What state is known for rap?

The DIY spirit of rap — perhaps the strongest of any form of music — means that virtually anyone, anywhere can pick up a mic, acquire even the most basic understanding of drum machines or mixing software and become, almost overnight, a rapper.

The results are well documented. New York, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston  — all have nurtured wildly fertile rap cultures, ones that over time found themselves spreading to the nation at large. Each city has its own unique take, its own sound, its own attitude. The intermingling of all of these subgenres into a single, nationwide conversation raises the artform as a whole, and we’re all better off for it.

Now, a word of caution: just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should do something. The low entry cost for rap combines poorly with the tendency toward overconfidence in budding rappers, and the consequences can be dire. The United States’ smaller markets — far from the metropolises that spawned rap’s greats — often find themselves mired in rap mediocrity.

Perhaps that’s unfair, though. There might be plenty good reasons that the Oklahoma rap scene hasn’t exactly exploded, but it’s hard to make that generalization everywhere. Some states and regions are stuck, for better or for worse, in the pull of the nearest of rap’s many poles.

It would be hard, for instance, for a kid in Connecticut or New Jersey, coming up in the shadow of New York City, to not to show a lot of deference to Biggie and Jay Z. Similarly, few aspiring rappers in the South can admit to owing nothing to Outkast.

Outside of those poles, rap can be wonderfully idiosyncratic and even weird. It can also be square and traditionalist, gritty and dangerous or just plain boring. All are reflections of their location, the rapper’s origin and countless other factors.

The variety makes exploring the United States’ many iterations kind of exciting. For simplicity’s sake, here are the stories of the top rappers from all 50 states in the Union, presented to you in alphabetical order.

The average rappers might not define themselves in terms of East or West anymore, but there’s still a healthy sense of location in the music.

The DIY spirit of rap — perhaps the strongest of any form of music — means that virtually anyone, anywhere can pick up a mic, acquire even the most basic understanding of drum machines or mixing software and become, almost overnight, a rapper.

The results are well documented. New York, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston  — all have nurtured wildly fertile rap cultures, ones that over time found themselves spreading to the nation at large. Each city has its own unique take, its own sound, its own attitude. The intermingling of all of these subgenres into a single, nationwide conversation raises the artform as a whole, and we’re all better off for it.

Now, a word of caution: just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should do something. The low entry cost for rap combines poorly with the tendency toward overconfidence in budding rappers, and the consequences can be dire. The United States’ smaller markets — far from the metropolises that spawned rap’s greats — often find themselves mired in rap mediocrity.

Perhaps that’s unfair, though. There might be plenty good reasons that the Oklahoma rap scene hasn’t exactly exploded, but it’s hard to make that generalization everywhere. Some states and regions are stuck, for better or for worse, in the pull of the nearest of rap’s many poles.

It would be hard, for instance, for a kid in Connecticut or New Jersey, coming up in the shadow of New York City, to not to show a lot of deference to Biggie and Jay Z. Similarly, few aspiring rappers in the South can admit to owing nothing to Outkast.

Outside of those poles, rap can be wonderfully idiosyncratic and even weird. It can also be square and traditionalist, gritty and dangerous or just plain boring. All are reflections of their location, the rapper’s origin and countless other factors.

The variety makes exploring the United States’ many iterations kind of exciting. For simplicity’s sake, here are the stories of the top rappers from all 50 states in the Union, presented to you in alphabetical order.

Alabama

Artist – Yelawolf

Years Active – 2005-Present

Notable Album – Trunk Muzik 0-60 (2010)

Sample Rhyme:

“Act like you don’t wanna see how much of this Jack

Daniels you can handle

You wanna drink and get cut like Rambo?

And let me drive your Daddy’s Lambo”

—

The magic of the alphabet delivers to us right at the top of the list perhaps the best possible example of the type of eccentric regionalism rap has to offer.

Yelawolf’s career took a weird turn when he began releasing actual albums, but his early mixtape Trunk Muzik 0-60 finds a rapper unafraid to be himself.

Being from Alabama, Yela was never going to find it ease to hide his accent or unique southern cadence. Instead, he leaned into it. His raps at times sound like slightly sped up — and significantly more filthy — country. It shouldn’t be surprising that this would be crazy fun, but it absolutely is.

The crossover appeal of rap among the typically conservative country music set wasn’t exactly enough to make a viable career, however. Yela continues to show a lot of the same spirit as he did on that early mixtape, but it all seems confined to the requisite marketability of being on a label.

Alaska

Artist – Bay Dilla

Years Active – 2000s

Notable Track – They Know 

Sample Rhyme:

“Up north, A-town

Anchorage

Can you feel me? Can you feel me?”

—

Somehow, someway, Alaska’s (miniscule) rap scene managed to produce one of the most insane stories on this list.

The above video is for an artist named Bay Dilla. He was reasonably popular in Alaska, in that way that anyone offering what almost literally no one else was offering is popular.

Simple reason tells us that a rapper rapping about experiences in and around the Arctic Circle won’t have national appeal, and indeed Bay Dilla does not defy this expectation.

Yet for a brief time he appeared to. The only rapper from Alaska to ever film a professional music video (disclaimer: this is an assumption that is probably correct) was absolutely swimming in money.

But how? Oh, it’s because his entire rap empire was a front for importing drugs from the Lower 48. The Feds caught him and prosecuted him for importing between 50 and 150 kilograms of cocaine into Alaska between 2009 and 2012.

Assuming he ever gets released from prison, perhaps Bay Dilla will have a rich mine of material to continue his rap career, in Alaska or elsewhere.

Arizona

Artist – Judge Da Boss

Years Active – 2010s

Notable Track – Hell Yeah

Sample Rhyme:

“When I get around y’all broke hoes I act bougie hell yeah

I rock Gucci, hell yeah

Louis, hell yeah

Truey, hell yeah

Versace, hell yeah”

—

America’s Southwest is majestic, beautiful and entirely worth your time if you ever have the chance to visit.

That said, there’s not a tremendous amount of music from that region that makes its way out to America at large.

Cities like Phoenix, for instance, exist only because of the marvels of the modern world. There’s no iconic industry, at least not one that would produce the kinds of conditions rap would thrive in.

A lack of deep roots doesn’t mean it’s incapable of producing talent, however. Judge Da Boss is a good example.

After winning a competition against local rappers, Judge — nee Robert Louis Carr II — caught the attention of Amar’e Stoudemire, who convinced the Phoenix native to put pen to paper for the NBA star’s label, Hypocalypto Records.

Progress has been slow, however. Though he released a mixtape called The Chosen One shortly after signing, an official album has yet to surface. A deal with with Sony Records in 2014 is encouraging news.

Arkansas

Artist – SL Jones

Years Active – 2010s

Notable Track– “Big Bank (No Ones)” (2013)

Sample Rhyme:

“Granddaddy was a hustler

Yeah I’m sticking to tradition”

—

Little Rock — from which young rapper SL Jones hails — is about halfway between Atlanta and Houston. The style was always going to be southern, but the question remained under which sphere of influence a rapper like SL Jones would fall.

