Curated playlist
20th-century American male rappers
- Keef CowboyRobert Keith Wiggins was born on the 20th of September 1960. He died on the 8th of September 1989, and he is widely credited as having invented the term hip-hop. Fans knew him by his stage names, Keef Cowboy and Cowboy, during his years as…
- Spoonie GeeSpoonie Gee is one of the earliest rap artists in history, and one of the very few to have released rap records in the 1970s. He has been credited with originating the term hip hop itself. Born Gabriel Jackson on the 27th of May 1963 in…
- Disco King MarioDisco King Mario was born on the 1st of July, 1956, in Edenton, North Carolina, and he died on the 21st of May, 1994 - a man who never released a single record, yet helped shape one of the most influential musical movements in American…
- Jay-ZJay-Z was born Shawn Corey Carter on the 4th of December 1969, in Brooklyn, New York City, and grew up in the Marcy Houses, a public housing project in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood. His father, Adnis Reeves, left the family when…
- Coke La RockCoke La Rock rapped at the earliest parties in The Bronx without anyone in the crowd knowing he was there. He performed out of sight from the audience. The voice filling the room had no name attached to it. La Rock later said he was not…
- Dr. DreAndre Romell Young was born on the 18th of February 1965 in Compton, California, the son of Theodore and Verna Young. His middle name came from the Romells, his father's amateur R&B group. By the time he was a teenager, he was skipping…
- RaekwonRaekwon was accidentally shot four times in a crossfire, and he later called it an "important eye opener." That near-death moment pushed Corey Woods, born on the 12th of January 1970 in Brownsville, Brooklyn, toward the microphone. What…
- Marley MarlMarley Marl was the first producer who inspired Madlib to make beats. That single fact, drawn from an interview Madlib gave about his own origins, tells you something essential about the man born Marlon Lu'Ree Williams on the 30th of…
- Large ProfessorLarge Professor was born William Paul Mitchell on the 21st of March, 1972, in Harlem, Manhattan, then raised in Flushing, Queens. By the time he was eighteen years old, he had already helped shape one of hip-hop's most celebrated albums…
- Birdman (rapper)Birdman was born Bryan Christopher Brooks on the 15th of February 1969 at Charity Hospital in New Orleans, Louisiana, without a given first name. For nearly a month, hospital staff and family simply called him "Baby". That name stuck, and…
- Jeru the DamajaJeru the Damaja was born Kendrick Jeru Davis on the 14th of February, 1971, in Brooklyn, New York. He grew up in the East New York neighborhood, where as a teenager he started rhyming at block parties. That origin story matters because it…
- Rick RossRick Ross was born William Leonard Roberts II on the 28th of January 1976 in Clarksdale, Mississippi, and grew up in Carol City, Florida. Before he ever stepped into a recording booth, he attended Albany State University on a football…
- TimbalandTimbaland was fourteen years old when a co-worker accidentally shot him at a local Red Lobster restaurant in Norfolk, Virginia, and left him partially paralyzed for nine months. Lying still, unable to use his right hand, he taught himself…
- The Notorious B.I.G.The Notorious B.I.G. was shot four times in a drive-by shooting in Los Angeles on the 9th of March 1997. He was twenty-four years old. Sixteen days later, his second studio album, Life After Death, debuted at number one on the Billboard…
- Will SmithWill Smith was born on the 25th of September 1968 in Philadelphia, and before he turned thirty, he had already won Grammy Awards as a rapper, anchored a hit television sitcom, and starred in one of the highest-grossing films in Hollywood…
- Muhammad AliMuhammad Ali walked into the ring on the 25th of February 1964, a 22-year-old from Louisville, Kentucky, facing Sonny Liston, the menacing heavyweight champion with a criminal past and ties to organized crime. The odds were 8:1 against…
- MC HammerStanley Kirk Burrell grew up in a three-bedroom housing project apartment in East Oakland, California, with eight siblings and a mother who worked as a secretary. His father ran a poker room and managed a casino. At eleven years old, the…
- Sean CombsSean Combs was born on the 4th of November 1969, in Harlem, New York City, and by the time he reached his mid-twenties he had reshaped American popular music from the inside. His label, Bad Boy Records, launched the career of the Notorious…
- Kendrick LamarKendrick Lamar Duckworth was five years old when he watched a teenage drug dealer get killed in a drive-by shooting outside his apartment in Compton, California. "It done something to me right then and there," he later told NPR Music. "It…
- Snoop DoggCalvin Cordozar Broadus Jr. was born on the 20th of October 1971, in Long Beach, California, to a Vietnam War veteran who walked out on the family just three months after his birth. That absence would shape everything. The boy grew up…
- Tupac ShakurTupac Amaru Shakur was born on the 16th of June 1971, in East Harlem, Manhattan, not yet carrying the name the world would know him by. He was born Lesane Parish Crooks, and was renamed at age one. By the time he died on the 13th of…
- Afrika BambaataaAfrika Bambaataa was born Lance Taylor on the 17th of April, 1957, in the Bronx River Projects of New York City, to Jamaican and Barbadian immigrants. He died of prostate cancer in Pennsylvania on the 9th of April, 2026, at the age of 68.…
- 50 Cent50 Cent was shot nine times at close range outside his grandmother's former home in South Jamaica, Queens, on the 24th of May 2000. The gunman fired with a 9mm handgun. The bullets struck his hand, arm, hip, both legs, chest, and left…
- Shaquille O'NealShaquille Rashaun O'Neal was born on the 6th of March, 1972, in Newark, New Jersey, to a mother named Lucille and a biological father, Joe Toney, who would vanish from his life before it had barely begun. Toney was imprisoned for drug…
- LL Cool JLL Cool J was four years old when he walked in on his father's act of violence. James Todd Smith found his mother and grandfather shot and bleeding inside the family home. That moment, recounted in the Chicago Tribune, is where the story…
- MadlibMadlib sampled his first song at 11 years old, pulling a record from his father's collection in Oxnard, California. That early act of borrowing and reshaping sound would become the defining gesture of his entire career. Born Otis Lee…
- Sean PriceSean Price, born Sean Duval Price on the 17th of March 1972, spent decades building a name in underground hip-hop. Then, one Saturday morning in 2015, his label announced that he had died in his Brooklyn apartment. Price built that…
- Donald GloverDonald McKinley Glover Jr. was voted "Most Likely to Write for The Simpsons" in his high school yearbook at Stephenson High School in Stone Mountain, Georgia. At age 23, that prediction came close to true. He walked into a room of seasoned…
- Kurtis BlowKurtis Blow stepped into a recording studio in 1979 as a twenty-year-old from Harlem, and walked out as the first rapper ever signed by a major label. That label was Mercury Records. The single they released, "Christmas Rappin'", sold over…
- DMXDMX sold 251,000 copies of his debut album in its very first week. That number alone would be remarkable for any artist. But Earl Simmons did it while sleeping in empty storage bins just years before, robbing students for food and a…