Curated playlist
Rappers from California
- Roddy RicchRoddy Ricch spent eighteen weeks atop the Hot 100 in 2020, more than any other artist that year.
- Dr. DreDr. Dre's G-funk had live musicians replay funk melodies instead of sampling them. It debuted on The Chronic.
- Tyler, the CreatorAt the age of seven, Tyler Gregory Okonma, known professionally as Tyler, the Creator, was already making albums that did not exist. He pulled the covers out of CD cases and made new ones for imaginary records, each with a tracklist and…
- MC HammerMC Hammer started out as an 11-year-old selling baseballs in a parking lot. The Oakland A's owner hired him on the spot.
- Doja CatIn August 2018, Doja Cat uploaded a homemade music video in which she fantasized about being a cow. Within a week it had passed three million views. The American rapper, singer and producer was born Amala Ratna Zandile Dlamini, and the…
- Kendrick LamarKendrick Lamar won the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 2018, the first for a piece outside classical and jazz.
- Snoop DoggSnoop Dogg bought Death Row Records, the label that launched his career, in February 2022. It took nearly three decades.
- Mike ShinodaMike Shinoda has toured Japan with Linkin Park about four times, and the first visit began with a smell. Stepping off the plane, he later recalled, "it smelled like my aunt's house, in the airport, it smelled like Japan." He had not yet…
- Donald GloverDonald Glover was voted most likely to write for The Simpsons. At 23 he landed a writing job on 30 Rock instead.
- Ice CubeIce Cube, born O'Shea Jackson, started writing raps in ninth grade because a friend challenged him in typewriting class. The friend, nicknamed Kiddo, lost the contest. The class was at George Washington Preparatory High School in Los…