With the emergence of Hip Hop in the late 20th century, cultural movements that have resonated deeply with African American communities have only been met with disparagement by mainstream society in the United States. The portrayal of the harsh realities Black communities face is found within Hip Hop music, as lyrics highlight experiences and resilience, and it serves as a critique of systemic racism and injustices that are still prevalent. Particularly in the early 2000s, the rise of rap music led to Hip Hop movements misconstrued as controversial as they were “criticized for glorifying drug use, crime, misogyny, and material wealth” (Dahlin, 2019, p. 1). Our project aims to explore how socio-cultural dynamics in the United States have contributed to this marginalization as well as the rejection of Hip Hop’s emergence through the lens of music. We argue that the Hip Hop music genre and Black artists have faced a greater level of marginalization including attempts to be censored than any of their musical counterparts due to systemic biases that aim to silence their voices.

Our primary dataset consists of Billboard Top 100 Songs from 1965 to 2023 with information on each song’s ranking on the Top 100 chart for that year, song title, song artist, the year the song appeared on the chart, song lyrics, and song genre. Through exploratory data analysis, we have been able to visualize Hip Hop’s origins and growth over time using this data and were able to further contextualize our findings through a variety of sources that deepen our analysis. Our sources include articles such as “Introduction: Hip Hop in History: Past, Present, and Future” from The Journal of African American History as well as “Counternarratives in Hip Hop Music: Themes of Marginalization.” These articles as well as our other sources provide a historical framework for understanding Hip Hop’s emergence, how it aligns with African American history, its impact within the music industry as well as patterns of marginalization faced by Black artists in the United States. /

In order to understand the cultural significance of Hip Hop’s emergence, it’s important to understand the contributions of Black artists throughout music history and how the dominant narratives often minimize the significance of these contributions. Rock music emerged in the U.S. in the 1950s, and this genre dominated the music industry throughout the end of the 20th century. Although the term “rock ‘n’ roll” often brings artists such as Elvis Presley and The Beatles to mind, the foundation of this genre was laid by African American artists such as Little Richard, Chuck Berry, and Big Mama Thornton. Although Black artists from this time period originally wrote and performed many of the most famous and influential songs in the Rock genre, they received little credit or compensation, and covers of these songs by White artists topped the charts and were more widely received by society. This pattern of marginalization continued throughout the course of music history as Black artists continuously had to battle systemic racism in order to share their art with the world. 

Many examples of Black artists facing greater levels of marginalization than their White counterparts are seen throughout time and across different genres of music. White musicians received radio airtime, notoriety, fame, and money for releasing covers of songs by Black artists, who received little to no money or credit for their contributions and have not been included in the prevailing narrative of these times. As expressed by Lisa Tomlinson in “The ‘Whitewashing’ of Black Music”: 

“In a lot of cases, when this music becomes mainstream, it becomes disassociated from Black experience and Black context. We talk about cultural appropriation… we reduce it to just borrowing, or sampling, another reductionist term. ‘Borrowing’ or ‘sampling’ sound like nice words, because they sound like an equal exchange. But there’s a power dynamic embedded in that borrowing.”

(Jancelewicz, 2019)

This power dynamic in music is seen in tandem with moments of historical significance for African Americans in the U.S. and has continued significantly into the genre of Hip Hop. Many of the songs on the Billboard Top 100 in the later half of the 1900s were written by Black artists but performed by White artists as a way of adjusting the songs to be more palatable for a white audience. This power dynamic is especially apparent when examining the business side of the music industry and how Black artists were represented during Rock’s reign. Many of them did not have lawyers or the distribution network that could grant them their due credit and acclaim — meanwhile, these resources were readily available for their White counterparts. In many cases, these artists were exploited by their record labels, and their narratives were manipulated in order to cover up overt attempts by people in positions of greater power to minimize these Black artists’ significant contributions to the music industry.