Early on, his inspirations were decidedly mixed. His first solo mixtape, C.O.L.O.R.S: Bangin’ on Wax featured names from all corners of southern rap’s territory, from Virginia’s Clipse to Houston’s Chamillionaire to Atlanta’s Killer Mike.

With arguably his biggest track to date, SL Jones’ true loyalty became more clear. Featuring production by Metro Boomin — Future’s trusty sidekick — “Big Banks” sounds very Atlanta, while still retaining a unique enough flavor to make it SL Jones’ own.

As a sort of aside, isn’t it impressive when a young rapper like SL Jones can just nail the look on the first try? Mastering that mix of confidence, pseudo-dancing and style really pays off for music videos like the one made for “Big Banks.” Now if he could only come out with a follow up record …

California

Artist – Kendrick Lamar

Years Active – 2003-Present

Notable Album – Good Kid, M.A.A.D City

Sample Rhyme (from a guest verse on Push-T’s track “Nosetalgia”) :

“I said, ‘Daddy, one day Imma get you right with 36 zips

One thousand grams of cocaine, then your name will be rich

Now you can rock it up or sell it soft as leather interior

Drop some ice cubes in it, Deebo on perimeter’

He said ‘Son, how come you think you be my connect?’

I said ‘Pops, your ass is washed up, with all due respect’

He said “Well n*gga, then show me how it all makes sense’

Go figure, motherfucker, every verse is a brick

Your son dope n*gga”

—

It speaks to just how deep California’s stable of rappers is that picking Kendrick Lamar here was maybe the most difficult decision on this entire list.

By fairly broad consensus, Kendrick is the best rapper working today. No, he might not top the charts as much as Drake, and maybe he doesn’t generate Kanye’s headlines. He might not even be many people’s favorite rapper.

But in terms of pure artistry, no one can match him. He molds albums that are as much cultural dissertations as they are music. He doesn’t write party songs, or club bangers, or even introspective digressions about lost loves. He composes political and social thinkpieces, posing questions that many of us struggle to answer. He’s the rapper America needs in 2016.

None of which would have been possible without the man Kendrick credits as being a primary influence: Tupac Shakur. Many would protest, fairly, that Tupac should represent California on this list, as he embodies a huge part of rap’s growing pains in the 90s.

While his career was tragically cut short, Kendrick is only just heating up. He might not ever surpass 2Pac’s legend, but Kendrick’s fighting as hard as anyone to keep it alive.

Colorado

Artist – Mr. J. Medeiros

Years Active – 1998-Present

Notable Album – Of Gods and Girls

Sample Rhyme (from single “Pale Blue Dot”):

“Wrapped around a block of C-4 pow your minced meat

And now you’ve blown it

Using physics your god is distant and don’t condone it

Using mystics to bomb your critics and your opponents

You a bigot, misogynistic and homophobic.”

—

Kendrick, of course, isn’t the only one out there who turns to rap to address social ills. Rap’s poetic nature makes it easier to tell a story or frame a case than, say, your average rock ballad or pop song.

Rap’s long history outside the mainstream of American culture also makes it the ideal medium to bear the weight of what might be considered subversive or controversial opinions. It might be used more often these days to sing about cars, women and drugs, but at its core it’s protest music.

Mr. J. Medeiros captures this spirit well. It’s telling that he got his start in Colorado, a state almost literally in the country’s middle, one that’s waxed and waned so much politically over the decades that it is the definition of a “purple” state come election year.

Connecticut

Artist – Chris Webby

Years Active – 2008-Present

Notable Album – Chemically Imbalanced

Sample Rhyme (from “Ohh No”):

“So many bars you would think I’m living on Death Row

Webby just a motherfucking dog, where’s Petco?

Follow a plate of kibbles n bits with an egg roll

Genius in the laboratory cooking blue meth, yo

Call me Heisenberg, cause when I rhyme with words

These motherfuckers are behind the curve”

—

For every rapper like Kendrick or Mr. J. Medeiros, there are 10 (20? 30?) rappers like Chris Webby.

Hailing from Connecticut, Webby’s raps are kinetic, steeped in cultural references and, perhaps most of all, unfocused. He has, by his own admission, suffered from Attention Deficit Disorder all his life, a condition that seeps through to his raps.

Which isn’t a criticism. If anything, Webby’s style is part of the trend, one that owes a lot to freestyling and rap battling — two avenues on which many budding rappers first find traction. It’s a style that is far more concerned about getting out witty one liners than telling a story or advocating for a cause.

Webby rolls with it, creating rhymes that, combined with his rapid pace, make the listener feel like they’re caught in a verbal tornado.

Delaware

Artist – Wok (nee Chan)

Years Active – 2010s

Notable Track – “20 Missed Calls”

Sample Rhyme:

“Purple that I’m smoking you can smell it down the block

All I do is stunt

Onion in the blunt

Better have my money if I’m giving you the front”

—

Look, Delaware was never going to be an easy state to write about. With no major metropolitan area, it’s got a smaller population than the smallest state in the Union, Rhode Island, despite being almost twice as large in area.

Thankfully, the excellent folks over at Complex had us covered. Back in 2014, they posted a brief article featuring a brief clip of a Delaware rapper, then named Chan and now named Wok.

To them — and to us — the song “20 Missed Calls” is as much novelty as it is quality music. It’s rap from Delaware. What in the Blue Hen State could be worth rapping about?

Turns out, a lot of the same stuff as you’d find in any other state. Chan raps over some notably well-made beats about women and drugs and it’s not half bad.

Unfortunately this is just about all we from Wok. “20 Missed Calls” came out in 2013 and, to date, seems to be the artist’s high point.

Florida

Artist – Rick Ross

Years Active – 2001-Present

Notable Album – Teflon Don, 2010

Sample Rhyme (from track “I’m Not a Star”):

“I’m not a star, somebody lied

I got a pistol in the car, a 45

If I’d die today, remember me like John Lennon

Buried in Louie, I’m talking all brown linen”

—

In a strange way, Rick Ross’ ascent up rap’s hierarchy is the embodiment of the American Dream.

His raps are full of references to drug dealing, to violence, to a life lived outside the law. It’s all standard rap fodder, the kind of experiences that have built careers since rap’s beginnings.

Only it might not be true. Rick Ross — real name William Leonard Roberts II — was raised in Florida and went to college in Georgia on a football scholarship. After graduating, he worked for roughly 18 months as a correctional officer.

He would eventually move on to making music and, as his doubters argue, he found that designing a fake persona around drug dealing made for a better look. He would adopt the name “Rick Ross” from a famous cocaine kingpin in 1980s Los Angeles.

The truth, though, is that Rick Ross is a good rapper, perhaps even very good. He made himself into a character to add weight to what he rapped about, and it worked. No famous rap artist out there can claim to have done any different.

