n August 11 1973, DJ Kool Herc threw a party in the Bronx that was so legendary that it’s now often seen as the day when hip-hop began.
Of course, it’s difficult to give the world-changing music genre a definitive start date: hip-hop evolved over time, with its sound deeply rooted in the funk, blues, and jazz that defined the Fifties and Sixties. The Caribbean, Latin American and African-American communities that created hip-hop have long histories of oral storytelling, spoken word and poetry.
Nevertheless, Seventies New York City is widely recognised as being the place where hip-hop really began: in the city’s deprived neighbourhoods a new distinct sound emerged, promoted by musicians such as DJ Kool Herc, DJ Disco Wiz, Grandmaster Flash, and Afrika Bambaataa. At block parties DJs started to play around with soul and funk music – emceeing, scratching and isolating parts of the percussion.
The date given to DJ Kool Herc’s infamous bash means that today marks 50 years of hip-hop. The genre is now so ubiquitous that it’s near-impossible to imagine a time when hip-hop did not exist.
So many of the world’s best-selling artists make music under the hip-hop umbrella: from Rihanna to Drake, Eminem to Mariah Carey, Chris Brown to Jay-Z, Nicki Minaj to Post Malone. Hip-hop is now a truly global phenomenon. It’s helped to sell millions of records, dictated fashion trends and fuelled social change.
These are the artists we’ve got to thank for making hip-hop what it is today, from the pioneering DJs to the groundbreaking MCs and definitive producers. It might seem there are some controversial exclusions, but we’ve tried to focus on artists who have made an outstanding individual contribution, rather than as part of a group (some of the people we’ve included did rise to fame as part of a group, but have gone on to stand firmly as solo artists).
Our list runs in rough chronological order, taking you through from the forefathers of the genre to today’s biggest influencers.
Kool Herc
It was at a fabled party in 1520 Sedgwick Avenue, a looming apartment block in the Bronx, New York City, where hip-hop was born. Who attended the party depends on who you ask – enough people claim to have been there to fill the building 10 times over – but the man responsible is in no question: Kool Herc. On that August evening in 1973, Herc (real name Clive Campbell) span two copies of the same record on a pair of decks, focusing squarely on the ‘break’ – the percussive section of the song, free from vocals. The idea was to repeat the break back and forth between the two records and keep people dancing for longer, but it laid the foundations for the loops and samples that would come to define the hip-hop sound. While Campbell never achieved huge commercial success, and was in many ways eclipsed by the two men following him on this list, his place in hip-hop fatherdom is immovable.
Afrika Bambaataa
If Herc is the father of hip-hop, then Afrika Bambaataa is one of the godfathers. He founded the Universal Zulu Nation collective and, inspired by Herc to start his own similar DJ parties, he took those breakbeats and ran with them – first, to the clubs of downtown New York, where they proved hugely popular, and then even farther afield. Along with the Soulsonic Force, an ensemble Bam founded, he released the seminal Planet Rock in 1982, which injected electronic dance energy into hip-hop’s funk, and was in many ways a precursor to the Nineties-era obsession with the music of George Clinton.
Grandmaster Flash
Nothing if not an innovator, Grandmaster Flash took what he saw around him – the Bronx parties, the spinning decks, the sliced-up disco songs – and made it all his own. He pioneered scratching and beat-mixing, techniques that are so commonplace now but, back in the Seventies, were mind-bogglingly new. His live-mixed single, The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash on the Wheels of Steel, is a DJ’s handbook to this day, while the politically charged The Message, released with the Furious Five group of rappers in 1982, was one of the first songs to prove how potently hip-hop could pair with social commentary.
Rakim
Rakim was a new breed of MC. Rather than allow his rhymes to be punctuated by the beats of his tracks, his meticulously crafted bars wove themselves within the rhythms with a flow that explored the space in between, in the same way that John Coltrane’s saxophone flitted around a drumbeat. The rhymes were within words, rather than just at the end of lines, and showed future MCs how delicate of an art form rapping could be (a fine example, on 1992’s Don’t Sweat the Technique: “They never grow old, techniques become antiques/ Better than something brand new ‘cause it’s real/ And in a while the style’ll have much more value”). Alongside the genius of Eric B, he formed one of the greatest MC/DJ duos we’ve ever seen.
