Meanwhile, in New York, a talented up-and-coming MC named Jay-Z was trying to blow up the old-fashioned way: by shopping his demo around...

There's a reason why heads from Watts to Harlem wanted Lauryn Hill on the solo tip from the very beginning. A few reasons, actually. One:...

Eve represented women being empowered and empowering themselves, and not being viewed upon as a sidekick to men. In 1999, the same year...

One of the more underreported happenings of summer 1995 took place on a humid June night at Nell's, a club located just blocks from NYU...

Black women have a lot of names in popular culture, from "girl" to "girlfriend" to "sister" including more creative turns of phrases,...

Sister Souljah, activist, emcee, and author, is a Hip Hop icon and archetype. The publication of No Disrespect in 1995 marked a shift in...

When the bling era was beginning, and female MCs who lacked sex appeal were relegated to the sidelines. For rap to be a serious...

How does a female MC operate in the 21st century? With social networking, severely reduced sales and Hip Hop culture's midlife crisis,...

By '94 white rappers were no longer getting deals. The East Coast belonged to Wu-Tang, Nas and the Notorious B.I.G. Death Row ran the...

Frederick Jay Rubin wasn't some rock-snob who'd thumb his nose at any sound not making the rounds at contempo hotspots like Peppermint...

3rd Bass, the only other white MC's of Hip Hop to achieve props from both Hip Hop heads and critics, replaced the Beastie Boys at Def...

For many years now, the media, it seems, has imposed a narrow, black-or-white, racial categorization system on Hip Hop artists, denying...

Though many consider Big Pun the most pivotal figure in the history of Latino MC's, his accomplishments and those of the rappers and...

You can never tell if Reggie Noble, aka Redman, is crazy or just playing a role. Oozing personality and quirk, the Newark, New Jersey, MC...

The teen born Inga Marchand came out the box name-dropping Gucci, Armani, and Versace labels and wouldn't stop. The Afro-Trinidadian...

Born Kimberly Jones in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, the petite MC came up with a coterie of Biggie Smalls' associates known as Junior M.A.F.I.A....

Raekwon and Ghostface were Wu-Gambinos channeling Scorsese through their warped Staten Island vocabulary and intricate, existential...

DMX embodied an aggressive and formulated raw delivery that tapped into the roots of the Golden Era. DMX came into the ether of Hip Hop...

The emerging profile of the producer in the '90s shoved aside their status as sidekicks or guns-for-hire. The most powerful producers...

A protégé of Marley Marl for whom he used to memorably destroy the decks on the In Control radio show on WBLS Pete Rock more than any...