics front and center, turning the rapper from a party-rocking master of ceremonies into a truth-telling MC.

The Beastie Boys started as a punk band

Before they became a legendary rap group, the New Yorkers played fast, scrappy hardcore in the style of Bad Brains. Still, they were fans of the explosion of hip-hop culture in their city and recorded a jokey track in 1983, which led to a record deal and conversion to hip-hop.

The word ‘hip-hop’ is often credited to DJ Lovebug Starski

The name was coined by Bronx DJ Lovebug Starski, who ad-libbed the term to match the rhythm of a beat while he was rapping. While it began as nonsense, the term went on to describe the music and multifaceted culture that surrounded it.

The Sugarhill Gang’s ‘Rapper’s Delight’ introduced hip-hop to the masses

While it’s not technically the first hip-hop song set to record—that’s Fatback Band’s “King Tim III (Personality Jock)”—1979’s ”Rapper’s Delight” is the song that proved rap was worth putting on wax and introducing the music to a broader audience by reaching the US top 40.

Hughes' poems brought blues and jazz to poetry

Poets like Walt Whitman and Claude McKay inspired Hughes, but he was also enamored with blues and jazz music. The styles informed the way he structured his verses, with Hughes employing repetition and rhythm in ways similar to the standard 12-bar blues form and playing with meter in a way that recalled the improvisation of jazz.

Hip-hop legends the Notorious B.I.G., Jay-Z, Busta Rhymes, and DMX all attended the same New York high school

All four emcees attended George Westinghouse Career and Technical Education High School, a vocational public school in downtown Brooklyn. Jay-Z and Busta Rhymes were well-known as rappers when they were in school, once even battle-rapping one another in the lunchroom. (Jay-Z won.)

Blues was a major influence on early rock

Early rock ‘n’ roll had a straightforward sound, relying mostly on guitar, bass, drums, piano, and saxophone playing up-tempo 12-bar blues. In subsequent decades, the form evolved and splintered into countless subgenres that used more diverse sounds, instruments, and lyrics.

Champagne has a rich history in hip-hop

The drink is both aspirational and a bragging right. Famous artists name-check brands like Cristal, and up-and-comers long for the day when sparkling wine will flow like water. The trend traces back to the early 1990s and Branson B., “hip-hop’s unofficial sommelier.” The Harlem-based artist would bring bottles of his favorite bubbly to parties, celebrations, and, crucially, recording studios, where friends like the Notorious B.I.G. were laying down some of rap’s foundational tracks.

Broadway's songwriters began experimenting in the 1920s

Broadway’s early decades were heavily influenced by opera and vaudeville, but songwriters in the 1920s began exploring more narrative-based songwriting and psychologically complex characters. That trend would continue in the following decades, though it would evolve in even more nuanced ways.

The best female rappers of all time

Hip-hop has too many incredible female MCs to name, but this list does an admirable job of ranking the 25 greatest. Along the way, it breaks down how ‘80s artists like MC Lyte and Queen Latifah paved the way for ‘90s innovators like Missy Elliott and Lauryn Hill and more contemporary names like Doechii and Micki Minaj.

Long before grunge, Hüsker Dü blended pop's melodies and punk's speed

The Minneapolis trio began as a lightning-fast hardcore band, but they slowly became more melodic than many of their early '80s peers without sacrificing their punk edge. That combination would eventually be called a mess of names: college rock, alternative, indie, and, eventually, grunge.

How Shakespeare changed the sonnet

A sonnet is a rigid poetic form from the Renaissance, featuring 14 lines, a consistent meter (or beat) and rhyme scheme, and a noticeable thematic shift known as a "volta." Shakespeare popularized a form featuring three four-line stanzas and a rhyming couplet, departing from the Petrarchan two-part structure of eight- and six-line stanzas.

Ragtime was criticized as dangerous, 'unmusical rot'

The genre—short for "ragged time," a reference to the music's syncopation—was wildly popular at the turn of the 20th century, leading some to deem it morally corrupting and an inferior form. In 1901, the American Federation of Musicians, then the most prominent musicians' union in the country, adopted a resolution designating ragtime as "unmusical rot."

How Apple's GarageBand changed music

Apple's preinstalled, easy-to-use software GarageBand was first released in 2004. Since then, it's changed the way artists write and record music. The program's accessibility and ease of use have allowed beginner artists to experiment and find their voice, while major artists like Rihanna, Grimes, and Bjork have used the program to record hit singles and perform live. This article from the Red Bull Music Academy explains how the basic interface reshaped an industry.

