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The Queens mixtape king who survived being shot nine times, got signed by Eminem and Dr. Dre, and turned his bulletproof origin story into one of the biggest rap debuts of the decade. For a few years in the mid-2000s, 'In da Club' and 'Get Rich or Die Tryin'' were everywhere, and 50 Cent was the most bankable name in hip-hop.
Eminem's semi-autobiographical 2002 drama, following a broke Detroit kid chasing rap glory from a trailer park to the battle stage. Its climactic freestyle showdown and the Oscar-winning anthem "Lose Yourself" made it far more than a vanity project.
"Oh, my God, Becky — look at her butt." Sir Mix-a-Lot's anthem to big butts spent five weeks at number one, got briefly banned by MTV, won a Grammy, and never once left the party playlist.
The Fresh Prince goes solo — and takes over the planet. 'Gettin' Jiggy Wit It,' 'Miami,' 'Just the Two of Us': radio-owning, profanity-free hip-hop from the guy who was simultaneously the biggest movie star alive. Nineteen ninety-eight belonged to Will.
In 2003 you could not get away from "Right Thurr" — St. Louis for "right there," stretched into one of the stickiest hooks of the decade. Chingy went from opening for Nelly to a number-two single and a multi-platinum debut album, and for a moment St. Louis had two of the biggest rappers on pop radio.
The goofy hip-hop anthem that existed in two versions simultaneously — and somehow that made it more legendary. Eminem and his Detroit crew D12 dropped a track so unapologetically silly that radio stations invented an entirely different song around it, and nobody minded.
Tongue clicks, a skeletal beat, and total confidence. The Neptunes stripped hip-hop down to almost nothing in 2004, and it became the biggest rap song of the decade — and, incredibly, Snoop Dogg's first #1 ever.
Marshall Mathers from Detroit, a white rapper in a Black art form, exploded into stardom with shock-rap alter ego Slim Shady and relentless rhymes. The blond buzzcut, unapologetic controversy, Dr. Dre mentorship, and hits like 'Stan' and 'The Real Slim Shady' made him the biggest and most polarizing star in music during the early 2000s.
Lauryn Hill, Wyclef Jean, and Pras turned a 1973 soul classic into a hip-hop anthem and reminded the world that cover songs could dominate the charts. The Fugees' second album was one of the best-selling hip-hop albums ever — and also, mysteriously, their last.
![Video thumbnail — Coolio - Gangsta's Paradise (feat. L.V.) [Official Music Video]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/fPO76Jlnz6c/maxresdefault.jpg)
The rare rap song that made parents and teenagers converge on the same chorus, and the moment gangsta rap genuinely crossed over into the mainstream. Coolio's dead-serious delivery over a gospel choir and an interpolation of Stevie Wonder proved that the genre had gone everywhere.
50 Cent's explosive 2003 debut album, released on Eminem's and Dr. Dre's labels (Shady/Aftermath/Interscope), became one of the best-selling albums of the era. Anchored by massive hits like "In da Club," "21 Questions," and "P.I.M.P.," the album announced 50 Cent as a superstar and defined early 2000s rap radio. His backstory — surviving being shot nine times — became central to his larger-than-life persona.
Removable gold and diamond teeth went from Southern hip-hop signature to national obsession, and for a couple of years the shiniest thing at the mall kiosk was dental. Nelly put the moment on wax — "Grillz" hit number one — and every yearbook from 2006 has at least one kid flashing a mouthful of metal.
"I wish I was a little bit taller, I wish I was a baller." Skee-Lo's 1995 single was rap's great self-deprecating hit, a shortlist of everything he wasn't, rapped over a bouncing sample with a '74 Pinto where the '64 Impala should be. It went top 15, got a Grammy nomination, and became the one song everyone can still quote.
Stop, collaborate and listen: the B-side nobody wanted became the first hip-hop single ever to top the Billboard Hot 100. Vanilla Ice rode the "Under Pressure" bassline to the top of the charts — without crediting Queen or David Bowie, sparking one of music's landmark copyright fights.
For about three years every slow jam on the radio had Ja Rule growling the verse and Ashanti or Jennifer Lopez singing the hook. Then 50 Cent showed up, the feds raided Murder Inc., and the whole Murder Inc. era ended almost as fast as it began.
Rick Rubin stripped Jay-Z down to bare guitar and cowbell, and the Marcy Projects kid recited a real 1994 traffic stop so precisely that a law professor later published a journal article dissecting it. "99 Problems" was endlessly quotable, taught in law schools, and inescapable in 2004—the sound of Jay-Z staging his own exit.
Timbaland looped a flute line from a 1957 Egyptian melody, Houston's UGK traded verses with Jay-Z, and the result was the yacht-party anthem of 2000. The song was iconic enough to fuel a decade-long copyright fight—and brash enough that Jay-Z himself later disowned the lyrics in the Wall Street Journal.
Jay-Z's breakthrough single samples the orphans' chorus from Broadway's Annie, turning the hardest block-level rap into a stadium singalong. The song that taught America—and taught Broadway—that hip-hop didn't need permission to reinvent itself. A masterclass in audacity that cleared the charts and rewrote the rules.
