The 1980s were a decade when artists pushed boundaries and challenged social norms through provocative lyrics. While some tracks became cultural touchstones that sparked important conversations about ...

From MPCs to FL Studio sessions, one thing remains consistent across generations of Hip Hop and R&B: The power of the sample. With that said, few eras have been mined more heavily than the 1980s. With ...

Hip-hop is a nebulous label — always evolving, and difficult to define. Since its birth in 1973, at a summertime bash in the Bronx, the art form has gone through too many transformations to track. But ...

Born in the 1970s, hip-hop music was built largely on the beat breaks in disco songs. Some of the earliest hits in the genre sampled those dancey tracks, including “Rapper’s Delight” by the Sugarhill ...

Since the mid-1980s when hip-hop fully entered the popular culture, filmmakers have been including dope beats and great rhymes in the soundtracks of their movies, creating some of the best soundtracks ...

Inspired by a new book tracing four pivotal years in the city’s history, hear a playlist of songs from the dawn of hip-hop that were swirling at the time. By Jonathan Mahler This is Jonathan Mahler. I ...