You are browsing the archives of rap.

Given that hip-hop is so focused on showing off the hot gear you’ve got, it’s only fitting that claims to being the coolest one year will sound silly the next. This is especially true with technological goods, which already become obsolete quickly before considering the accelerated life cycles of hip-hop fads. Accordingly, rap is full [...]

With his last few albums Jay-Z has really made the transition from being a famous rapper to becoming a full-fledged cultural icon. He’s even got his own hand symbol, like, um… Well, we can’t actually think of any people with their own instantly recognizable hand gestures (help us out commenters), but plenty of other celebrities [...]

We really love a spectacularly ridiculous hip hop album cover. You know, one that deploys all the common cliches with copious jewelry, fancy cars, naked women, suits, cigars, a lurking posse, toned and oiled muscles, maybe a skyline, the works. It’s hip-hop, it’s all about showing off and having fun doing it. All of those [...]

We love the idea of hip hop supergroups, except that so often they end up sounding like so much less than the sum of their parts, which is a tragic shame. That’s assuming they put out any music at all, which is not always the case. Then there are others, like The Firm, which deliver [...]

As perhaps the subculture that has embraced Internet meme culture with the greatest enthusiasm, hip hop has produced some of the most memorable cross-over mainstream web memes. StreetLevel recounts some of the funnest in their listicle of The 9 Best Hip Hop Memes, from consciously created movements like Souljah Boy’s “Crank Dat” dance or the [...]

Simpsonizing others or oneself is completely harmless fun (as Nelson Muntz might say: “Like punching a guy in the dark”) and it translates our real world fears, concerns and adorations into the playful, orange-tinged world of The Simpsons, where everything seems a little less threatening if not completely hilarious. Format recently commissioned Moxy Creative to [...]

Last month Lil’ Wayne protege and rare Canadian cross-over rapper Drake took a pretty serious fall during a concert, sparking a great deal of concern over his physical well-being and his bummed knee. He subsequently canceled all but his hometown (Toronto) appearance on the tour, and is resting up. Complex seized upon the highly-publicized and [...]

Yep, nothing says “We’re turning this vital urban subculture into a tool for marketing consumer goods to suburban youth” like a terrible novelty rap song. And over the last 25 years we’ve seen, heard and memorized some truly ridiculous songs that have tried (and generally failed) to make catchy rap jingles. BuzzFeed’s come up with [...]

A video of a dolphin rapping (well, okay, a person in a dolphin suit rapping, but you’ll need to suspend that disbelief from here on out) came to our attention earlier this week. We quickly realized that over the years we’ve seen many videos of animals more-or-less-rapping on the Web, and that there certainly must [...]

Hip hop and hockey, despite their obvious alliterative camaraderie, seldom go together. This has a lot to do with the absence of African American athletes in the NHL, and the comparative abundance of black role models in every other professional American sports league. That’s not to say, however, that rappers don’t sometimes make (obscure, misunderstood) [...]