Results for “competition and dominance in hip-hop”

Songs

Hit It Run

Run-DMC

A boast-driven b-boy anthem in which D.M.C. asserts lineage, dominance, and craft over Jam Master Jay's stripped-down beats. The…

braggadocio hip-hop lineage and authenticity self-naming/identity

Rosa Parks

OutKast

A brash, funk-driven boast track in which Outkast repurpose a civil-rights phrase as a battle-rap taunt, using the chorus as a…

competition and dominance in hip-hop staying artistically ahead Southern regional pride

What They Do

The Roots

A mid-90s Roots track built around a single defiant refrain, positioning the group's artistic integrity against a hip-hop…

authenticity vs. commercialism artistic integrity hip-hop lineage and craft

One Beer

MF DOOM

A boozy, freewheeling posse-cut of a track built on the pun of "one beer" doubling as "one beer left" and a coded jab at fake…

intoxication as metaphor for scarcity/competition hip-hop authenticity vs. imitation supervillain persona

MIDDLE CHILD

J. Cole

J. Cole positions himself as hip-hop's bridge generation, flexing competitive bravado while pivoting into mentorship and social…

generational responsibility authenticity vs. materialism hip-hop legacy

Where I'm From

Digable Planets

This posse-cut catalog builds a portrait of a hip-hop upbringing not through a single narrator but through overlapping voices…

cultural identity and community Afrocentric consciousness hip-hop as inheritance

We the People....

A Tribe Called Quest

A Tribe Called Quest opens their comeback album with a song that fuses street-level survival talk with a chorus that mimics the…

racism and xenophobia economic precarity media distortion

Keep Their Heads Ringin'

Dr. Dre

A party-rap flex from the Friday soundtrack in which Dr. Dre spends three verses establishing his sonic and physical dominance…

braggadocio sonic dominance party/hangout culture

Award Tour

A Tribe Called Quest

A victory-lap travelogue disguised as a posse cut, where the pleasure of touring the world with a hip-hop crew becomes the whole…

hip-hop craft and lineage global travel and touring life authenticity vs. imitation

Sex, Drugs and Violence

Public Enemy

Public Enemy uses three loosely connected vignettes of unsolved shootings tied to hip-hop culture to indict the industry and…

media complicity violence in hip-hop culture commercialization of black death

9th Wonder (Blackitolism)

Digable Planets

A loose, jazz-inflected posse cut in which the Digable Planets crew trade boasts about style, borough pride, and lyrical…

borough/regional pride Afrocentric and cosmic imagery lyrical dexterity as identity

The Magic Number

De La Soul

De La Soul turns Schoolhouse Rock's arithmetic lesson into a manifesto for the trio itself, using the number three as a stand-in…

group identity and unity originality vs. imitation in hip-hop numerology/mysticism as playful device

Excursions

A Tribe Called Quest

Q-Tip opens The Low End Theory with a genealogy lesson, tracing hip-hop back through his father's love of bebop and framing rap…

lineage and continuation of Black music integrity versus phoniness time and history repeating

Raising Hell

Run-DMC

The title track of Run-DMC's landmark album is a boast-battle anthem built almost entirely from self-crowning imagery and…

braggadocio hip-hop supremacy battle rhetoric

Moment of Truth

Gang Starr

Gang Starr's title track is a meditation on accountability and betrayal dressed as street philosophy, moving from meditative…

betrayal and loyalty accountability/karma paranoia at success

Still D.R.E.

Dr. Dre

A comeback statement dressed as a boast, in which Dr. Dre answers years of speculation about his relevance by cataloguing…

reputation and legacy authenticity versus commercialism loyalty to origin/streets

Rapp Snitch Knishes

MF DOOM

MF DOOM turns a satirical eye on rap's tough-guy posturing, mocking MCs whose lyrics function as confessions that could be used…

hip-hop authenticity and posturing self-incrimination and surveillance street credibility vs. performance

Go to Church

Ice Cube

A crunk-era posse cut in which Ice Cube and Snoop Dogg trade boasts built around a single taunt: prove your toughness or admit…

performative masculinity authenticity vs. fraudulence street credibility

Eye Know

De La Soul

"Eye Know" is De La Soul's sunniest love song, built on a Steely Dan sample and playful Daisy Age slang. Both Posdnuos and…

courtship and seduction wordplay as intimacy group identity and self-naming

As the Rhyme Goes On

Eric B.