Georgia

Artist – Outkast

Years Active – 1992-Present

Notable Album – Stankonia (2000)

Sample Rhyme (from the track “Ms. Jackson”):

“Me and your daughter got a special thing going on

You say it’s puppy love, we say it’s full-grown

Hope that we feel this, feel this way forever

You can plan a pretty picnic

But you can’t predict the weather, Ms. Jackson”

—

We’ll take the opposite approach with Georgia than we did with California. Instead of naming an artist more popular today, we’re going down to the foundations of modern rap, not just in Georgia but across the genre.

Outkast — a duo consisting of André 3000 and Big Boi — released their first album in 1994, and over the next decade would change rap’s DNA.

Their style embodied Atlanta, the city from which they hailed. It was psychedelic, playful and unique. Their music was conscientious and smart, paying respect to community, women and themselves in equal measure, and they still had fun with it. Songs like “B.O.B” and “Ms. Jackson” could appear on the air for the first time in 2016 and still be tremendous hits.

The duo’s success also turned Atlanta into a dominant force in the rap ecosystem and elevated southern rap across the board. Outkast might not make new music together anymore, but they remain living legends.

Hawaii

Artist – Tassho Pearce

Years Active – 2010s

Notable Album– G.O.O.D. Company

Sample Rhyme (from the track “Satelites”):

“These are moments you could wait your whole life for

Standin’ next to Bob Barker trying to pick the right door

More Henny, more Swishers, more kush,

The more I drink the more better she look”

—

It’s a wonder that any solo rap venture starting in the middle of the Pacific Ocean could find traction in the mainland United States, and yet Tassho Pearce proved it was possible.

Half-Japanese and half-white, Tassho grew up in Hawaii’s nascent rap scene. His career didn’t really start until he hooked up with Kanye West when the famous Chicago rapper came to the islands to record My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy in 2010.

Tassho bonded with Kanye and his clique, and eventually impressed them enough to enlist the support of a few heavies to get his rap career off the ground. He first worked with Kanye’s mentor No I.D. to produce the aforementioned “Satelites,” featuring both him and Kid Cudi.

Then he made a whole album, released just this year, called G.O.O.D. Company — a tribute to Kanye’s G.O.O.D. record label. It’s a record that stays loyal to Hawaii, with Tassho bringing in a couple other local rappers to feature on tracks.

According to Pigeon and Planes’ interview with him, Tassho now mostly resides on the West Coast of the mainland, working on music as well as setting up his own burgeoning rap empire.

Idaho

Artist – Bret Johnson (?)

Years Active – 2013?

Notable Track – “The 208”

Sample Rhyme:

“I’m from Idaho, sound the alarms

Get in your cars

We’s about to party at the local Walmart”

—

Any discussion about rap in America would not be complete without acknowledging the rise of parody rap.

The genre’s low entry level cost — turning on your laptop’s microphone, searching Google for free mixing software — means that any (white) person with a vaguely funny joke can turn it into a career.

Sometimes the results border on great. The Lonely Island produces some well made and hilarious stuff.

Most times, though, parody rap inspires more eye rolls than laughs. Take the song above. It’s a rap about Idaho’s telephone area code, 208. It is among the first hits when you type “Idaho rappers” into Google, just above a link for a service that allows your to “hire rappers,” whatever that means.

“The 208” jabs at a lot of stuff many in rural America might recognize, and throws in some more specific Idaho stuff for good measure. It is a carbon copy of just about every other rap on YouTube that is about a specific place, made exclusively for people in that specific place. And, somehow, it’s the only example of homegrown rap in Idaho.

Illinois

Artist – Kanye West

Years Active – 2003-Present

Notable Album – My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

Sample Rhyme (from the track “N*ggas in Paris”):

“What’s Gucci, my n*gga? What’s Louis, my killa?

What’s drugs, my dealer? What’s that jacket, Margiela?

Doctors say I’m the illest, cause I’m suffering from realness

Got my n*ggas in Paris and they going gorillas, huh”

—

Chicago’s produced some great talent lately. It was tempting here to skip on Kanye — the city, Illinois and perhaps rap itself’s most recognizable name at the moment — and bestow this “honor” to someone like Chance the Rapper.

But there’s no denying Kanye’s immense role in rap over the last decade. He’s produced some of the most innovative, provocative and revolutionary music in any genre over that time period, becoming an icon in the process.

That he finds himself in the tabloids as often as the music charts is another matter entirely — we’re hear to focus on the rap itself. Though critics might argue that Kanye’s grasp of wordplay and flow aren’t always the greatest, his desire, and ability, to expand rap’s boundaries make him a legend.

He wanted to honor and repurpose the hits of the past, and he mixed them into his songs when he made College Dropout and Late Registration.

He wanted an arena feel to rap, and he made Graduation. He wanted to sing, and he made 808s & Heartbreaks. He wanted artistry, and he made My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. He wanted anger and he made Yeezus. He wanted attention and he made Life of Pablo.

His ability to change gears and elevate new styles and techniques might make him the single most influential rapper alive today. It’s difficult to name an artist working today, from Drake to Nicki Minaj to Chance, and not be able to clearly see Kanye’s hand.

Indiana

Artist – Freddie Gibbs

Years Active – 2003-Present

Notable Album– Shadow of a Doubt

Sample Rhyme: 

“Celly stead ringing for Freddie but where the things at?

Drove a half a ton, dropped it off and I took a plane back

Gangsta shit in my DNA, I just can’t explain that

Even if I die tell my enemies I remain that”

—

With the notable exception of Michael Jackson, Gary, Indiana does not produce a tremendous amount of American culture, despite virtually being a suburb of Chicago.

Freddie Gibbs nonetheless found his way up through rap’s ranks, thanks entirely to his unique delivery. His voice strains and reaches as he rhymes, an effect that adds an emotional or angry tinge to a lot of his best work.

It helps that Gibbs’ rhymes are also inspired on their own. He’s got a great ear for his own work, and with the help of some talented producers has created a sound that’s unique within rap. His 2015 album Shadow of a Doubt is darkly ambitious, recounting Gibbs’ roots in Gary and what was done in the name of success.

Gibbs might not be able to top Shadow of a Doubt, however. Last month, he was accused of raping a woman in Austria during his European tour. He was released on 50,000 Euros bail and awaits trial. He emphatically denies the charges.

Iowa

Artist – Json

Years Active – 2005-Present

Notable Album – Braille

Sample Rhyme:

“Tryna get people to trust in The King (My God)

The One they call Yahweh

Stand firm and affirm till they call my name

One thing I have blood bettin’ on my days

Unaware of a snake see I’m on that grace

I feel the pressure huh”

—

As rap’s popularity continues to grow, it can accommodate more and more multitudes. It can be fun, celebratory, angry, political, sad, horny and, evidently, also faithful.

Iowa-based rapper Json embodies that last surprising bit. He produces well made, exceptionally produced raps that are about and for God. That in and of itself isn’t unique — Chicago rappers Kanye West and Chance the Rapper both released albums this year that have been referred to as “gospel rap,” after all.

What makes Json stand out, in Iowa and elsewhere, is his wholesale commitment to being an evangelical rapper. His youth was split between St. Louis, Los Angeles and drugs, the latter of which seemed set to ruin his life.

