Midwest Hip Hop - Minneapolis-St. Paul

Minneapolis-St. Paul

Although strictly underground, there existed a subterranean hip hop culture in the Twin Cities starting as early as 1981. Similar to the development of hip hop in the South Bronx, Twin Cities rap started as humble parties with a DJ and an emcee. A DJ named Travitron was comparable to the DJ Kool Herc of the Twin Cities area. Shows took place at many venues, most notoriously Club Hip Hop on Selby Avenue in St. Paul. Other artists and DJs include Disco T, Verb X, Brother Jules, Delite, and Truth Maze. The first real album to come out of the Twin Cities was called The I.R.M. Crew, released in 1985. Graffiti and b-boy crews were also existent in the city. This is the world that the current movers of Twin Cities Hip Hop were brought up in.

The main movers of Twin Cities Hip Hop came together to form the group Headshots, a precursor to the Rhymesayers Entertainment label. Members of this group included Slug, I Self Devine, Micranots, Musab, Siddiq, and Ant. Slug was one of the main artists to move into the foreground, setting the tone for the style of music to follow in the years to come.

Since the emergence of Rhymesayers Entertainment, the Minneapolis hip hop scene has seen the local hip-hop scene erupt with talent including Brother Ali, Eyedea, Wide Eyes, the Doomtree collective and Heiruspecs.

Very graphic, story telling violence/torture based rap has emerged in Minneapolis/St. Paul with Fishyscrubz at the peak of the scene.

The Twin Cities Celebration of hip-hop is an annual event hosted by Yo! The Movement, bringing together people from all walks of life to celebrate the power of community through hip-hop culture. Over the past five years nearly 20,000 people from around the world have taken part in the festival and conference.

Another notable annual event is Soundset which started its first year on Memorial Day Weekend in May 2008. It features several big name hip hop acts and had over 14,000 in attendance. For 2009, the Soundset music festival was much larger. Some of the notable performing acts include Atmosphere, Pharcyde, Brother Ali, P.O.S, MF Doom, Freeway & Jake One, Immortal Technique, Eyedea & Abilities The Cunninlynguists, Sage Francis, El-P, Heiruspecs, Buck 65, Haiku D'Etat, Blue Scholars, I Self Devine, One Be Lo, Unknown Prophets. Other artists who have performed at Soundset include Aesop Rock, Wiz Khalifa, Method Man & Redman, Hieroglyphics, Cage, De La Soul, Big Boi, Slaughterhouse (group), Mac Miller, Curren$y, Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, Yelawolf, Face Candy, Fashawn, Murs, Lupe Fiasco, Big K.R.I.T., Ghostface Killah, Raekwon, Kendrick Lamar, Action Bronson, Danny Brown, DJ Premier, and Evidence