This article has been handpicked from the Okayplayer editorial archives and included in our Hip Hop 50 collection as a noteworthy inclusion to the genre's rich and diverse narrative. The article has ...

Imagine getting a birthday invitation to dress like rappers in 2025. What exactly do you even wear? Skinny jeans? The 50-plus-year-old genre has had distinct moments within the fashion industry in the ...

In August 1973, the Jamaican-born Clive “DJ Kool Herc” Campbell held his first block party in the Bronx, bringing the Jamaican sound system culture to America and inadvertently providing the first ...

A few of old-school hip-hop's finest. Photo illustration by Ellie Skrzat for Slate. Photos by Vince Bucci/Getty Images, Stringer PN/Reuters, Blake Sell/Reuters, and Mario Anzuoni/Reuters. This summer ...

T-shirts printed the gorgeous scowl of Tupac Shakur were ubiquitous when I was in middle school, but the only one I’ve ever wanted popped up about a decade and a half after his passing. It features a ...

On August 11, 1973, hip-hop was born, changing music and popular culture forever. But in each decade since, the genre has been distinct, with its own style, stars and sounds. In honor of hip-hop’s ...

Salt-N-Pepa were the First Ladies of Hip-Hop in the mid-to-late 1980s. But as the 1990s dawned, MC Lyte and Queen Latifah had emerged with more “serious” musical content that threatened to knock the ...

What would you give to be a fly on the wall observing some of the richest moments during the ‘90s heyday of hip-hop? For rap heads who came up within that time, no amount of convincing can change ...

What started out as a family tradition turned into a priority when Robert Gunn, owner of ILLY’S Fire Pizza, lost his job working for a telephone company. Robert owns the ‘80s-’90s hip hop-themed pizza ...

Hip-hop may have started out in the park, but has blossomed into a cultural force worldwide, with people from all walks of life claiming it as their own. The early '90s marked the beginning of this ...