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This week, The New York Times published 50 Rappers, 50 Stories, a collection of oral histories gathered from hip-hop artists across generations, regions and styles. It includes testimonials from superstars like Lil Wayne, 50 Cent, Cardi B and Eminem; local heroes like Project Pat, Uncle Luke, Bun B and Krayzie Bone; and outlier champions like Trippie Redd, stic, Slug and Boots Riley.
Taken together, the interviews show a genre that started local and became global, was cohesive and then fragmented. And yet some common themes echo throughout — a sense of outsider ambition, a restless commitment to innovation, a reverence for craft.
On this week’s Popcast, a conversation about the making of the project, the common threads uniting the subjects’ stories across generations, and the joys of listening to artists rap along to some of their favorite songs from childhood.
Guests:
Joe Coscarelli, The New York Times’s pop music reporter
Elena Bergeron, an assistant sports editor at The New York Times and a contributor to the 50 Rappers project
Keith Murphy, a music journalist and contributor to the 50 Rappers project
Connect With Popcast. Become a part of the Popcast community: Join the show’s Facebook group and Discord channel. We want to hear from you! Tune in, and tell us what you think at popcast@nytimes.com. Follow our host, Jon Caramanica, on Twitter: @joncaramanica.
Source: Music - nytimes.com