Childhood memes like '67' existed before the internet

Kids saying "67" and then erupting in laughter may have been popularized by social media, but childhood rhymes, songs, and jokes that confuse adults have always existed. Iona and Peter Opie studied the phenomena, publishing numerous books on the topic from the 1950s through the 1980s.

In the 2000s, Dylan began hosting a weekly radio show

Bob Dylan remained unpredictable, even 40 years into his career. Look no further than his satellite radio show from the 2000s, which found the legendary singer-songwriter riffing on a different theme every week. In this episode that theme is “Nothing.” He talks about Dr. Dre’s “Nuthin’ but a G Thang,” quotes several lines from Shakespeare, and speaks at length about his love for the musical “Porgy and Bess.” It’s a wild, unpredictable ride, just like the rest of his career.

The sophisticated math jokes of 'The Simpsons'

"The Simpsons" has always been a slyly sophisticated show and has featured more than a few references to complex mathematical concepts. That's largely due to its writers' room, which has featured more than one writer who studied math before transitioning to comedy.

Mid-century modern graphic designers, known for their bright colors and bold lines in advertising, also found success with children's books.

The word 'jazz' evolved from 'jasm,' 19th-century American slang for 'energy'

Long before Major League Baseball began allowing instant replay for balls and strikes, an umpire reluctantly used the technology to determine whether a hit was a home run, a move that inadvertently ushered in a new era for the sport.

Memecoins are a type of cryptocurrency—a form of digital currency with a wide variety of uses—created around popular 'memes,' or viral internet jokes.

Watch how algorithms can be designed to train themselves and self-improve without human input, to the point where the optimized code is too complex for programmers to understand.

The term 'algorithm' originated from the Latinized name of al-Khwārizmī, a 9th-century mathematician whose works introduced Arabic numerals and the decimal-based numeral system to Europe and whose treatise 'Al-Jabr' gave algebra its name.

Jimmy Carter signed a 1978 bill that legalized home brewing, a move credited with kick-starting the craft beer industry.

Gerrymandering works through two techniques: cracking opposing voters across districts to dilute their power, and packing them into a few to waste their votes in lopsided majorities.

Hedge funds, the private investment firms that trade a wide swath of financial assets, make money by imposing steep fees on investors and from the fund's investment performance.

Prince's sexually explicit 1984 track 'Darling Nikki' attracted the ire of the Parents Music Resource Center, an advocacy group that inspired the Parental Advisory sticker, even though the song ends with a Christian message.

The Ramones' 'Pet Sematary,' the theme song for the Stephen King novel of the same name, was written while the band was admiring the writer's collection of horror memorabilia.

Crows are believed to have intelligence on par with a seven-year-old child and demonstrate complex behaviors, from problem-solving with tools to recognizing human faces.

Graffiti dates back to at least ancient Pompeii, where citizens scrawled messages to one another on public walls

For centuries, it was common to sleep in two shifts: a few hours at the beginning of the night, and a longer period beginning around midnight

Browse a detailed visual analysis of over 200,000 similes—comparisons that often use 'like' or 'as'—from popular fiction to see how frequently writers the same idiomatic expressions.

US housing costs have risen by roughly 175% between 1991 and 2026—but a growing number of Gen Zers are becoming homeowners anyway. In 2025, 4% of homebuyers were Gen Z, up from 3% the year before.

After her fellow cult members tried to kill her with an LSD-infused hamburger, one member of the Manson Family, the murderous cult led by Charles Manson, decided to testify against the group's leader.

Domino's Pizza's 30-minute delivery guarantee was responsible for the chain's 1980s surge, but it was discontinued after the company was found liable for delivery driver accidents.

Elk Cloner, the first computer virus to spread in public, was written as a practical joke by Richard Skrenta, a Pittsburgh high school student.

Chaos theory—informally known as the butterfly effect—is the reason why weather forecasts are presented with probabilities rather than certainties.

The rivalry between Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson centered on federalism—the question of how much power the federal government should hold relative to the states.

For centuries, Niagara Falls has been a magnet for daredevils seeking to conquer one of nature's most powerful wonders, with its 200-foot drop and water rushing at 32 feet per second with 280 tons of force.

Sony set the standard for cylinder-shaped batteries when it repurposed manufacturing equipment used to make rolls of magnetic recording tape.

The first steps to rebuilding your credit score include getting to know exactly what's on your credit report and figuring out how far you are from the '700 club,' or 'good score' range.