How Yo! MTV Raps Brought Golden Age Hip-Hop to America
Before hip-hop ruled the charts, it had to get on TV. Here’s how a scrappy, half-hour video show turned Golden Age hip-hop into a national obsession.
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How Digital Underground’s Humpty Dance Became Tupac Shakur’s Launchpad
Before he was a solo superstar, Tupac Shakur was a roadie and backup dancer for a goofy Oakland funk-rap crew fronted by a man in a fake nose. Here’s how Digital Underground’s Humpty Dance opened the door.
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Family Matters: How Urkel Stole 9 Seasons
Family Matters was supposed to be a family sitcom about Carl and Harriette Winslow. Instead, a one-episode neighbor named Steve Urkel got so much laughter from the studio audience that producers rewrote the show around him, turning a supporting spinoff of Perfect Strangers into a nine-season, 215-episode hit that outlived its own network. Jaleel White…
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On This Day: September 23, 1988 — Jose Canseco Joins the 40-40 Club
On September 23, 1988, Oakland Athletics outfielder Jose Canseco stole his 40th base of the season in a 14-inning game against the Milwaukee Brewers, becoming the first player in Major League Baseball history to reach 40 home runs and 40 stolen bases in a single season. He finished the year with 42 homers and 40…
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How The Score Turned the Fugees Into Hip-Hop’s Unlikeliest Crossover Stars
A flop debut, a basement studio in New Jersey, and an unplanned cover of a Roberta Flack song turned the Fugees into the golden age’s biggest crossover act — and broke them up within a year of the top.
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Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles History: From a $1,300 Comic to a Billion-Dollar Empire
The real teenage mutant ninja turtles history doesn’t start with a Saturday morning cartoon or a toy aisle stuffed with plastic shells. It starts in a cold Massachusetts apartment in 1983, with two broke artists, a tax refund, and a joke that got wildly out of hand. Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird had no publisher,…
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How Wu-Tang Clan Built Golden Age Hip-Hop’s Empire
In 1992, a shoestring-budget crew from Staten Island signed a record deal nobody else dared to write. Here’s how that one contract clause let nine MCs flood the Golden Age with solo classics.
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The Night the Source Awards Nearly Broke Hip-Hop in Two
On August 3, 1995, the Source Awards were supposed to crown hip-hop’s biggest names. Instead, one speech from Suge Knight turned the ceremony into the spark that split the genre’s coasts apart.
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Big Wheel: How the Plastic Trike Ruled Every 70s Driveway
Before skateboards ruled the sidewalk and before every kid on the block had a bike with a banana seat, there was the Big Wheel toy: a low-slung, plastic trike with a front wheel the size of a manhole cover and a sound that could be heard three houses down. It looked nothing like a real…
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The Native Tongues: How De La Soul, A Tribe Called Quest, and Friends Rewrote the Rules of Rap
Long before hip-hop split into charts and camps, a loose family of Queens and Brooklyn rappers proved the genre could be strange, tender, and jazzy all at once. This is the story of the Native Tongues.
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KISS Unmasking 1983: The Untold MTV Gamble
KISS unmasked for the first time on September 18, 1983, during an MTV press conference timed to the release of their album Lick It Up. Gene Simmons, Paul Stanley, Eric Carr, and Vinnie Vincent appeared without their trademark black-and-white makeup after original members Ace Frehley and Peter Criss had already left the band. The gamble…
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How a $5,000 Sampler Built the Sound of 90s Hip-Hop
Before Pro Tools, before laptops, an obscure 12-bit drum machine called the E-mu SP-1200 gave Golden Age hip-hop its dusty, chopped-up soul. Here’s how a sampler with a ten-second memory limit built the sound of a decade.
