 | | Inextricably linked with his pop culture touchstone "Baby Got Back," Sir Mix-A-Lot parlayed a gonzo tribute to women with large buttocks into hip-hop immortality, even despite his failure to score another hit of its magnitude. |
 | | By the late '80s, hip-hop was on its way to becoming a male-dominated art form, which is what made the emergence of Salt-n-Pepa so significant. |
 | | To many present-day listeners, DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince are best-remembered for launching the superstar music/acting career of the latter, now known by his real name of Will Smith. |
 | | With his hit single "Ice Ice Baby" and its accompanying album, To the Extreme, Vanilla Ice became the second white rapper to top the charts. |
 | | Tone-Loc (born Anthony Smith) soared from obscurity into pop stardom in 1989 when his hoarse voice and unmistakable delivery made the song "Wild Thing" (using a sample from Van Halen's "Jamie's Cryin'") a massive hit. |
 | | Hip-hop is notorious for short-lived careers, but LL Cool J is the inevitable exception that proves the rule. |
 | | Thirteen-year-old rappers Chris "Daddy Mack" Smith and Chris "Mack Daddy" Kelly became the pop sensations of 1992 as Kris Kross. |
 | | Beginning his career during the mid-'80s under the name the Fresh Prince, by the following decade rapper Will Smith was one of the biggest superstars of his time -- not only a pop music sensation, he also conquered television and eventually feature films, starring in a string of box-office megahits. |
 | | More than any other hip-hop group, Run-D.M.C. are responsible for the sound and style of the music. As the first hardcore rap outfit, the trio set the sound and style for the next decade of rap. |
 | | While hip-hop was consumed by the hardcore, noisy political rap of Public Enemy and the gangsta rap of N. |
 | | Hip-hop's original overweight lover, Heavy D parlayed an eminently likable persona and strong MC skills into a lengthy career in music, television, and film. |
 | | Intelligent and middle-class, rapper Marvin Young earned a degree in economics from USC, where he met Michael Ross and Matt Dike, co-founders of the fledgling Delicious Vinyl rap label. |
 | | Among the first groups to tame rap's hardcore mentality into a positive, message-oriented music suitable for teens and mass audiences, Kid 'n Play debuted in 1988 with the platinum album 2 Hype, which the duo later spun into a deal involving films and a Saturday-morning cartoon show, the first involving a rap act. |
 | | Naughty by Nature pulled off the neat trick of landing big, instantly catchy anthems on the pop charts while maintaining their street-level credibility among the hardcore rap faithful; one of the first groups to successfully perform such a balancing act. |
 | | Best-known for his 1988 platinum hip-hop classic "It Takes Two," Rob Base (with DJ E-Z Rock) rode his hit onto R&B radio stations as well as dance clubs, providing a touchstone for the style known as hip-house. |
 | | Wreckx-N-Effect earned a huge crossover smash with the single "Rump Shaker" off their 1992 album Hard or Smooth. |
 | | Coolio was one of the first rappers to balance pop accessibility with gritty, street-level subject matter and language. |
 | | As the first white rap group of any importance, the Beastie Boys received the scorn of critics and strident hip-hop musicians, both of whom accused them of cultural pirating, especially since they began as a hardcore punk group in 1981. |
 | | "Jump Around," an impossibly infectious and catchy single, instantly elevated House of Pain from an unknown white hip-hop group to near-stars when it became a massive crossover hit in 1992. |
 | | Bell Biv DeVoe was hatched in the minds of its members, New Edition's Ricky Bell, Michael Bivins, and Ronnie DeVoe, upon the departure of lead singer Bobby Brown in 1986. |
 | | Biz Markie's inclination toward juvenile humor and his fondness for goofy, tuneless, half-sung choruses camouflaged his true talents as a freestyle rhymer. |
 | | A member of one of the original hip-hop crews, Treacherous Three, Kool Moe Dee later became a solo star in his own right in 1986 by teaming with a teenaged Teddy Riley (later famed as the king of new jack swing) on the crossover hit "Go See the Doctor. |
 | | One of early rap's most successful acts, the Fat Boys parlayed a combined weight of over 750 pounds into a comic novelty act that sustained them through several albums and hit singles. |
 | | No rap group (save, perhaps, N.W.A) has stirred more controversy or provoked more heated debate than the 2 Live Crew. |
 | | The first human beatbox in the rap world, and still the best of all time, Doug E. Fresh amazed audiences with his note-perfect imitations of drum machines, effects, and often large samples of hip-hop classics. |
 | | As the embodiment of '90s gangsta rap, Snoop Dogg blurred the lines between reality and fiction. Introduced to the world through Dr. |