Dr Dre
Dr Dre helped to transform the face of hip-hop into the snarling, public-worrying glare of gangsta rap. His production pioneered G-funk, the sun-drenched, George Clinton-adoring sound that ruled the West Coast in the Nineties. He was behind some of the best-loved beats of the era – Gin and Juice by Snoop Dogg, Tupac’s California Love, Eminem’s breakthrough single, My Name Is, and so many more – and has helped to launch the careers of some of today’s biggest artists (not least by putting Compton on the hip-hop map). He also showed the scene how to be truly business savvy, co-owning Death Row Records, founding Aftermath Entertainment and of course nurturing his Beats headphones business into a billion-dollar behemoth.
Ice Cube
Another of gangsta rap’s fiercest proponents, Ice Cube was unconcerned by becoming a role model, and made his version of hip-hop into a grim reflection of the racial and political tensions in America. He was abrasive and violent in his music, with lyrics and sounds that were harder than anything that had come before it. His work in NWA, as well as his following solo albums in the early Nineties, showed just how fearsome a force hip-hop could be. He also paved the way for multidisciplinary rappers, with his commercially, albeit not always critically successful film career.
Notorious B.I.G
He wasn’t the original storyteller in hip-hop, but before him – and indeed after – there haven’t been many better to tell a tale than Biggie Smalls. Through his jazz-scat flow and ingenious wordplay, he painted a picture of New York with lyrics that were full of bravado but not free from introspection, which showed others that it was possible to do both. He was the face of the notorious East-West beef, which ultimately cost him his life, but he put his side of the country back onto the hip-hop map and inspired countless others after him to do likewise. It’s hard to believe that a man who changed so much died when he was only 24.
Tupac
Rapper, actor, civil rights activist – Tupac Shakur redefined what a rapper could be in a life that didn’t even stretch past a quarter of a century. He was another of the rappers to unabashedly reflect what was going on in the environment around him – the racism, the poverty, the toxic masculinity – and took it to a global audience, selling millions of records in the process. His influence is still keenly felt today – in fact, the entire thematic spine of Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp A Butterfly, arguably the greatest hip-hop album released this side of the millennium, was based on an imagined, enlightening conversation between Lamar and Shakur.
Nas
With his 1994 classic, Illmatic, Nas announced himself as one of New York’s finest talents. A master rhymer, he made it fashionable to be lyrical, with incredibly dense bars and unerring delivery. The rest of his discography is mixed, albeit with a number of undoubtedly high points, such as his clear-eyed, fearsome 2001 album Stillmatic but it’s that debut album that is still held up as an icon of what it means to be a rapper from that part of the East Coast.
Jay-Z
“I got 99 problems, but a [insert here] ain’t one”. If for nothing else, Jay-Z has to be considered influential for coining that endlessly repeated, endlessly modified line. It also exemplifies how much of an impact Jay-Z has made on not just the rap world, but the mainstream consciousness. He’s a perennial hitmaker and Billboard-topper, with 14 number one US singles to his name. But he’s also a wildly successful businessman, working his way up from a life of petty crime to a main player in the worlds of fashion, sports and finance.
Andre 3000
There was a time in the mid-Nineties when it seemed impossible to topple the East and West Coasts – the rap feuds, the superstars and the worldwide hits – but as part of Outkast, Andre 3000 made sure no one could carry on ignoring America’s southern scene. With a swagger and sound that could have only originated from the Deep South, they set alight a scene that would produce some of hip-hop’s biggest stars (with the world-conquering Migos among the most recent examples). But despite being part of a duo, Andre 3000 stood out as an individual, with his inimitable flow and dedicated, always inventive fashion sense, which all added to his personal mystique and influence.
