When you think hip-hop, North Carolina is definitely not the first thing that comes to mind. Nevertheless, hip-hop knows no borders and thanks to the internet, we often don't know the regions of the music we receive either. Back in the mid '90s, the most well-known rapper from NC could very well have been Petey Pablo, but with J. Cole's rise in the rap game and his mainstream popularity, he's become the face and representative for the state on behalf of the whole genre.
Now that it's become acceptable for places all over the map to create rap music that doesn't necessarily 'sound' like where it's from, North Carolina's own scene is on the rise with a melting pot of noises. While a lot of states still have a definitive sound that they are associated with, NC doesn't appear to be one of them. The North Carolina residents seem to have the advantage of adopting whatever sound suits them, and sometimes that just depends on the day of the week.
With several rappers coming up from North Carolina and making waves on the underground radar, we've decided to use the opportunity to highlight five of them here.
Read on through the galleries for more.