A dense, self-referential display of MC craft in which Rakim narrates his own performance as it happens, treating the rhyme…

self-reflexive artistry mic authority and lineage hip-hop as physical/mental control

Where It's At

Beck

A cut-and-paste party anthem that treats meaning as beside the point, stitching together carnival barker patter,…

collage/pastiche nostalgia for analog music-making irony toward hip-hop authenticity tropes

Bring Da Ruckus

Wu‐Tang Clan

The opening track of Enter the Wu-Tang stages hip-hop as martial arts combat, with each MC treating the microphone like a weapon…

martial arts mythology as metaphor for lyrical combat collective identity vs individual bravado urban violence and street survival

Pacifics (From The Original Motion Picture Soundtrack “N.Y. Is Red Hot")

Digable Planets

Digable Planets turn a Sunday in New York into an extended meditation on rest, community, and creative replenishment, moving…

urban leisure and rest Black cultural inheritance (jazz, literature, hip-hop lineage) community and belonging

Champion

The Roots

A motivational anthem built around the word "champion," stacking boasts about relentless work ethic against a chant-like hook…

perseverance self-mythologizing competition

Get Ur Freak On

Missy Elliott

A pure sound-and-swagger track built around a hypnotic, bindi-and-bhangra-inflected beat, where Missy Elliott spends most of the…

self-assertion dominance and rivalry sound over sense

Represent

Weezer

A brash sports-anthem pep talk built for the 2010 World Cup, 'Represent' trades Weezer's usual self-deprecation for…

competition and pride integrity versus winning family and reputation

The Fire

The Roots

An anthem of self-motivation built around a simple metaphor: inner drive as flame. John Legend's hook frames perseverance as an…

perseverance self-belief legacy and destiny

Shake Your Pom Pom

Missy Elliott

A dance-floor instruction manual dressed up as a soundtrack single, this track turns a dance move into a call-and-response…

bodily confidence performance and spectacle female authority over desire

Full Clip

Gang Starr

Full Clip is a boastful, aggressive posse-cut-style anthem in which Guru delivers a barrage of battle-rap threats, positioning…

braggadocio and dominance authenticity vs. imitation violence as metaphor for skill

Work

Gang Starr

A boastful street-level anthem built around the double meaning of 'work' as both hustle/grind and criminal labor, delivered with…

hustler ethic street surveillance and paranoia status and reputation

Oh No

Mos Def

A posse-cut showcase built around G-funk swagger, "Oh No" pairs Mos Def and Pharoahe Monch trading verses over a Nate Dogg hook,…

hustle and self-made success competitive supremacy coastal unity

Partyman

Prince

A brash, funk-drenched self-coronation written for the Joker character in Tim Burton's Batman, "Partyman" turns egotism into…

self-proclaimed dominance hedonism and spectacle performance of villainy/showmanship

HUMBLE.

Kendrick Lamar

HUMBLE. is a swaggering, almost gleeful takedown of fakery in the industry and in culture at large, delivered by a narrator who…

authenticity vs. artifice wealth and status misogynoir/beauty standards critique

Darryl and Joe (Krush-Groove 3)

Run-DMC

This is Run-DMC's self-introduction track, a boastful roll call in which each member states his name, role, and superiority in…

self-naming and identity boasting and status group unity vs individual flash

409

The Beach Boys

An early Beach Boys car song that treats a Chevrolet engine like a lover and a racehorse at once, built almost entirely on chant…

car culture masculine pride and status consumerism/saving toward a goal

Visionz

Wu‐Tang Clan

A dense, freestyle-driven posse cut where multiple Wu-Tang voices trade abstract, violent, and pop-culture-saturated verses that…

apocalyptic imagery street violence as metaphor Five Percenter/Nation of Gods and Earths ideology

Move the Crowd

Eric B.

A foundational Golden Age hip-hop track in which Rakim narrates his own creative process in real time, describing how a beat…

craftsmanship and artistic discipline self-mythologizing music as spiritual/intellectual pursuit

The Believer

Common

Common builds a hymn out of hip-hop's contradictions, weaving together images of urban violence, spiritual conviction, and Black…

faith and endurance urban violence and its roots Black historical legacy

Paid In Full

Eric B.

This is the title track and origin document of hip-hop's most sampled record, a first-person account of a hustler talking…

hustling and survival redemption through legitimate work the music industry as a means of escape

Nickel Bags

Digable Planets

This track is less a song than a controlled-substance thesis on funk itself, using the language of street-level drug dealing as…

funk as intoxicant urban sensuality collective identity