HIP HOP

Bill de Blasio is holding it down for hip hop! The New York City Mayor signed a bill into action today that renames 42 streets and places throughout the city. Two of those renamed streets pay tribute to pioneering moments and people in hip hop.

On paper, Kendrick Lamar had a successful Grammys last night -- he shut down the house with one of the best televised music performances ever, and took home five awards to boot.

Hip hop reigns supreme yet again. According to a study conducted by Musixmatch, hip hop has the highest vocabulary out of the eight most popular genres of music -- the others being folk, rock, heavy metal, country, indie rock, pop and electronic.

Hip hop/R&B is the most streamed genre on the planet, according to the New York Times. The genre comprises 17 percent of all industry album sales but 26 percent of streams, due in large part to hip hop's young audience.

Lupe Fiasco goes on impassioned twitter rants every now and then, and last night, Complex happened to be at the center of one. 

Atmosphere don't quite fit in with the rap scene that is usually portrayed on this website, but the Minneapolis-founded group has been doing their thing now for 26 years, and counting.

"Playing with your parts hopping in and out the friendzone..."

Valentine's Day is right around the corner, and if you left your card shopping to last minute (cause really, who doesn't?), we've rounded up some hip-hop-themed Valentine's Day cards for you and your girl/boy. 

Netflix continues to change the way we consume TV, from first simply offering a method to stream both TV shows and movies online, to later getting into producing original TV series themselves.

With technology at the forefront of our lives, any and everything that has happened in the world of hip hop over the course of 2014 spread through the webosphere in no time.

On Sunday January 18, 2015, the hip-hop community lost yet another young genius. Steven Rodriguez, better known as A$AP Yams, died suddenly at the age of 26. 

Born and raised in Philly, DJ Drama has made a name for himself in the hip hop game over the years. While his career set sail after becoming the official DJ for T.I., he has played a crucial role in the onset of mixtapes in the rap world.

Hip-hop was once again up in arms thanks to an Iggy Azalea quote this past week. During an interview with GQ, Iggy Azalea was so bold as to say she "sparked a change and inspired some leniency in what people accept in hip-hop." Hmm...

Dan Charnas wrote a veritable hip-hop encyclopedia with his book "The Big Payback: the History of the Business of Hip-Hop." Although it reads more like a novel, it is encyclopedic in the way that Charnas includes information on just about every aspect of the

In its four-plus decades of existence, hip-hop has always been steadily evolving. Like all evolutionary paths, hip-hop’s hasn’t moved in a straight line.

Whether you acknowledge it or not, Jay Z has made a point of addressing race issues in his music, with his more recent work looking at black affluence, and the problems that persist through wealth and class.

How long does it take for a music genre to get its own museum? About 40 years, apparently. It's been a long time coming, but the Hip Hop Hall Of Fame will finally open its doors to the public in the year 2017.

Andre 3000 has come out of the woodwork for an interview with Hardknock TV as part of the Grammy's interview roll out.

Nowadays, creating new and original music is very much easier said than done. That being said, a huge part of creating dope hip hip music involves sampling.

Logic has come a long way since he dropped his first Frank Sinatra-inspired mixtape, Young, Broke & Infamous, four years ago.

To many fans, rappers are like superheroes. So we thought it might be fun to imagine what it would be like if your favorite rappers actually were caped crusaders or masked avengers.

Rappers from all over the United States are popping up, showing off their talents and making a name for themselves in their cities of choice. Whether it's Brooklyn, Chicago, Los Angeles or Miami, there are young emcees repping each region.

Like with any break-up, when it first occurs the fresh wound stings, but as time passes we learn to accept fate. Over the past few decades, exceptional hip-hop groups have come and gone.

They say that imitation is the highest form of flattery, but not everyone is flattered when Weird Al Yankovic decides to make their hit song into a caricature.

There is no one answer for why some cities get so much love in the hip-hop industry while others producing loads of talent go unnoticed.