He and his wife were able to get clean thanks in part to their faith in Jesus Christ. He would focus his life on Christianity, and use rap to preach the same message that saved his life.

Json’s career arc is almost entirely unique within rap. It’s a genre of music that tends to be crude and occasionally cruel, so the fact he could turn it into something unmistakably positive is something special.

Kansas

Artist – Mac Lethal

Years Active – 2001-Present

Notable Track – “Look at Me Now”

Sample Rhyme:

“There’s nothing beautiful about this world

I’m gonna pucker up my lips to barf

Gonna choke a fucking rapper with his hipster scarf

I’m never gonna put another piece of music out

deliberately if it isn’t genuine and grips the heart

Winter’s hard, so have some pancakes”

—

It’s the plight of the up-and-coming rapper that sometimes the most notable thing you can do is rap whilst making pancakes.

Kansas’ own Mac Lethal is clearly talented. He’s got flow that rivals Twista in terms of pace and cleverness, and he’s got a loyal following. He continues to tour around the US. He’s made a career that most aspiring rappers will never make for themselves.

Yet he’s still the guy who makes funny YouTube videos (he also posts hilarious text conversations with his maybe-made-up cousin Bennett on Tumblr, and later wrote a whole book about it).

Rap, for all its ease of access, is still a market, and not everyone’s shtick is going to have mass appeal. Some rappers are legendary hitmakers, others are one hit wonders, but most find themselves somewhere in between.

Maybe one day Mac Lethal gets the credit he deserves, but only time will tell.

Kentucky

Artist – CunningLynguists

Years Active – 2000-Present

Notable Track – Linguistics

Sample Rhyme:

“If you know you’re gonna die why step?

Show no mercy when bruising crews

You get hit with more bricks than New Jerus

Riddles confusing fools like Confucian rules

Cause most cats are most squared than Rubik’s Cubes”

—

Rap isn’t always about who you know, nor is it always a matter of the-more-you-give-the-more-you-get. Some artists come up with a great pedigree, plenty of experience and money, and still don’t make it.

CunningLynguists hail from Kentucky and through various incarnations have been working toward something like stardom for all of the 21st century. They’ve worked with other artists on this list and collaborated and toured with many more.

Still, like Kansas’ Mac Lethal, it’s never that easy. CunningLynguists fall into a vague middle ground in rap. Their sound is reminiscent of southern rap (indeed, some of the founding members were from Atlanta) but with an indie twist. This isn’t rap music being played to the back row of stadiums. It’s smaller, denser and gets better the more you listen to it.

Unfortunately, again like Lethal, they’ve yet to find a toehold in the national rap conversation. Perhaps a name change would do them good.

Louisiana

Artist – Lil Wayne

Years Active – 1996-Present

Notable Album – The Carter III

Sample Rhyme (from the track “6 Foot 7 Foot”):

“Life is the bitch, and death is her sister

Sleep is the cousin what a fuckin family picture

You know Father Time, and we all know Mother Nature

It’s all in the family but I am of no relation

No matter who’s buyin, I’m a celebration

Black and white diamonds, fuck segregation

Fuck that shit, my money up, you n*ggaz just Honey Nut

Young Money runnin shit and you n*ggaz just runner-ups

I don’t feel I done enough so I’ma keep on doin this shit

Lil Tunechi or Young Tunafish”

—

Is it fair to call Lil Wayne, arguably one of the two or three best rappers of his generation, a tragic figure?

Yes, he’s released multiple gold and platinum albums, has had 120 songs appear in Billboard’s Top 100 (more than any other individual artist) and can even release a disastrous rock album without losing an ounce of credibility.

He also struggled through childhood — shooting himself accidentally at age 12 and dropping out of a gifted high school program two years later — and frequently found himself in either a hospital room or jail cell in adulthood.

The perseverance it has taken for Lil Wayne to move on and continue to either release his own material or, as he does frequently, collaborate with other artists is unimaginable. By all rights, he should take a cue from Jay Z and enjoy the considerable success he’s earned. Instead he’s still promising to release The Carter V at some point in the near future.

To his credit, Wayne has promised that it will be his last album. He plans on retiring before his 35th birthday in order to have the time to spend with his four kids.

Maine

Artist – Spose

Years Active – 2004-Present

Notable Track – “The King of Maine”

Sample Rhyme:

“I’m from the 420 minus 213

I’m on the throne if you’re looking for who to unseat

I got moose blood in my goblet, lobsters in my optics

I’m live on the map where the dudes don’t rap”

—

For those readers who have not experienced the pleasures of Maine: Spose is the kind of rapper you might expect from the Lower 48’s northernmost state.

The Wells native essentially provides us with a turbo-powered, slightly more sincere version of Idaho’s official state rap (see above). He’s a professional though, and goes about making a case for his home state with some skill.

Again, though, it falls into the same category of music as Idaho’s song. It’s a joke, told specifically for the people of Maine to understand and for the rest of us to kind of shrug off confusedly.

Based on the YouTube comments though, Spose seems to nail what makes Maine Maine, and even to us outsiders it’s clear that he’s got the skill to succeed, even coming from as small a market as the Pine Tree State.

Spose’s fourth album Why Am I So Happy?  came out in 2015, so clearly he’s doing something right.

Maryland

Artist – Oddisee

Years Active – 1999-Present

Notable Album – People Hear What They See

Sample Rhyme (from the track “That’s Love”):

“And here we are again, just confronting fears

Whether pain, or gain, it’s a bunch of tears

Blood, sweat, and peers, probably disappear

When smoke starts to clear, their persistence near

Pay attention to the folks who’re fanning the glames

They’re the ones who matter most in the gravity game

When stakes weigh you down and they stay around

And pick up pieces and you off the ground

That’s love.”

—

This is the first — but not the last — time where we might be accused of cheating on this list.

Oddisee — real name Amir Elkhalifa — was born and raised in Maryland, but he really came to prominence as a leading light in Washington, DC’s music scene. He represents Maryland while honoring a lot of the funk and Go-Go traditions of the city he’s adopted.

Growing up in a wealthy suburb of the nation’s capital, Oddisee didn’t know a lot of hardship. While he was a rap fan all his life, he related more to the likes of A Tribe Called Quest and Eric B. & Rakim, rappers whose music didn’t orbit around violence or drugs.

As a result, Oddisee’s raps cover a whole rainbow of issues, ranging from familial love to poverty.

His rhymes are refreshing and unique and made better by his unique take on production. Indeed, Oddisee will release instrumental albums almost as often as he does pure rap albums, a reflection of his myriad abilities within the art form.

Massachusetts

Artist – Guru

Years Active – 1986-2010

Notable Album – Daily Operation (as one half of Gang Starr)

Sample Rhyme:

“You know I used to be a player, fly girl layer and a

heartbreaker

Lovemaker, backbreaker but then I made a

Mistake yes I fell in love with this ill chick

Sweating me for money, my name and the dilsnick”

—

Though he made a name for himself on his own, MC Guru was originally one half of the legendary hip hop duo Gang Starr, along with DJ Premier.