 | | It's almost hard to believe given the commercial and critical success later enjoyed by Mark Wahlberg as a screen actor that he was once the laughingstock of the hip-hop nation -- under the guise of Funky Bunch leader Marky Mark, Wahlberg was a pretty-boy pariah within the rap community, although he did score a chart-topping pop smash with the single Good Vibrations. |
 | | Michael Jackson was unquestionably the biggest pop star of the '80s, and certainly one of the most popular recording artists of all time. |
 | | Though the Sugarhill Gang inaugurated the history of recorded hip-hop with their single "Rapper's Delight," a multi-platinum-seller and radio hit in 1979, the group was cooked up to cash in on a supposed novelty item. |
 | | One of the major success stories of 1992, Arrested Development are a progressive rap collective fusing soul, blues, hip-hop, and Sly & the Family Stone-influenced funk with political, socially conscious lyrics. |
 | | Ice Cube was the first member of the seminal California rap group N.W.A. to leave, and he quickly established himself as one of hip-hop's best and most controversial artists. |
 | | Coming out of the fertile early-'80s New York rap scene, Whodini were one of the first rap groups to add a straight R&B twist to their music, thus laying the groundwork for the new jack swing movement. |
 | | DJ Grandmaster Flash and his group the Furious Five were hip-hop's greatest innovators, transcending the genre's party-music origins to explore the full scope of its lyrical and sonic horizons. |
 | | TLC were one of the biggest-selling female R&B groups of all time, riding a blend of pop, hip-hop, and urban soul to superstardom during the '90s. |
 | | MC Lyte was one of the first female rappers to point out the sexism and misogyny that often runs rampant in hip-hop, often taking the subject head on lyrically in her songs and helping open the door for such future artists as Queen Latifah and Missy Elliott. |
 | | Slick Rick foreshadowed and epitomized the pimpster attitude of many rappers during the late '80s and early '90s, with gold chains, his trademark eye-patch, and recordings that were no less misogynistic -- "Treat Her Like a Prostitute," for example, became an underground hit in 1988, though it was justly criticized for its view of women. |
 | | Queen Latifah was certainly not the first female rapper, but she was the first one to become a bona fide star. |
 | | Emerging during hip-hop's massive creative expansion of the late '80s, Big Daddy Kane was the ultimate lover man of rap's first decade, yet there was more to him than the stylish wardrobe, gold jewelry, and sophisticated charisma. |
 | | Public Enemy rewrote the rules of hip-hop, becoming the most influential and controversial rap group of the late '80s and, for many, the definitive rap group of all time. |
 | | OutKast's blend of gritty Southern soul, fluid raps, and the low-slung funk of their Organized Noize production crew epitomized the Atlanta wing of hip-hop's rising force, the Dirty South, during the mid to late '90s. |
 | | More than any other rapper, Dr. Dre was responsible for moving away from the avant-noise and political stance of Public Enemy and Boogie Down Productions as well as the party vibes of old-school rap. |
 | | In just a few short years, the Notorious B.I.G. went from a Brooklyn street hustler to the savior of East Coast hip-hop to a tragic victim of the culture of violence he depicted so realistically on his records. |
 | | At the time of its 1989 release, De La Soul's debut album, 3 Feet High and Rising, was hailed as the future of hip-hop. |
 | | 2Pac became the unlikely martyr of gangsta rap, and a tragic symbol of the toll its lifestyle exacted on urban black America. |
 | | The most idiosyncratic personality in rap and possessor of its most recognizable delivery, a halting, ragga-inspired style with incredible complexity, inventiveness, and humor, Busta Rhymes formed Leaders of the New School in 1990 and released two albums with the group before breaking out with a 1996 solo hit single, "Woo-Hah!! Got You All in Check. |
 | | Cypress Hill were notable for being the first Latino hip-hop superstars, but they became notorious for their endorsement of marijuana, which actually isn't a trivial thing. |
 | | This vocal quartet formed as high school students in Oklahoma City before relocating to New York. They proved adept at both churning dance tunes and sincere ballads. |
 | | Ice-T (born Tracy Morrow) has proven to be one of hip-hop's most articulate and intelligent stars, as well as one of its most frustrating. |
 | | One of the brightest R&B stars of the late '80s and early '90s, Bobby Brown was the performer who popularized new jack swing, a blend of classic soul, synth-funk, and hip-hop rhythms that often featured rap breaks in between the conventionally melodic verses and choruses. |
 | | 3rd Bass was one of a still-small number of white hip-hop artists to achieve wide acceptance in the larger community. |
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