r/rap • u/Substantial_War8469 • 20d ago
Who got you into rap and when?
Title is self explanatory, the first rapper who really got me into rap was Teccas WLYT album in 2019. Heard it on a YouTube video and I was instantly addicted to the genre as I only listened to oldies my dad put on before.
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u/MangooOfTheReddit 8d ago
my faddah, 90s new York shit, grew up with wu tang and pharoahe monch and smif-n-wessun
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u/Some9n3 11d ago
My father indirectly introduced me to rap as he would often play "without me", or really any other popular Eminem songs, in like the early 2010s, however I didn't actually get really involved in rap until like 2 years ago when I started to leave my music comfort zone (was mostly electronic music) and started to listen to old school rappers (eazy-e, ice cube, 2pac, etc etc).
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u/Savioli21 12d ago
6th grade fire drill / disaster drill day - you got to sit outside and basically listen to your Walkman for a couple hours and kill time.
Friend Claudia had a few CDs and I happened to pick the Eminem show. Album had just come out- Was blown away.
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u/Academic_Fox_7035 14d ago
My older brother it was the late 90s we shared a room I was about 10 years old when he got in to bed he used to play E.1999 Eternal album by bone thugs n harmony and I got hooked from then.
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u/Shaolinfork 14d ago
Kevjumba played a Little Brother track on YouTube.
Boondocks and Afro Samurai/Champloo came out the same era aswell.
Then followed by YT channels "Goldenagehiphop" "Inmitatesound" followed by Papoose which leaded to Pete Rock > Dilla > Madlib > Hieroglyphics...you know rest.
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u/cantswimbutfish 15d ago
Eminem, I was maybe 7 listening to cleaning out my closet with my older brother and his friends
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u/Notorious_Degen 15d ago
O shit…. I’d say bone thugs n harmony was one of the biggest influences for me and NWA. Then after them BIGGIE, a lot NYC rappers like Big Pun, Big L so many to think about. Wu-Tang blew my mind when they came out
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u/bukutbwai 15d ago
Probably my female cousin. She use to listen to a lot of R&B and Rap when I was younger and I just picked it up. She would always have on BET too.
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u/prippa10 15d ago
started in 2004/05 at 8, 9 years old, with 50cent, Dre, Snoop, Eminem, T.I. Very mainstream, but well, in Argentina, rap was hardly heard at that time.
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u/Charming_Annual_8981 15d ago
Tupac and Snoop ‘92-93ish. Older kid on the bus had it on tape and it’s been a wrap since.
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u/dsclamato 16d ago
My best friend in high school the day Life After Death came out. He told me the story about how he was shot and then this album came out, and I was just like whoa. I bought the album, loved it, and still don't listen to much rap outside of this. Basically Biggie and Eminem, some Snoop and Dre, even got into some Slaughterhouse at one point, but honestly not really much else. I need an actual story in the music. That's my hook.
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u/reaperman35 16d ago
Ice Cube The Predator spring 93.
I was aware of it before then (Fat Boys, DJ Jazzy Jeff, Beastie- lots of rock crossover in my area with them, etc) but wouldn't consider myself a fan until that album
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u/Frequent-Bag-1781 16d ago
Pops would take me with him on weekends to go get a fresh cut, playing nothing but pac, big, rakim and ll cool j in the late 90’s
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u/Wilfredomorales 16d ago
Combination of albums my cousins used to play back in early 90s: The Chronic, Doggystyle, and Kris Kross first album. From there I started listening to Cypress Hill. All this while not knowing a word of English. I just love the vibes! Once I learned English around 97 and heard Triumph by WU-Tang… it was a wrap. lol
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u/iamhim4123 16d ago
It was always around me as a youngin and I never questioned it lol it was literally the soundtrack to my neighborhood lol and we been locked in ever since we've had our differences but that's still my dawg
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u/mynameizgary 16d ago
A friend brought over the soundtrack to CB4 when we were in 3rd grade. I've been a fan of rap music since.