Lauryn Hill
Female rappers have been making real waves for some time – Nicki Minaj, Cardi B, Princess Nokia, to name a few – but this wasn’t always the case (that our list only has two women on it is a reflection of hip-hop’s male-dominated history). But Lauryn Hill was a game-changer. As a member of Fugees, but predominantly with her only solo album, 1998’s The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, she broke down barriers for female artists. She showed how women in the scene weren’t just objects to be rapped about, but the ones who needed to do the rapping. A vital, seminal album, Miseducation gave us an unflinching female perspective on love and life and showed just how soulful hip-hop could be, helping to launch neo-soul in the process.
Eminem
Eminem wasn’t just the best-selling rapper of the 2000s – he was the best-selling musician, full stop. He, maybe more than any other rapper, has proven how hip-hop can dominate the popular sphere, both commercially and culturally. In terms of sound, there aren’t many that resemble Marshall Mathers. Through his piercing flow and often uncomfortable subject matter, however, he gave a voice to the dark weirdness that permeates so much of American culture – as well as the bombastic silliness – and paved the way for future generations to do likewise.
Kanye West
Egotistic, unhinged, inexorable, fervent, genius – Kanye West is nothing if not distinctive. He brought soul samples back to the masses with his production, has a love of leftfield fashion, specialises in emotionally vulnerable lyrics and constantly reinvents himself musically. When he was at his best he showed the world that you can be your own strange self and still be hugely successful, both in terms of critical reception and record sales. With an outrageously long list of production credits to his name, he’s also helped further the careers of so many others (chances are, one of your favourite hip-hop songs is produced by Kanye, and you don’t even know it).
Over the last couple of years, Ye’s mental health took a turn for the worse, which led to some anti-semitic comments on a far-right news channel. In the fallout, he lost fans, friends and lucrative collaborations with Gap, Balenciaga, and Adidas. His deal with Adidas was worth approximately $1.5 billion.
J Dilla
J Dilla is your favourite producer’s favourite producer. While he had significant skill as an MC, showcased in the Slum Village trio, it was as a beat-crafter that he excelled. With an all-encompassing musical knowledge, he spotted the moments in songs that most of us hadn’t even noticed, isolated them and moulded them into something unmissable. He was a serial collaborator – helping shape the sound of Madlib, Erykah Badu and numerous others – and the fragments of his jazzy inflections and swaggering, intoxicating beats can still be found everywhere in hip-hop today.
Kendrick Lamar
Compton’s Kendrick Lamar has reshaped contemporary hip-hop in his own image. With his 2015 album To Pimp a Butterfly he re-launched the scene’s infatuation with old-school funk and soul. His experimentations with his own voice, shifting tones, flows and personas, have ushered in a new era of deeply conceptual hip-hop, all while being hugely successful with record sales. But his social impact has been equally seismic: he’s brought conscious storytelling back into vogue, and has been fiercely political. His song Alright was adopted as a beacon of hope by the Black Lives Matter movement, whose cause defines modern American politics. (Oh, and he’s one of Barack Obama’s favourite rappers. When one of the most powerful men in the world shouts you out, you have to be considered influential.)
Nicki Minaj
In 2010 Nicki Minaj hopped on a track, Monster, with Kanye West, Jay-Z and Rick Ross, dropped a verse, and destroyed them all. For many, it was a searing introduction to a rapper who would dominate pop music, fashion and social politics for much of this decade, repeatedly breaking down barriers for female artists in the scene. Everything she does is bold, fearless and distinct – whether that be her eye-popping stage attire or her expertly delivered lyrics, which stare gender and race dead in the eye. She’s been hugely commercially successful, too, dominating the Billboard 100 – no other female rapper in history has had more ‘top 40’ entries than Minaj.
Drake
Drake is the modern rap superstar. His songs have been streamed billions of times, millions of people follow him on social media and he’s a fashion icon. Musically, he is unafraid to switch up his style, with plainly emotional lyrics defining his output, both rapped and sung and a sound that is always setting the vogue – his obsession with UK grime and how he’s incorporated this into the US sound is a fine example.