Trend of Genre Changes from 1965 to 2023

Examining the genre trends by-year from 1965 to 2023, we see that throughout the 1960s to the 1980s, Rock made up a majority of the Billboard Top charts, with a significant spike in 1982. The second-most popular genre of this time period was Soul, which saw its greatest concentration of popularity in the 1960s through the 1970s. The rise in the Soul genre parallels the Civil Rights and Black Power movements of the time, and “its passionate vocalizing, powerful rhythms, and honest lyrics spoke directly to a generation of young African Americans” (Maultsby, 2024) and captured the prevailing mood of these decades through the lens of Black artists in the U.S. During this time, the attempts at silencing the voices of Black artists did not stop them from making a significant impact in the top charts. The Pop genre surpassed the Soul genre in 1982 and remained the second-most popular genre until 1993, when it became the most prominent genre on the Billboard Hot 100 charts for all subsequent years. In the year 2004, however, Hip Hop surpassed Pop on the Billboard charts with a peak at 35 songs.

Hip Hop came to be its own distinct culture in the 1970’s, with origins in the South Bronx of New York City, encompassing music alone and serving “an aesthetic that reflects the sensibilities of a large population of youth born between 1965 and 1984” (Alridge & Stewart, 2004, p. 192). During this period of time, New York City was in the midst of an economic collapse, and with much of the white middle-class moving to the suburbs to escape these challenges, conditions worsened in neighborhoods occupied by African American, Puerto Rican, and Caribbean communities. These urban challenges brought about rising levels of crime, gang violence, and poverty, and urban youth consequently searched for new outlets for self-expression. The emerging Hip Hop movement “transformed despair and racial barriers into numerous creative outlets” (PQ, 2023), and as it became commercialized through recordings and rap music was associated with the genre “Hip Hop”, there was a significant rise in the genre’s popularity following its emergence.

Distribution of Genre in the Billboard Top 100 throughout the years

From this visualization of the distribution of genres on the Billboard Top 100 charts of each decade, it is apparent that since Hip Hop’s emergence in the 1990s, it has remained a significant proportion of overall genres each decade. We see a surge in its prevalence in the 2000s, where for the first time since Hip Hop’s birth, its popularity surpassed the genre of “Rock.”

It can be noted that popularity trends for the genre Pop has a very similar trajectory to that of Hip Hop, but Hip Hop undoubtedly faces a greater amount of criticism, and its inclusion in the Billboard Top 100 charts doesn’t seem to mirror its true prevalence within society. This phenomenon could be analyzed through the lens of racial formation theory, which explains the concept of a “white racial frame” that combines racial narratives and emotions to “maintain a positive orientation to whites and whiteness and a negative orientation to oppressed and exploited nonwhites” (Bonilla-Silva, 2010; Feagin, 2010). This concept of a “white racial frame” is perpetuated through mass media, and it explains that contrasting attitudes towards different genres depend on what is considered to conform to the white, mainstream audience.

With the concept of the “white racial frame” in mind, there is a clear difference in the most-used word in Hip Hop songs compared to Pop songs. As shown in the word clouds above, Hip Hop songs contain many explicit lyrics which are generally not thought of as conforming to the mainstream white audience, while Pop songs contain more acceptable lyrics to the mainstream white audience. When viewing this with the “white racial frame” in mind, we can see that this concept not only influences individual perspectives when it comes to music, but also how the music industry collectively represents Hip Hop. This in turn perpetuates a cycle of misinterpretation, as individuals who consume media also contribute to overall popularity trends in music.

The literature on this topic offers consistent information about how Hip Hop’s emergence has been silenced to a degree. For instance, in Reading Billboard 1979–89: Exploring Rap Music’s Emergence through the Music Industry’s Most Influential Trade Publication , the authors argue that “rap’s emergence into the field of popular music commerce was marked by struggles over its definition, placement, and meaning.” (Harrison & Arthur, 2011). As a form of Hip Hop, rap did not have the easiest upbringing when it initially started to expand throughout the world. Rapping was a means of expression for the marginalized urban youth of this time period to make their voices heard regardless of geography. Rather than being viewed from this perspective, it was met with much contentment from those who could not relate to the lyrics.

There are a variety of reasons highlighted from the literature behind the suppression of Black artists and hip hop’s emergence. Elizabeth Pyatak and Linda Muccitelli from the University of Southern California mention how Niggaz With Attitude (NWA) faced silencing from organizations that were much more powerful than expected: “One song from the album, “Fuck Tha Police,” garnered the attention of the FBI, who sent the group and their record company a warning letter for their lyrics, which were suggestive of racial profiling and portrayed lawmakers in a negative light” (Pyatak & Muccitelli, 2011). 

