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May 2019
25m 6s

Who Killed Conscious Rap? Find Out on 'T...

Wnyc Studios
About this episode

Drug wars, recessions and record violence in the 1980s had US cities in crisis. Hip hop artists responded by shifting from party music to a new style called "conscious rap." Artists like Public Enemy and Digable Planets championed a sound that was political, community-minded and deeply pro-black. But about six years after it started, that first wave of socially-conscious hip hop seemed to be over. Christopher Johnson joins host Kai Wright to find out what happened on the new podcast The Stakes.

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