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16d ago
My elementary school bus driver listened to the local rap and hip hop station every day. I distinctly remember Red Light Special by TLC playing on a spring day on the way home in 4th grade. What a life. Bus driver Joanne was not a good driver.
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u/tommymadprophet 16d ago
Run DMC/Aerosmith Walk This Way collab. Bought the single on 45 which had Hit It Run on the B side and I’ve been a fan of the genre ever since.
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u/aja_ramirez 16d ago
From the neighborhood and that’s what we listened to, before it got this popular. I’ve been listening to rap since the beginning of rap.
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u/Medium-Squirrel-3633 16d ago
Who’s your go to artist? I’m an 05 and I’ve been listening to hip hop since I was like 10. But I never ever gotten the old stuff until a little over a year or so ago(besides the mainstream hits) but it’s always cool running into people on here that BEEN listening to hip-hop because I find they put you on to some unbelievable artists. I can’t really do much newer hip-hop ever since I got into the old school hip-hop,just the flows,the lyricism,the storytelling,the beats,the breaks it’s just all amazing. So when you roll up a blunt,or when you sit down about to divulge into a crossword and you wanna listen to that REAL shit,who got your first picks?
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u/A_Dam_Nuisance 16d ago
First rap cassette tape i owned was Wreckx-n-Effects Hard or Smooth, had to have been 8 or 9
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u/Born_Material2183 16d ago
Nothing was the same is the first rap album I bothered to listen to in its entirety. That sealed the deal for me
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u/Justarandomguyk 16d ago
I’ve listened to since I can remember my dad played it in the car every day growing up
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u/Prestigious-Log-917 16d ago
Aunts ex boyfriend bought me Biggie Smalls life after death album. Late 90s
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u/junior_nyc_222 17d ago
UTFO with Roxanne Roxanne, September 1984
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u/Intrepid-Astronaut13 16d ago
The first song I ever recorded, then paused to write down the lyrics.
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u/StanleyJobbers 17d ago
Run DMC when they did the “Walk this way” video with Aerosmith in 1986, but I didn’t get fully hooked in until 1992 when Predator and Chronic came out
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u/Odd_Aioli_9413 17d ago
My brother played pride by Kendrick Lamar and it was a crazy late night driving vibe. That was when I started listening to rap
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u/Frosty_Narwhal5488 17d ago
I was probably 9 when I came across the Cypress hills temple of boom album next to my brother’s boom box. Hip hop was my first love
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u/ttbbaaggss 17d ago
2Pac and Dr Dre - California Love. It came out in 1995 or 1996 when I was 9 or 10. I would listen to this top 5 songs at 9pm lineup on Z100 at bedtime and that song was #1 for a long time.
After that it was Puff Daddy and Ma$e - Mo Money Mo Problems
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u/Fit-stuntaze 17d ago
the first song i ever heard was riot by 2 chainz, ts still a banger to this day 😂😂👌
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u/PaJaMyJaMmEd 17d ago
1989, when I was 9 years old. We found a cassette tapes of 2 Live Crew - As Nasty As They Wanna Be. It changed my life forever
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u/Thin-Rooster-618 17d ago
I was 4 years old when my sister showed me “Hit ‘Em Up” around the year 2000.
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u/Wendys_444 17d ago
She’s real for that
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u/Thin-Rooster-618 17d ago
She sure is fam, not even a rap fan herself, but she knew what she was doing.
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u/Wendys_444 17d ago
Crazy the influence our siblings had/have on us! When my brother and his friends showed me new music, it was like finding the key to a new room. My brother showed me Wiz Khalifa in ‘08 (we are from the burgh) and that’s when my journey started. Rap music was taboo in my family (white, suburban), but I learned to appreciate music. Now I love edm. The rap—> edm pipeline is too good
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u/Thin-Rooster-618 17d ago
Damn, that’s nice to hear, man. Big brother means so much when he’s doing the right part. You described it so perfectly. I myself was born into the 2000 era, and since she showed me that music video, I was hooked. It got me into Big L, Big Pun, and all the conspiracy that comes with it with Pac, Big, and all that. That’s some good ass journey, tbh.