Despite NWA selling over half a million copies of the album, there were others who attempted to suppress the general popularity of the album. The FBI and many radio stations were not keen on promoting the album due to its musical content, which only led to more sold copies for the group. Black artists had their eye on spreading their cultural significance to the world but only faced oppression from major organizations to keep that from happening.

As Hip Hop continued to grow throughout the country, there appeared to be publishing information that would hurt these artists. Harrison and Arthur go on to describe how radio directors and writers would report information that was often incorrect about artists or opinions that did not make Hip Hop appealing. For instance, Billboard reported that a radio director in Philadelphia had concerns over the popularity of rap: “who wants to sit in their living room and listen to rap records on the radio, anyway?”(Sacks, 1982, as cited in Harrison & Arthur, 2011). 

Hip Hop was easily accessible to Black youth across the United States, making it possible for the struggles of one region to be heard by people of other struggling regions. Having this creative outlet was invaluable to Black artists throughout the country, which consequently led to the emergence of new styles from Hip Hop’s hotspots. As these different regions began developing their own distinct styles, geographical regions of Hip Hop grew in significance. The region Hip Hop artists started their careers significantly laid the foundation of their audience and their unique style. However, it was reported that Billboard published articles with incorrect information behind several artists’ geographical upbringing. Harrison and Arthur argue that publishing about rap was a business motive, and not an informative one: “many of the articles published between 1979 and 1985 advocate thinking about rap music as a profitable business endeavor” (Harrison & Arthur, 2011). When approaching music with such rich cultural significance, minimizing the importance of the location an artist started their career and simply looking at the music from a business standpoint is extremely detrimental to the legacy of the music and of the artists. Those in power had no regard for the roots of the Hip Hop cultural movement, which causes further marginalization of the artists involved in this movement as their voices are continuously silenced through the spreading of misinformation.

“With more geographically diverse communities joining the movement, hip-hop became a valuable tool for telling stories that would otherwise go unheard.”

(Newman, 2020)

In the map below, we see the various regions of the United States that were Hip Hop hotspots over the course of 25 years (1990 – 2015). The states where artists started their careers are shaded based on the density of observations of Hip Hop artists, while the hotspots are the particular cities where the most popular Hip Hop artists started their careers. California and New York are the two states with the greatest density of Hip Hop artists, with Los Angeles, Compton, and Oakland being the California hotspots and Brooklyn and NYC being the New York hotspots. Other significant hotspots over the span of Hip Hop’s existence have been Atlanta, Chicago, and Detroit. There is a clear pattern of the most popular Hip Hop artists emerging from urban areas, which makes sense given the history of Hip Hop’s emergence.

Map of Black Artists that appeared in Billboard’s Top 100 List from the last 25 years

Regardless of Hip Hop’s overwhelming success and popularity around the world, authors generally agree that the emergence of Hip Hop was not a clear and steady road forward. The authors all point to examples on the setbacks and suppression of the genre, which leads us to question whether these obstacles still exist today within the industry. In addition, it would be valuable to learn about the marginalization of these artists in other countries, as Hip Hop has spread well outside the boundaries of the United States.

The literature on this topic also provides information on how Hip Hop’s emergence was silenced and marked by the Tipper Sticker. In Michael P. Jeffries’ book Thug Life: Race, Gender, and the Meaning of Hip-Hop. The Tipper Sticker was created by the Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC). This group was initially founded by Tipper Gore and three other wives of politicians. This censorship was seen as a form of “culture protection”. This “culture” had religious and political ideology. PMRC was not explicitly affiliated with religion, but had various connections with Christian groups and had fundamentals. This sticker was initially used to target heavy metal acts. But as the years went on heavy metal and rock were able to gain popularity in the charts and became socially accepted and adored by many audiences. Even though it had a prior use and a prior target, in 1990, Gore had now started targeting rapper Ice T, who wrote a criticizing letter in the Washington Post that quickly made him public enemy number one.

By 1994, this pressure of limiting and targeting rap led to a congressional subcommittee on rap that produced two outcomes. One outcome was that artists would be forced to record a “clean” version of their songs specifically for radio play. The other was television networks were subject to increased pressure in regulating and changing music video programming. In their push to label records and censor songs from the public, things have been mislabeled and misinterpreted. A case of this misinterpretation happened to John Denver’s “Rocky Mountain High.” It was “banned from radio stations for its alleged “drug-related” content, Denver’s song was grossly misinterpreted by uninformed listeners”. With this we can see that many of these attacks were uninformed and blind accusations.

