Have you ever wanted to hear every important hit in the history of hip-hop? This online graph, made by the online publication Polygraph in collaboration with Billboard, has got you covered from N.W.A. to Kanye.
The graph acts as a living, moving timeline, using data compiled from Billboard, which comprises of every top five hip-hop hit single from 1989 to 2015. As the graph moves chronologically down the line, each musical artist is represented by an avatar; clicking on their icon will give you some background info on the rapper or singer in question, as well as stats and line graphs on all their songs. Best perk of all? You can listen to the single at hand as you do it.
The only downside? That the timeline only goes back to 1989, and that it only includes top 5 singles: technically, the most commonly referenced first hit single in hip-hop history was "Rapper's Delight" by the Sugar Hill Gang, which dates back more than a decade prior to the Polygraph chart, and made it into the Billboard 40 at #36. This means that you have some majorly significant tracks missing within those 10 years, like 1982's "The Message" by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, which ranked at 62 in the Billboard 100 but came in at 4 on Billboard's Hot Black Singles.
This isn't the first time Polygraph has attemped to trace musical movements and trends: earlier this year, the pub crowdsourced the definition of punk, explored the etymology of the term "shorty," and sorted rappers by the size of their vocabulary.
Source: Polygraph