Gang Starr were an influential force in rap on the East Coast when they were at their heights in the early 1990s, a story made all the more exceptional due to the fact Guru originally hailed from Boston — not exactly the United States’ most well known rap city.

Guru formed Gang Starr in 1986 with several other producers and rappers, but barely three years later he was the sole remaining member. He would recruit PJ Premier to be the other half of the rejuvenated group just before signing with Chrysalis Records.

The UK-based label encouraged Gang Starr’s underground roots and went on to help release several albums, each of which forms another foundation block in 90s era rap.

While Gang Starr faded, Guru stayed in the game and released music under his own name right up until he tragically died of a heart attack in 2010.

Michigan

Artist – Danny Brown

Years Active – 2003-Present

Notable Album – Old (2013)

Sample Rhyme:

“While she listen to the oldie soap operas smoking bogies

On the phone gossiping telling homegirls stories

Girlfriend worries cause her son’s in a hurry

To see the state pen or a cemetery buried

Ma replied do her best but it’s still rough”

—

Alright, the elephant in the room, so to speak: Michigan’s best rapper isn’t Eminem, at least not on this list. Danny Brown needed to be represented. For those Shady loyalists, don’t worry: he’ll somehow appear later in this list.

Now, Danny Brown. Maybe you’ve heard of him? You should have heard from him. He’s great.

Rap’s appeal has broadened a lot over the last decade or two, but it doesn’t usually work so well as a crossover platform. Rap is rap. Maybe it co-mingles with R&B, but really it’s its own animal.

Danny Brown is the exception. He and his producers have a healthy appreciation for club culture, and it’s easy to hear the influence of EDM on his music.

This makes sense for a Detroit-based rapper. The city is responsible for creating the American middle class as well as some of the earliest examples of electronic music in the country.

Detroit is as present in Brown’s raps as anything else. Though his EDM roots make him surprisingly danceable, his songs are often sober reflections on life in a struggling city.

Minnesota

Artist – P.O.S.

Years Active – 2001-Present

Notable Album – Audition

Sample Rhyme (from “Stand Up (Let’s Get Murdered)”):

“See, you can’t fight a feeling. I feel terrified

There’s a war against me, my friends, my fam, my pride

My life, my job, my likes and like-minded

Folks are like, “Psh” like they just don’t mind it

So I’m cool, right?

They wag the dog. We catch the lipstick

What kind of city plumber thought that he could make these old and rusty pipes fit?

Well, they don’t. I’m catching the drip

I’ll practice holdin’ my breath, then sink with the ship”

—

Long before Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton were running for president, Minneapolis’ P.O.S. (short for Pissed Off Steph) was railing against the establishment. He spent the bulk of the 00s releasing tracks like “Stand Up (Let’s Get Murdered),” a sharp-tongued critique of the (then) Bush administration and a system that seemed like it was rigged against the average American citizen.

Were his complaints overblown? Maybe a little, but you have to remember this was at the height of the post 9/11/Iraq War/Great Recession era and to those paying attention it was hard not to think that someone somewhere was getting screwed over.

The important part for our purposes is that P.O.S. made some excellent rap. It was violent and angry yet thoughtful, a worthy tribute to the 90s Rage Against the Machine and a precursor (though likely not a direct influence of) the likes of conspiratorially-minded rappers like El-P and Killer Mike.

Mississippi

Artist – Rae Sremmurd

Years Active – 2005-Present

Notable Album – SremmLife (2015)

Sample Rhyme:

“Chop the top off the Porsche, that’s a headless horse

Extendo long as an extension cord

Bitch, I ball like Jordan and I play full court

And if you not my type then you know I gotta keep this shit short

What you know about a checK? What you got up in your pocket?

What you spending when you shopping, dawg?

Why you wanna go flex? Like you all in the mix

Like you got some shit poppin’ off

I got some models that you see up in the movies

And they want to make a flick for the camera

Wanna be Kim Kardashian, heard I was livin’ like a bachelor”

—

Those old enough to remember the mid-90s might be tempted to compare the youthful rap duo Rae Sremmurd with Kriss Kross. That wouldn’t be entirely fair however, as the latter were sort of gimmicky and wore their pants backwards for some reason.

Rae Sremmurd, in contrast, simply built off their older peers, creating some fun rap that can be enjoyed by both young and old.

Their story’s not half bad either. Given that Tupelo, Mississippi is something of a rap hinterland, the pair (then a trio) had to work exceptionally hard to get noticed. They played parties and bars, saving money to make trips to various competitions and venues before they finally came into contact with a record label willing to sign them.

A year later their effort paid off when Sremmlife was released in January 2015. The debut album was an near-immediate hit, reaching number one on Billboard’s rap and hip hop charts.

Missouri

Artist – Eminem

Years Active – 1992-Present

Notable Album – The Marshall Mathers LP (2000)

Sample Rhyme:

“The soul’s escaping through this hole that is gaping

This world’s mine for the taking, make me king

As we move toward a New World Order

A normal life is boring; but superstardom’s

Close to post-mortem, it only grows harder

Home grows hotter, he blows it’s all over

These hoes is all on him, coast to coast shows

He’s known as the Globetrotter, lonely roads

God only knows, he’s grown farther from home, he’s no father

He goes home and barely knows his own daughter”

—

As we mentioned in the Michigan slide, Eminem’s location on this list is a bit of a cheat. While the rapper came up and very much raps about a life in Detroit, he was originally born in St. Joseph, Missouri. He would split his time between his home state and Michigan for much of his childhood.

Eminem’s appearance here does a small disservice to some rappers who came up in Missouri. Tech N9ne in Kansas City, Nelly and Chiny from St Louis and a few others are being left out to make space for Mr. Mathers.

But Eminem’s too popular and marks too big a milestone in the genre to simply skip. His star might have faded somewhat from the heights of The Slim Shady LP and The Marshall Mathers LP, but he’s still a force within rap.

Beyond his considerable talent, Eminem stood out in those early years for being white. While far from the only white rapper out there at the time, he was the first to really break through with a mass appeal. For many — particularly in the whiter parts of America — his obnoxious and crude witticisms and bratty behavior made him more accessible than rappers who focused on drugs and violence and unjust treatment by the police.

Now, there’s something to be said about the fact it took Eminem for white America to appreciate the rap genre instead of, say, the dozens of black rappers who came before him who were as good and likely better. But that’s perhaps a discussion for a different slideshow.

Montana

Artist – French Montana

Years Active – 2007-Present

Notable Track – “Pop That”

Sample Rhyme:

“What you twerkin’ with?”

—

Here are some pertinent facts about the state of Montana:

-Montana is the fourth biggest state in the United States in terms of area

-Montana has the 44th largest population in the U.S.

-Montana ranks 48th in population density among U.S. states

-Montana doesn’t have any rappers

Three of those four facts are easy to come by, census data type stuff. One of them is a less concrete fact, but rather one that we can only assume after spending almost an hour Googling for an answer. Guess which is which!

In any case, we’re going to have to cheat really hard here. Elsewhere on this list we’ve taken rappers known to have come up in a particularly state or city and cast them instead in the state they were born in. Here, we’re going to be forced to make the most specious of connections in order to get this slide filled out.