Through these articles we can also see that scholars agree that many of these censorships had political backings, political motivations, and succeeded due to connections in higher places. We can see this political support through a moment at a convention with Bill Clinton. There “Bill Clinton publicly criticized activist and hip-hop producer Sister Souljah (also a convention guest) for her controversial if tongue-in-cheek suggestion that black people stop attacking one another and direct their violence at whites instead” (Jeffries, 2011). 

There were different contradictions and focuses on this specific topic in two of our literatures. This can be seen between Jeffries’ book and Anderson’s Parental Advisory: Tipper Gore and the PMRC. Jeffries focuses on how the Tipper sticker was used in order to target Hip Hop/rap artists and how she and other politicians have taken a public stance against these artists. Jeffries focuses on this strained relationship between Hip Hop culture and commercial America. This differs from how Anderson first bring up information about the Tipper sticker. Anderson brings to the narrative how Tipper Gore put emphasis on reinforced women’s roles as mothers and moral educators. This input added another layer of who Tipper’s audience was and how and why she fought for and against the people she did. Later in the article, Anderson does realign with the ideas and brings up the same questions as Jeffries, saying “were her efforts borne out of a concern for American innocence or an attempt at covert censorship?” and gives partial benefit of the doubt by asking “Could the PMRC’s attempt to restrict and label explicit music be classified as censorship? Or did their campaign simply give voice to legions of concerned mothers?”

Genre Proportions Before and After 1973

As seen from our visualization above, Hip Hop rose to prominence in the late 1970s, representing a greater proportion of the genre landscape. With our literature, we were able to explore the different ways in which censorship has played a role in the socio-cultural dynamic that marginalizes Black Artists and the overall cultural rejection of Hip Hop’s emergence. There is still the question and exploration on this topic of even though there has been overwhelming success, will there be a future where the marginalization will be minimized and non-existent? Or will we continue to see this censorship in the music industry for years to come?

Music, as a whole, is such an interesting space to study in regards to humanistic approaches because of the fact that it is a form of expression. As a result, when significant cultural events take place, people either engage with music as creators to express how they feel or comment on current events to raise awareness and ignite change, listen to music as the audience to connect with or help understand how they feel and what’s going on, or use music as a uniting factor that creates a bond and can counter the forces that work to silence it. The interesting thing is that people can engage with different types of music in different ways – different genres each serve as distinct forms of art and can carry unique purposes.

The study of Hip Hop, then, bears importance because of the immense presence it takes within society and its ability to serve as an outlet for social struggles. Hip hop is not merely a genre of music, but it’s a culture. This is something that can get overlooked because of certain surface level judgments which makes this research necessary. In the case of our study, we apply a lens that narrows the scope and discusses the frequent marginalization of black artists as well as voices within the Hip Hop sphere as a result of various social and cultural factors.

One thing that is important to note in this space is that Hip Hop, as a genre, can often be seen as a violent and vulgar space. As a result, it is frequently shot down or rejected without second thought. This is extremely problematic as it serves as a rejection of an entire environment that has much to contribute and important things to say. Not only does this cast an unfair light over the culture of Hip Hop, but it even does so over the people behind it. This can serve as a further form of discrimination as it doesn’t only silence the products of Hip Hop but it can contribute toward a stereotype that silences an entire people.

As such, the research that this project has conducted connects to a larger idea of marginalization or the silencing of voices. This means that the applications of our research go far beyond the lines of music and can even hone in on interpersonal and societal issues. Our group has researched the various factors that have led to and are still currently leading to notable impacts on the Hip Hop community because of the relevance of its suppression in the past as well as its ability to overcome such obstacles. 

Our goal is to help the reader understand that there has been and still is a dangerous stereotype that surrounds Hip Hop and impacts its availability and presence within society. From this, we hope to elucidate what the ramifications of this may be. With the help of digital humanities tools, we can analyze Hip hop music and create visualizations that illustrate the numerous effects of Hip Hop.

Image of NWA and FBI Header: National Coalition Against Censorship
The Cold Crush Brothers at the Dixie Club during the filming of Wild Style, 1981. Photo: Joe Conzo

The Tipper Sticker: The Most Entertaining (and Least Effective) Attempt at Censorship