From MPCs to FL Studio sessions, one thing remains consistent across generations of Hip Hop and R&B: The power of the sample. With that said, few eras have been mined more heavily than the 1980s. With ...

Welcome to The State of R&B, ESSENCE’s look at the past, present and future of rhythm and blues. In this piece, ESSENCE editor Rivéa Ruff reports on the blending of hip-hop and R&B. Since the ...

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 ...

Q. Something that struck me was how in that nascent moment for the culture, you see magazines like The Source in their formative phases, when they were really just fan-driven, do-it-yourself ...

Whodini'sJalil Hutchins (left) and John "Ecstasy" Fletcher (right) backstage in 1984. (Photo: Paul Natkin/Getty Images) A who’s-who of the hip-hop community took to social media Wednesday to mourn the ...

When was hip hop born? Its widely accepted birth date is 11 August 1973, when a now legendary party was thrown in a community room at 1520 Sedgwick Avenue, a tower block in the Bronx, New York. It was ...