French Montana is not from Montana. He wasn’t even born in the United States. He hails from Morocco.

Even his stage name isn’t an allusion to the state, but rather an attempt to link himself with Scarface anti-hero Tony Montana.

For all his lack of actual Montana-ness, French Montana is still a notable member of the circa-2016 rap pantheon. He’s a master collaborator with connections across rap’s geographical reach.

That he’s accomplished all this despite the fact that he and his family didn’t move to the U.S. until he was 14 years old makes French Montana’s story in the rap scene resemble the American Dream. Anyone can come to these shores and get the chance to party with Rick Ross, Lil Wayne and Drake deserves a place on this list. Even if we had to cheat to get him here.

Nebraska

Artist – Mars Black

Years Active – 2008-Present

Notable Track – “Scotch on the Rocks”

Sample Rhyme:

“Black label president, I’m also a member

Hope to get thick baby, word to my gender

Making it hot in the middle of December

Oh you forgot? Don’t you remember?

We were rockin’ jams, me and my man

Mike and Ham

Over beatbox or a live band”

—

Omaha, Nebraska is a strangely fertile little island of music in the dead center of the United States’ Midwest.

Saddle Creek Records directly or indirectly fostered the development of a crazy amount of indie music darlings. Bright Eyes, the Faint, Jenny Lewis, Cursive and many others found their start with the Omaha-based label.

To those readers in the know, none of those aforementioned acts are even remotely “rap.” They’re all either folk or punk or rock or a combination of the three. No rap.

That doesn’t mean that some rap culture hasn’t grown up alongside Saddle Creek and the like. Indeed, a small group of artists came up through Omaha and the environs through the 1970s and 80s that ended up presiding over a small but significant underground scene.

The legacy of that early Omaha rap scene is Mars Black. The Brooklyn-born rapper has earned some notoriety in recent years, thanks in some small part to his association with Conor Oberst.

The latter is the lead singer of Bright Eyes and Omaha’s beloved son, arguably the city’s most well-known musician. His label, Team Love, signed Mars Black as its only rapper back in the early 00s. Thus Omaha’s music scene continues to evolve.

Nevada

Artist – Feeki

Years Active – 2010?-Present

Notable Track – “You Know You Like It”

Sample Rhyme:

“Really fuck the fame I really just wanna motivate

Hard work motherfucker now you know my game

I see this generation fucking filled with all entitlement

These lazy motherfuckers get me heated like a solar pane”

—

Of all places in Nevada, you would think that its most (read: only) notable rapper would come from Las Vegas. It’s a city of excess, vulgarity and seemingly endless prosperity. Those sounds like ingredients to making a wonderful rapper.

Of course, those that live in or near Vegas aren’t exactly living the glamorous lives that the tourists might when they come through the desert oasis. Indeed, not too far out of Vegas city limits the realities (sometimes grim) of the rest of the country become readily apparent.

Feeki comes out of Reno, Vegas’ under-respected little brother. Appropriately enough, Feeki isn’t the kind of rapper to front. He’s earnest and positive and can rock a mullet that doesn’t come off as all that ironic. He raps about life and ambition and not getting discouraged.

Like so many other rappers on this list, particularly rappers from those states that might not be anxiously awaiting The Next Big Things, Feeki’s gotta work to get his name out there, and he works hard. It’s nearly impossible not to root for him.

New Hampshire

Artist – Roots of Creation

Years Active – 2014?

Notable Track – “Summer in the 603”

Sample Rhyme:

“When the sun is blazing and the summer gets hot

We don’t take it for granite that our home state rocks

You got the drive-in in Milford

Meadowbrook up in Gilford

Damn I miss Benton’s animal farm, that place was the illest”

—

This humble writer admits to not having much pride in his home state. Yes, it’s quite beautiful, and the wineries and hiking trails and, increasingly, breweries are all wonderful, but nothing about Virginia has ever really compelled me to want to break into song.

If the rap scene serves as any sort of barometer, then it can be said with some confidence that — contrary to this writer’s attitude — state pride is at its highest levels since the Civil War.

While your more mainstream rappers — your Lil Waynes and your Kendricks and your Outkasts — are more global, many rappers from smaller markets don’t have the luxury of speaking to a wider audience. They have to rap about what they know to people who also know what they know. Hence the preponderance of rappers on this list who have a lot to say about the virtues of their home state.

New Hampshire’s Roots of Creation really get into the minutiae of what makes the Granite State so wonderful to them, and to outsiders it all comes off as something close to gibberish. Hopefully making songs like this gets them the local press they need to eventually be able to rap about wider, more universal themes.

New Jersey

Artist – Lauryn Hill

Years Active – 1993-Present

Notable Album – The Miseducation of Lauryn  Hill

Sample Rhyme:

“It’s been three weeks since you were looking for your friend

The one you let hit it and never called you again

Member when he told you he was bout the Benjamins?

You act like you ain’t hear him, then give him a little trim”

—

The primary emotion many people have these days in regard to Lauryn Hill is some combination of regret and nostalgia.

She got her start in East Orange, New Jersey. While still in high school she joined a group that would eventually become known as the Fugees. The band would go on to become one of the standout names of mid-90s R&B and hip hop.

Riding on the wave of fame Fugees offered her, Hill broke off to record a solo record in 1997. The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill was released the following year and became an instant classic.

Her style owed itself to many early 90s female MCs like Salt-n-Pepa as well as male rappers like Ice Cube, and her ability to seamlessly transition between singing and rapping made her music stand out all the more.

Songs like “Doo-Wop (That Thing)” are now iconic 90s songs, and by all rights should have been followed by further songs that helped define the era they came out in. But Miseducation was the last true album Hill ever produced, barring a poorly received MTV Unplugged album in 2001.

New Mexico

Artist – Wake Self

Years Active – 2014?

Notable Track – “New Mexico”

Sample Rhyme:

“We got the best chile

That’s the truth really

I’m from Albuquerque, por que Duke City?

It’s more than a show about cooking meth

that you know from television”

—

The nearly 69,000 views Wake Self has on his video for the single “New Mexico” might represent the entire population of the state for all we know. Who else but overly ambitious writers would be searching for this video and then actually watching it?

Wake Self delivers yet another song for this list that seems like it could have been written by the state government’s in-house travel agency.

To his credit, the production levels are actually good here, and the photography really sells the state’s beauty.

A particular line in the song actually cuts to the heart of what raps like this are all about. To paraphrase: New Mexico doesn’t have any professional sports teams. Those of us who grew up in or near even a modest metropolis will find this an entirely alien concept. What does it mean to grow up in a place where thousands of your neighbors and fellow citizens don’t weekly — or even daily — convene in an arena and all shout for the same cause?

Wake Self and so many others on this list don’t have that type of community to feed off of. It’s no wonder they turn to rap, and in particular rap songs about their states.

New York

Artist – The Notorious B.I.G.