A white rapper in a throwback jersey and a padlock chain who became the face of WWE for a decade, a Make-A-Wish record holder, and the reason every kid's shirt said "Hustle, Loyalty, Respect." You can't see me.
An in-house producer known for chopping soul samples into "chipmunk soul" beats insists he's also a rapper. Nobody buys it. Then he nearly dies in a car crash, records a single about it with his jaw wired shut, and delivers one of the defining debuts in hip-hop history.
Two Atlanta kids in backwards clothes spent eight weeks at No. 1 with "Jump" — at 13, charting at an age no hip-hop group had matched. For one glorious stretch of 1992, half the playgrounds in America turned their jeans around.
Crunk's king — jeweled goblet, dark shades, dreads, and a three-word vocabulary delivered at maximum volume. Jonathan Smith came up through Atlanta's rap scene and spent the mid-2000s making the loudest, most fun records on the radio. He didn't just ride the decade; he supplied its energy.
"A Milli" on loop, free mixtapes on every hard drive, and a rapper calling himself the best alive before most of the country had caught up. Tha Carter III sold a million copies in a week in 2008, and for a moment nobody argued.
"Move" (the radio edit) and "Stand Up" turned an Atlanta radio DJ into the loudest voice of the Dirty South. Ludacris rapped like a cartoon with perfect timing, lost a Pepsi deal after Bill O'Reilly called for a boycott, and then became Tej in the Fast & Furious movies.
Parachute pants, nonstop choreography, and a chart run nobody could touch: in 1990 MC Hammer turned Oakland showmanship into the first diamond-certified hip-hop album and a one-man merchandise empire — dolls, lunchboxes, his own Saturday-morning cartoon. By 1996 the fortune was gone, but the silhouette of those pants is stamped on the decade forever.
A Houston rapper who said his own name until you couldn't forget it — "Who? Mike Jones!" — then gave out his real cell number and actually answered when you called. Before social media, Mike Jones WAS the direct line.
A four-bar Michael McDonald loop, a line lifted from Young Guns, and two Long Beach friends telling a story with no chorus. "Regulate" spent three weeks at number two in May 1994 and became Def Jam's biggest single: Warren G gets robbed at a dice game, Nate Dogg rides in, and they leave with the girls.
DMX's signature moment wasn't supposed to happen. A 19-year-old producer's first beat sale, nearly rejected by the star himself for sounding "too rock 'n' roll," became one of the most iconic hooks of its era—all "stop, drop, shut 'em down, open up shop" and dirt-bike imagery.
Three women put frank, funny, sex-positive talk on pop radio at the height of the AIDS crisis, daring stations to blink and winning with a wink. Salt-N-Pepa turned consent and pleasure into a chart singalong—and later spun the same beat into an act of public health, rewriting the verse to preach AIDS prevention.
A 7'1" force of nature who refused to stay on the court. Nineties Shaq dunked on the NBA, went platinum as a rapper, starred in a fighting game, and played a genie in Kazaam — the decade's most cheerfully unstoppable multimedia franchise disguised as a center.
![Video thumbnail — Dr Dre - Nuthin' But A "G" Thang [Official Music Video]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/8GliyDgAGQI/hqdefault.jpg)
Dr. Dre's solo debut, released December 15, 1992, defined G-funk—whining synth leads over deep bass and laid-back drawl—and introduced Snoop Doggy Dogg to the world as the breakout star. The Chronic went multi-platinum, won a Grammy, hit #2 on the Hot 100 with 'Nuthin' but a 'G' Thang,' and reshaped the sound of hip-hop radio for the rest of the decade.
A hook that explains itself in a circle, a beat that hops from New York to the Bay to L.A. by sampling each city's anthem, and a leap from No. 32 to No. 1 in a single week in March 2007. Mims' debut single was the ringtone-era hit everyone could recite and nobody could defend, and he never got near the top again.
A Memphis horrorcore crew from 1991 that ended up on the Oscar stage in 2006, winning Best Original Song for "It's Hard out Here for a Pimp" while "Stay Fly" was all over the radio. Nobody saw it coming, least of all the Academy.
A nine-man crew out of Staten Island that came out swinging in 1993 with kung-fu samples, a logo you could draw on a desk, and a business plan other labels had turned down. Wu-Tang Clan's Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) rebuilt New York rap, the solo albums kept coming, and Wu Wear stores and Macy's racks proved the "W" was a brand.
A modest 2002 soundtrack cut that became a cultural explosion thirteen years later when Deadpool hijacked it for its entire identity. For one generation it's a 2003 film track; for another, it's the Deadpool song—DMX's snarl reborn for audiences who weren't born for the original run.
Fab 5 Freddy on the weekend, Doctor Dré and Ed Lover on weekdays, and the Ed Lover Dance in between the videos: the show that put hip-hop on MTV in 1988 and carried it to the whole country until a freestyle-filled finale in 1995. Ice Cube name-checked it in "It Was a Good Day," and Doogie Howser wore the T-shirt.