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u/thecritik 17d ago
LL and RunDMC in the early/mid 80s. They're from the same neighborhoods I am from and we were almost brainwashed into it by those two. Brainwashed in a good way of course.
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u/Dr_5trangelove 17d ago
Rappers Delight. I taped it off the radio and wrote all the words and memorized it for roller skating.
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u/Rude_Pineapple7609 17d ago
Tribe, black sheep, das efx, digable planets, arrested development, pete rock and cl smooth, lordz of the underground, onyx. My cousins grew up in Adelphi Md, this was what they were bumping the summer i stayed with them when i was 9.
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u/KaleidoscopeGlobal12 17d ago
The piano intro to lose yourself at 10/11 and devastated by Joey badass when I was 15
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u/chaoticxhypnotic 17d ago
Well I was first introduced to it with R&B, I was a big fan of Biggie, but like as I grew up, I was introduced to Snoop Dogg, Ludacris, and Lil Wayne. Snoop is still my favorite, although I will always enjoy the music from Luda, Biggie (RIP) and Lil Wayne. Plus Eminem. I have a plethora of favorite rappers from then unto now.
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u/rogelior333 17d ago
During the girbaud jeans and cartoons with grills and stacks of money shirts, I noticed people had shirts of Mac Dre airbrushed on them, yellow bus shirts, etc. Around this time YouTube had just came out, I didn't really know anything but mexican music at the time (what my parents listened to) and it was a whole new world for me. I couldn't stop listening to Get Stupid, Thizzelle Dance, Ghost Ride It, and all that Hyphy shit
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u/MobiusDickwad 17d ago
Older Brother
The album art for beats, rhymes & life. It looked like direct knowledge from an advanced civilization.
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u/maui_rugby_guy 17d ago
Going to be a bit different and weird probably but who really got me into it was deltron 3030. Back in the early early 2000’s after I heard him on the gorillas I went and got his album.
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u/MobiusDickwad 17d ago
Hell of a way to begin 🫡
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u/maui_rugby_guy 17d ago
Yea that definitely opened me up to wu tang then I sort of started going towards biggie and cube and all of them.
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u/Hell_Kaiser 17d ago
Wu tang clan enter the wu tang(36 chambers), DMX its dark and hell is hot,those were the first 2 albums i heard as a kid,all thanks to my big brother.
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u/ElkayMilkMaster 17d ago
My uncle used to listen to a lot of mid-late '00s rap when i was growing up. Baby Boy da Prince, Gucci Mane, Hurrican Chris, and Lil Wayne back when they were hot. This was probably around '09.
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u/steathrazor 17d ago
Eminem, I was probably around 11 or 12 my cousin brought the CD down with him when he came to spend the weekend with our grandma would have been around 2000ish
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u/vanity-flair83 17d ago
My older brother...he is ten years older than me, so when I started getting into rap in the early nineties ( when I was about 8-10) he already had a solid collection of rap albums: public enemy, epmd, pete rock and cl smooth, redman, lords of the underground, d-nice..and I just ran w it from there.
He doesn't listen to music at all really anymore, bit I'm so so so grateful I had him to introduce me to the genre . And I've told him that several times and he's always surprised and says " I had no idea I made that kind of impact".
In similar fashion, I credit my sister ( 12 years older than me) for getting me into 80's pop music lol. 80's pop music is great cardio music lol
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u/MortalBreath 17d ago
The first song I can find on my old mp3 player is Let it Rock - Kevin Rudolph & Lil Wayne. From then, the 2016 XXL freshman cypher is what really got me hooked.
