Rap’s history has been traced many ways — through books, documentaries, official compilations, DJ mixes, university archives, even parties. But until now you haven’t been able to look at the development of the genre through its building blocks: the actual words used by emcees.
We introduce Rap Stats, a tool to plot the frequency of words appearing in rap songs from 1988 through the present day. You can use Rap Stats to perform your own searches at https://rapgenius.com/rapstats
No idea how accurate these charts are but check the slideshow for a few words that I looked up. Comment on interesting charts you have created.
Hip Hop’s liquor of choice…
Keywords on the rise.
Choices in Transpiration.
Popular Hip Hop records labels.
Cash, Money, Hoes…
Looks like there are more lyrics about Hell rather than Heaven.
Gold fell off for a little but is back on the rise.
Hip Hop continues to pay respect to Tupac Shakur and the Notorious B.I.G.
East Coast/West Coast talk peaked in the 90s.
The most popular U.S. cities in Hip Hop.