Years Active – 1992-1997

Notable Album – Ready to Die, 1994

Sample Rhyme:

“Poppa been smooth since the days of Underroos

Never lose, never choose to, bruise crews who

Do something to us, talk go through us

Girls walk to us, wanna do us, screw us”

—

Christopher George Latore Wallace was born in New York City in 1972 to Jamaican parents. He would come up in Brooklyn, excelling at school (particularly in English) while simultaneously dealing drugs. He eventually dropped out in favor of the latter pursuit, a decision that later resulted in nine months spent in jail for dealing crack cocaine.

He came into rap before he was out of his teens, and released his first (and only) album Ready to Die when he was 22 years old. It was an instant hit, big enough to re-calibrate the poles of rap music back toward the East Coast.

That success would be relatively short lived. Biggie was murdered in 1997 while visiting Los Angeles, just six months after his West Coast rival Tupac Shakur suffered the same fate in Las Vegas.

Given how short his career was, Biggie Smalls was wildly influential. He set the standard for how large (no pun intended) a rapper could be, both in reputation and in lifestyle and ability. His rhymes remain gospel to virtually any aspiring rapper coming up today, regardless if they hail from the East Coast or not.

Contrast Biggie’s accomplishments and his legacy formed in half a decade with the two decades Jay-Z — the man who would be listed here were it not for Biggie — had, and he becomes even more remarkable. With just a single solo album released in his lifetime, he set trends and styles that will last for decades to come.

North Carolina

Artist – J. Cole

Years Active – 2007-Present

Notable Album – Cole World: The Inside Story

Sample Rhyme:

“I like to write alone, be in my zone

Think back to Forest Hills, no perfect home

But the only thing like home I’ve ever known

Until they snatched it from my mama and foreclosed her on the loan

I’m so sorry that I left you there to deal with that alone”

—

Born in West Germany, J. Cole and his mother eventually made his way to Fayettesville, North Carolina, where he would spend the rest of his childhood.

Like Biggie, Cole was an exceptional student, eventually graduating and attending college in New York City. His interest in rap coincided with his education, and shortly after he returned home to North Carolina his future was laid out before him.

A mixtape released in 2009 caught the ear of Jay-Z, who included Cole on a track for Blueprint 3 and signed him to Roc Nation.

Since then Cole’s career has been nothing but ascendant. He’s the true modern rapper in a lot of ways. He got his start with Jay-Z, but being from North Carolina he’s also worked with southern rap icons like B.o.B. For good measure, he produced a track for Kendrick Lamar’s 2011 album Section.80 (and is working on a long-delayed joint album with the L.A. native) as well as touring with R&B luminary Rihanna.

More than virtually any other active rapper on this list, Cole’s got his fingers in virtually all of rap’s pies.

North Dakota

Artist – Wiz Khalifa

Years Active – 2005-Present

Notable Album – Rolling Papers

Sample Rhyme:

“Damn, who knew

All the planes we flew

Good things we been through

That I’d be standing right here talking to you

‘Bout another path

I know we loved to hit the road and laugh

But something told me that it wouldn’t last”

—

Another bit of cheating on our part here. Wiz Khalifa is much more closely associated with Pittsburgh, Pennslyvania, about which he wrote his hit song “Black and Yellow.” He was born in Minot, North Dakota, however, while his father was stationed there as part of his army service. He would live overseas for much of his childhood before eventually settling in Pittsburgh.

Still, we gotta fill North Dakota somehow. Midwestern rappers tend to cluster, understandably, around the region’s bigger metropolises, and sadly neither of the Dakotas are known for their city life.

Khalifa came up through the same rap graduating class, so to speak, as J. Cole, first appearing on the scene in the waning years of the first decade of the 21st century.

Though Khalifa remains a presence within rap, his two peaks have come in unique ways relative to many others on this list.

The first came with the aforementioned song “Black and Yellow,” which was released right at the beginning of a NFL season that would see the Pittsburgh Steelers reach the Super Bowl come February. Khalifa’s tribute to his adopted hometown understandably became ubiquitous, especially in and around the city itself.

The second came with 2015’s release of the movie Furious 7. Franchise star Paul Walker died in an unrelated car accident in the middle of filming, and the filmmakers saw fit to honor the actor with an appropriately touching ending, soundtracked by the song “See You Again,” written and performed by Khalifa featuring Charlie Puth.

By the end of the year the song was the best selling single worldwide, and Khalifa’s mark was again made not by a landmark album or statement verse, but by the co-mingling of rap and another cultural medium.

Ohio

Artist – Why?

Years Active – 2004-Present

Notable Album – Alopecia, 2008

Sample Rhyme (from “The Fall of Mr. Fifths”):

“Just another Sunday paddle boat ride

On a man made lake with another lady stranger

If I remain lost and die on a cross

Well at least I wasn’t born in a manger

I can sense somewhere right now

I’m being prayed for

Seems like I always arrive on the same shore

From where my sails set maybe

with one less lady than my vessel left with

Is that a threat?”

—

Nope, you’ve not heard of Why?, and that’s okay. Yoni Wolf’s rap “band” — based in Oakland, California, but originally out of Ohio — is still very indie despite having released four albums since 2005.

Listening to the song above, it might immediately become clear why you haven’t heard of Why? He’s not your typical rapper, put lightly. His delivery can be monotone, his subject matter esoteric at best. He raps about boredom, about infatuation, about depression, about his battles with Crohn’s disease. Taken together as an album, it might derogatorily be referred to as dense or, worse, arty.

And it is. There’s a slight bit of pretension to Why?’s whole shtick. It’s meant to be a little alienating to someone who is only casually listening. But further listens are rewarding. Stories unfurl, the rhymes and allusions become sharper and more devastating.

In sum, it’s well worth the effort to love Why?

Oklahoma

Artist – Okie Boy Goons

Years Active – 2012?

Notable Track – “OK City”

Sample Rhyme:

“Yeah y’all know me, the Okie boy from the East side

I stay higher than that tree holding that bee hive

There ain’t nothing like OKC, like nothing like where I’m from

There ain’t nothing like OKC, like nothing like where I’m from

There ain’t nothing like OKC, like nothing like where I’m from”

—

This man has a tattoo of Oklahoma on his face, as in: without expensive surgery there’s no way that Okie Boy Goons looks into the mirror ever again without being reminded of his home state.

Another fun fact is that roughly half the run time of “OK City” is spent naming different towns in Oklahoma. It’s an exhaustive list, one that you have to believe gets to any settlement of note in the Sooner State.

You’d be wrong if you thought that, though. The production company of this video promised earlier this month that a remix is coming out “featuring even MORE CITIES in OKLAHOMA.”

All of which is to say that Okie Boy Goons is trying his best to bring his inclusive style of rap to even more Okies.

Oregon

Artist – Illmaculate

Years Active – 2010s

Notable Track – “New Chain”

Sample Rhyme:

“My surrounding’s a warzone

The trees watching, police choppers, concrete cracks beneath my feet walking

Dream big, I’m asleep but I sing conscious

She feed me grapes while she draped like a Greek goddess

Christ-like, walked water and seemed flawless”

—

Interpret this how you will, but Illmaculate is … really good. Not that any of the other rappers you’ve never heard of on this list aren’t good. Plenty of them are just fine! A few of them might even be worth listening to again, particularly if you intend to visit the state they’re rapping about.