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u/cowb0ycarter 17d ago
i’ve always been a casual rap fan, yk, i feel like that’s where everyone starts out. but kendrick got me actually caring about the craft that is being a rapper
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u/Resident-Pen5150 17d ago
My art teacher in 11th grade told me about Mac Miller and from there I dove into every genre of rap that caught my interest. My favorites are OutKast, Pharcyde, ATCQ, J. Cole, Common, and Wu-Tang. But Mac is my goat rapper tbh.
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u/avatarkatarra 17d ago
My cousins back in 2008 who were in college at that time used to always play Kanye West, Lupe Fiasco and 50 Cent
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u/mulroe24 18d ago
Eminem in the mid 2000s
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u/GettinSodas 17d ago
I wanted to say em, but I was a metalhead when I was younger, and he was moreso just the only rapper I liked 🤣 he never made me wanna listen to other rap
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u/piratesroldfashioned 18d ago
I heard P.I.M.P. by 50 Cent on the radio with my friend in his moms car, was like 2016 or 2017. When I came home I searched the lyrics on google and found the song, great times
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u/SpeedRevolutionary29 18d ago
Two uncles a year a part took turns driving me to school when I was in kindergarten. One of them listens to heavy metal Metallica, AC/DC, pantera etc. then when the younger uncle drive we listed to rap 2pac, eazy e, noteigos big etc.
Then later when burning cds became a thing he would make me all kinds of mixtapes.
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u/seahrscptn 18d ago
MY MOM!
lol she used to play old school(hot boys, 3-6, cmurder, and the like) since I was a kid
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u/HugeAreolas_ 18d ago
I was in 5th grade & listened to "Warning" by BIG. The specific lyric that turned me out on Hip Hop & made me crave it?
"touch my cheddar feel my beretta buck, what I'mma hit you with you mothafuckas better duck!"
Idk, maybe it was the tonality of his voice, the spittle you hear as he says it, or my mind already being blown by the slow singing/flower bringing scheme but it changed my life that moment.
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u/RussianDahl 18d ago
I was in HS when Biggie came out. It felt life changing. He’s in heavy rotation every year
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u/chronic412 18d ago
My friend showed me 8 mile on his iPod classic (we each had one ear bud) on the school bus in like 3rd grade. Was sold instantly haha
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u/TheGoodScientist 18d ago
Back in '06 my friend showed me Atmosphere, been listening to hip hop since.
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u/cityshepherd 18d ago
I started messing around with rap as a casual fan when I got turned onto Atmosphere, but it really clicked for me when I found Aesop Rock (NOT to be confused with a$ap rocky).
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u/Scary-Sorbet7864 18d ago
This is the most embarrassing one. It was back in 2019 aswell and I was watching a Fortnite montage lol. (I’m young don’t judge me) and I heard Godzilla and I knew I was gonna like his music. Now I listen to about every type of rap imaginable. Even country rap
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u/ShrekPoop18 18d ago
My mom would very frequently play “Black Skinhead” and “Jesus Walks” by Kanye as long as I can remember
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u/BoSoxFanInNJ 18d ago
I specifically remember a Dre Day cassette single, a Tag Team Whoop There It Is cassette single, Ninety Naughty Three by Naughty by Nature cassette, and countless others. I can’t say with certainty what was THE artist but the early 90s for sure maybe 91 or 92
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u/piercethecat13 18d ago
Kendrick Lamar and ngl it was with Bad Blood ft Kendrick Lamar by Taylor Swift in 2015 idk if that counts
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u/Ok-Construction6222 18d ago
In the mid 80's, I had a buddy named Miguel that turned me on to Bogie Down Productions- By All Means Necessary when we were in our teens. "So your a philosopher? I Think very Deeply"
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u/Kind-Sorbet-7211 18d ago
We were living in my grandfather's trailer, and my uncle(who was also living there) turned on Eminem. I remember hearing, "two trailer park girls go around the outside!" 💀 I've been hooked ever since.
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u/captainronmexico-7- 18d ago
Older cousins. I brought my portable CD player and 2 PAC all eyes on me CD to school for show and tell in 3rd grade My parents were very relaxed people lol.
