Member-only story
Deep Tracks — Radio Misfits 17–90s Rap
How do I explore and find new music?
Yo! MTV didn’t play this, neither does your friendly neighborhood commercial radio station. Rap is an all-American musical creation. The late 1970’s artists combined poetry, dance, music, and performance. Slowly like any timeless musical genre, the slow boil, word of mouth, rappers selling home-made cassettes out of the back of their cars pioneered the now dominant musical genre, 40 plus years on.
Most Gen Z (born between 1995 through the first decade of the 21st century) almost categorically favor hip hop above any other music style. In the eyes of Gen X, they are bearing the torch, lit by the youngest boomers and oldest Gen X. That’s right, check your history, when hip hop first emerged, the teens and college aged folks were that mesh point between the two now matured generations.
On to the music. The decade rap officially, without question earned global fame, was the 1990s. The nascent genre in the 80s had two epicenters, the original, New York City and upstart Los Angeles. Yes, artists from other towns did make their mark, however the two urban heavyweights dominated the scene. By the mid-90s rap artists were popping up across the country, New Orleans, Memphis, Seattle, Detroit, Oakland and many more cities. Radio programmers, dust these gems off and share the rich history of the…
