LibGuides: Rap and Hip-Hop Research Resources: Recordings, Lyrics & Song Analysis

Sound Recordings & Song Analysis in the Catalog

The Library has recordings of many rap and hip-hop artists. You can use the library catalog to search for artists or albums by name if you're looking for something particular or you can browse using the advanced search to search by subject, selecting Rap (Music) or Hip-Hop (Music) and limiting to audio. See the Listening Suggestions box for a selection of rap and hip-hop collections and anthologies available on CD or to stream.

If you are looking for collected lyrics or resources on song analysis for rap and hip-hop, you can search by subject for Rap (Music) or Hip-Hop (Music) and Texts or Criticism. For some resources to get started, check out the recommendations at the bottom of the page.

Suggestions for Listening

Smithsonian Anthology of Hip-Hop and Rap by Smithsonian Folkways Recordings (Produced by); National Museum of African American History and Culture (Executive Producer)
Call Number: MPAL Media Collection CDISC M1630.18 .S56795 2021
The Smithsonian Anthology of Hip-Hop and Rap is a first-of-its-kind multimedia collection chronicling the growth of the music and culture from the parks of the Bronx to solidifying a reach that spans the globe. The set includes 129 tracks on 9 CDs and a 300-page book with original design by Cey Adams, artist and founding creative director of Def Jam Recordings, as well as essays by some of hip-hop's leading writers and critics and hundreds of photographs spanning decades of history.
The Hip Hop Box by Universal Music Enterprises
Call Number: MPAL Media Collection CDISC M1630.18 H567U5
Selections from over 30 artists such as M.C. Hammer, Lil' Kim, Notorious B.I.G., and Busta Rhymes.
The Source hip-hop music awards the album, 1999
Call Number: MPAL Media Collection CDISC M1630.18 .S6692 1999

Hip-Hop Collection Vol 1 by Studio Allstars
Call Number: Online Resource
See also Hip-Hop Collection Volume 2
First Ladies of Hip Hop by Studio Allstars (Ectypal Music OMP, 2008)
Call Number: Online Resource

Soundcloud
An online audio distribution platform providing free streaming and/or download services (depending on the preferences of whoever uploaded the content).
Because Soundcloud's item tags are user generated, there is no controlled vocabulary for searching for rap and hip hop related audio. This means the best results are yielded by searching for known tracks or artists; however, the following tags may be useful:
# hip-hop/rap
# hip hop
# hip-hop
# hiphop
# rap
DatPiff: The Authority in Free Mixtapes
An online mixtape distribution platform providing free streaming and download services.

Song Analysis & Lyric Books

I Got Something to Say by Matthew Oware
Call Number: ML3918.R37 O93 2018
What do millennial rappers in the United States say in their music? This timely and compelling book answers this question by decoding the lyrics of over 700 songs from contemporary rap artists. Although complicated and contradictory in many ways, rap remains a powerful medium for social commentary.
Sounding Race in Rap Songs by Loren Kajikawa
Call Number: Online Resource
As one of the most influential and popular genres of the last three decades, rap has cultivated a mainstream audience and become a multimillion-dollar industry by promoting highly visible and often controversial representations of blackness. The book traces the changing sounds of race across some of the best-known rap songs of the past thirty-five years, combining song-level analysis with historical contextualization.
Listening to Rap by Michael Berry
Call Number: ML3531 .B47L5 2018
Each chapter explores a key topic in the study of rap music from the 1970s to today, covering themes such as race, gender, commercialization, politics, and authenticity. The text features more than 60 detailed listening guides that analyze the musical elements of songs by a wide array of artists, from Afrika Bambaataa and Grandmaster Flash to Nicki Minaj, Jay-Z, Kanye West, and more. A companion website showcases playlists of the music discussed in each chapter.
Book of Rhymes by Adam Bradley
Call Number: Oak St Library 782.4 B7281bo
Examining rap history's most memorable lyricists and their inimitable techniques, literary scholar Adam Bradley argues that we must understand rap as poetry or miss the vanguard of poetry today. Book of Rhymes explores America's least understood poets, unpacking their surprisingly complex craft, and according rap poetry the respect it deserves.
Hiphop Literacies by Elaine Richardson
Call Number: Main Stacks 427.97308996 R393h
Richardson analyses the lyrics and discourse of Hiphop, explodes myths and stereotypes about Black culture and language and shows how Hiphop language is a global ambassador of the English language and American culture.

The Anthology of Rap by Chuck Chuck D (Afterword by); Adam Bradley (Editor); Andrew DuBois (Editor); Henry Louis Gates (Foreword by); Common (Afterword by)
Call Number: Online Resource
This pioneering anthology brings together more than three hundred rap and hip-hop lyrics written over thirty years, from the "old school" to the "golden age" to the present day. Rather than aim for encyclopedic coverage, Bradley and DuBois render through examples the richness and diversity of rap's poetic tradition.
Hip-Hop & Rap : complete lyrics for 175 songs
Call Number: MPAL: ML3531 H56H3
This book features nearly 100 artists, including: Cypress Hill, Dr. Dre, Missy Elliot, Eminem, 50 Cent, Ludacris, Notorious B.I.G., Run-DMC, 2Pac, and many others.
Rap by Lawrence A. Stanley (Editor); Jefferson Morley (Introduction by)
Call Number: 782.42164 R182
This book contains the complete lyrics to 200 old school rap songs, with a history and overview of this musical form up until the early nineties.

Rap Genuis
A crowd-sourced (and artist/producer-sourced) website for the collective annotation of rap lyrics/beats, from “Rapper’s Delight” to To Pimp A Butterfly. Also includes the tools Rap Stats and The Rap Map.
Who Sampled
Dig deeper into music by discovering direct connections among over 367,000 songs and 126,000 artists (samples, remixes, covers, etc.), from Hip-Hop, Rap and R&B via Electronic / Dance through to Rock, Pop, Soul, Funk, Reggae, Jazz, Classical and beyond.