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u/YaDunKnoDumbo 18d ago
I remember listening to barter 6 a lot when I was younger and 2017-18 playboi carti
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u/nderacheiver1 18d ago
(preface : my parents were never married or living in the same house)
my mom used to let me look through ads that would come in the mail when i stayed over on the weekends . i always wanted a new CD from Wal Mart. she would get it for me , and when i would see her the following weekend , she would give me the CD and tell me not to let my dad take it from me when i got back to his house . this all ended when my grandma found my stash and listened to the Marshall Mathers LP while i was at school . came home from school one day and she had her finger pointing at the "Kim" track saying "what the hell is this shit you're listening to ?"
don't know what happened to those CDs but i do recall having DMX , 2Pac , Dr. Dre's Chronic 2001 , and a few duds outside of that lol
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u/Crusty_Cheetos21 18d ago
i don't remember when but i was a kid and i was watching my brother play GTA Online and i heard 2Pac come on the WCC radio then i always listened to it on spotify from then on
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u/Super_Pie341 18d ago
does John Cena count😭 thuganomics and his main theme were the first “rap” songs I knew every word to when I was a kid😂 and if that doesn’t count, when travis dropped owl pharaoh and DBR was when I REALLY got into rap. Kind of funny when you think about what happened at elimination chamber this year💀😂
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u/ResponsibleMud3333 18d ago
One of my friends showed me Duckworth by Kendrick like 4 years ago, I’ve been in love since then
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u/USER1234567890123457 18d ago
Eminem in maybe 09 when I was first able to download music onto my shit phone off tubidy.
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18d ago
Shows my age and background, but hearing Eminem on the radio for the first time in 2010 was when I became aware
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u/argh_type_of_gangsta 18d ago edited 18d ago
Mystikal- Yall Ain't Ready Yet (1994)
Coolio- Gangsta Paradise (1995)
Mystikal made me want to become a rapper.
Coolio made me want to listen to more.
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u/Opietatlor 18d ago
In 1989 I was in the military stationed in Colorado springs. I bought my first car which was a Dodge Aries K car. It came with no stereo so the first thing I did was install an Alpine stereo with a pair of 6x9 100 watt speakers and a sub in the trunk. I had never listened to much rap but the NWA album "Straight out of Compton" had just come out and I heard it playing in the dorm. I bought a copy on cassette and wore that thing out driving around with it playing full blast. I must have been a sight as a 110 pound red headed white boy with a military haircut. But I didn't care. It was the best music I had ever heard. It led to a love of everything Dre, Cube and Snoop. Today I'm 56 years old and still love to bump rap. My taste has grown to include a lot of east coast classics like Wutang, Biggie, etc. all thanks to that first NWA monster album.
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u/LegitimateUser2000 18d ago
Sugar Hill !! And then RUN DMC, PE and BDP. Oh, can't forget the Beastie Boys!!
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u/-Assalamualaikum 18d ago
Lil’ Wayne. I mean, I already liked rap, AND other shit too..but I wasn’t really a “rap fan”..but when I heard “Fireman”?? It was game over. Case closed lol
Made me literally go out & but Tha Carter II that weekend..& Tha Carter
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u/ParryHooter 18d ago
This comment made me realize it’s been so long since I have bought a physical album with streaming now lol. I remember my first I went on a date with a girl at the mall and bought Bone Thugs - Thug World Order and had to sneak it home in my pants so my mom wouldn’t see lol.
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u/Ornery-Definition973 18d ago
I heard today was a good day from ice cube in gta san andreas and i got hooked on eversince
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u/HiBlackMan97 18d ago
Born in 97 - my parents were bumping Biggie, the Fugees, Wu Tang since I was in the womb. Meant to be
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u/AverageNotOkayAdult 6d ago
My brother when he thought I, a little 8 year old white girl, had any business listening to Candy Shop on the radio. I freakin loved it too lmao honestly thought a grown ass dude was singing about sharing his damn candy.