Brooklyn
rappers.
Bed-Stuy, Marcy, Brownsville, Canarsie. The borough that keeps producing the coast’s most quoted storytellers.
Brooklyn's claim is storytelling. Big Daddy Kane set the technical standard for the late '80s, then Bed-Stuy and Marcy produced the two writers most often quoted in rap conversations.
The borough didn't freeze there. Mos Def and the Rawkus era carried its literate side, Joey Bada$$ revived boom bap for a generation raised on the internet, and Pop Smoke brought Brooklyn drill to the rest of the world.
Big Daddy Kane
Juice Crew speed and polish, the late-'80s template for a complete MC
Golden ageProfile →Clinton Hill1994The Notorious B.I.G.
Ready to Die, the Brooklyn debut that put New York back at the center of rap
Golden ageProfile →Marcy Houses1996Jay-Z
Reasonable Doubt, The Blueprint, and the self-released route from Marcy to the top
Golden ageProfile →Bedford-Stuyvesant1996Lil' Kim
Hard Core, the blunt, explicit debut that rewrote what a woman in rap could say on record
Golden ageProfile →Bedford-Stuyvesant1998Mos Def (Yasiin Bey)
Black Star with Talib Kweli and Black on Both Sides, Rawkus-era Brooklyn at its best
Platinum eraProfile →Bedford-Stuyvesant2012Joey Bada$$
1999, the teenage boom-bap mixtape that brought '90s New York back through YouTube
Internet eraProfile →Canarsie2019Pop Smoke
Meet the Woo and "Welcome to the Party," the records that took Brooklyn drill national
Internet eraProfile →