The best hip-hop songs of all time are the songs that touch our souls. They make us smile, laugh, cry, think, and shake what our mama or papa gave us. Covering more than four decades, here are the greatest rap songs of all time:. It was musical irrigation to our souls the first time it washed over the summer airwaves.

Top Rap and Hip-Hop Songs 2020

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Check it out right here. Click to read the full list of voters. It happened at p. The next night, I was prepared, with a prehistoric tape recorder in hand and a black-and-white composition notebook. My boy Aantar became my agent that week, scheduling performances of the song in exchange for snacks or hand-holding with girls in gym class. Hip-hop gives listeners sets of rules that you follow like the law, only to see them change every five years. The greatest hip-hop songs have the power to pull energy and excitement and anger and questions and self-doubt and raw emotion out of you.
Hip-hop's origin as the soundtrack of New York City block parties is well known, but no one could have predicted where the genre would go in just 40 years. In , it became America's most popular genre in total consumption , according to Nielsen, and it has grown globally , too, dominating the streaming era and molding the rest of pop music in its image. At the core of rap is the Black American experience, something that these musicians have been painstakingly documenting for years. From the gritty streets of Compton that birthed N. Whether you're looking for fuel for a workout playlist, old school throwbacks to dance to, or songs that help deepen your understanding of the world around you, hip-hop has all the bases covered. It's impossible to capture the full creative breadth and cultural importance of this music, but this list of some of the best hip-hop songs of all time will get you off to a strong start. While his rags-to-riches story ended in tragedy after a fatal shooting, Biggie's star burned bright enough that he's still topping all-time lists well into the s. Bonus points are owed for the absolutely off-the-walls sci-fi music video. The single was perhaps the purest nexus of Cube's razor sharp political mind and his mainstream charisma.