Illmaculate is like getting hooked up to an oxygen mask after wading through the states of the Midwest and New England. His flow is smooth and maybe his rhymes aren’t incredible, but this is still some seriously impressive stuff from a rapper who, by all appearances, still makes the rounds at rap battle competitions.

He’s not rapping about how beautiful Oregon’s pine forests are, or even how great the donuts are in Portland (really great). Being a Native American — like a real one, not just the 1/15 Cherokee we all think we are — he’s got a unique perspective and the skill to flesh it out for us.

Illmaculate’s so good that it’s almost discouraging. Why don’t we know more about this guy? Why isn’t he getting guest verses instead of, say, Big Sean?

Pennsylvania

Artist – Mac Miller

Years Active – 2007-Present

Notable Album – GO:OD AM, 2015

Sample Rhyme (from the track “Weekend”):

“I been having trouble sleeping

Battling these demons

Wondering what’s the thing that

keeps me breathing

Is it money, fame or neither?

I been thinking about the places

that I frequent

All the people that I see

I’m just out here livin’ decent

What do it mean to be a G

And all the time we fall behind, bitch’s in the concubine, I call her mine, crazy”

—

Precociousness is a quality that’s usually reserved more for pop stars than rappers, but there’s something to be said about a young kid trying to scrape a career together even as he’s still working his way through high school.

Pennsylvania’s Mac Miller began rapping at age 14, quickly catching the attention of some influential figures. Miller would release his first mixtapes at age 17 and join Wiz Khalifa as one of the biggest names on local label Rostrum Records by the time he graduated high school.

Since then he’s stayed busy, touring and releasing albums — including last year’s critically acclaimed GO:OD AM.

Rhode Island

Artist – araabMUZIK

Years Active – 2005-Present

Notable Album – Dream World (2016)

Sample Rhyme:

*drum machine*

—

Alright, another slight bit of cheating. AraabMUZIK isn’t a rapper. Rather, he’s a producer. He’s worked with countless rappers, including Cam’ron, 50 Cent, ASAP Rocky and Azealia Banks.

His mixture of quick beats, drum machine high hats and background strings puts him firmly at the center of trap music — essentially a cross-pollination between rap and EDM.

The original meaning of the term was used to describe the moody content of the verses as the tracks they were rapped over. AraabMUZIK’s Abraham Orellana — actually of Dominican and Guatemalan ancestry, despite his chosen DJ name — produces raps in the style and also his unique instrumental take on the subgenre of trap.

His only official album Dream World sees AraabMUZIK laying down tracks for a variety of guest artists to sing or rap over, but his earlier mixtapes skewed strongly toward the EDM scene. For Professional Use Only stands out as an excellent example of what trap can be when it’s just music alone.

Tragically, Orellana was shot in the head on a botched robbery attempt in New York in February of this year, right before Dream World was released. According to the most recently available reports, his recovery is going well.

South Carolina

Artist – Jeezy

Years Active – 1998-Present

Notable Album – Seen It All: The Autobiography

Sample Rhyme (from the track “Me OK”):

“Had you cashing out, paying for, you can’t pronounce the name

Had that Murcielago, it was green like margaritas

I sold yayo, I sold albums, might as well sell some tequila

Dropped so many Lambos, thought I was a Lambassador

Snow, it’s been a while, yeah, you know them streets missed you

I don’t eat, sleep or shit without my motherfuckin’ pistol”

—

Jeezy — then Young Jeezy — didn’t start out in rap expecting to rap. He was a suit, a label representative, a promoter. He worked for Cash Money Records around the turn of the century.

Being around the game — particularly that of his adopted hometown of Atalanta — inspired Jeezy to eventually start releasing his own material. When his material found traction in the rap scene, he quit the business end entirely and focused on becoming a rapper in his own right.

The last years of the 21st century’s first decade were Jeezy’s pinnacle. He released four albums and mix tapes from 2005 to 2008, capped by his ominously titled album Recession.

A diagnosis of bells palsy delayed any further production, but when he did come back he came back hard. Seen It All: The Autobiography came out in 2014 and might be his best material to date.

South Dakota

Artist – Various

Years Active – 2012?

Notable Track – “WTF!?? South Dakota Rappers (cypher)”

Sample Rhyme (from Frank Villon):

“I’m Charles Bronson bitch, with blood soaked pajamas on

You get in the tranq while I’m getting my cannon on

To many Mickeys all night and you think you can pick a fight

Y’all watching me till I’m outside of your window like, ‘Hello'”

—

Underground rap communities are a fairly unique thing in music. The infrastructure and logistics to, say, start a garage band aren’t always practical. Even the world’s many aspiring DJs need to be able to afford a semi-decent laptop.

Rap, in contrast, doesn’t need all that much to begin to sprout. A community center, an open mike night, a closed-for-the-day bookstore … these are all venues where communities can gather and experiment or dazzle or just practice.

South Dakota — and so many other states in the union — seems particularly ripe for this kind of development. It’s not as if there’s a market in Sioux Falls for rappers to regularly perform on stage. So instead they gather in loose groups and battle, record and support each other. It’s a comforting and encouraging thing to see rap emerge out of even the most sparsely populated places.

Tennessee

Artist – Three 6 Mafia

Years Active – 1991-Present

Notable Album – Most Known Unknown

Sample Rhyme:

“Now when it comes to getting bread I got the keys to the bakery

A lot of dudes wear they play, man they some fackery

Let me catch a girl up out some work in my site

And I believe I’m gon be atcha in the daylight with a flashlight

I’m trying to get paid however money is made”

—

Three 6 Mafia have lived more lives than perhaps any other entity in rap. They originated in Memphis in 1991 as a sort of horror-themed group, in the same way that Wu Tang Clan is kung fu themed. DJ Paul and Juicy J were two of the founding members, and the two members who stuck with the group the longest as others came and went.

Over the next 25 years, the Three 6 Mafia would have its ups and downs. For the most part they could never escape the “underground” label they started with, and their releases were never embraced the same way other acts were.

They did, however, win an Academy Award for their song “It’s Hard Out Here for Pimp,” used on the soundtrack for the movie Hustle & Flow. 

They would never reach such heights again. In-fighting and delays hurt their momentum, and to date they have not been able to work their way back into the limelight.

Texas

Artist – Scarface

Years Active – 1980s-Present

Notable Album – Mr. Scareface is Back

Sample Rhyme:

“Our lifestyles be close captained

Addicted to fatal attractions

Pictures of actions be played back

In the midst of mashin’

No fairy tales for this young black male

Some see me stranded in this land of hell, jail and crack sales.”

—

In the waning years of the 80s and start of the 90s, Houston’s Geto Boys and later Scarface carved out their own piece of the rap pie between the East Coast and West Coast rivalry. Scarface was among the first representatives of southern rap, and as such played a tremendous part in the development of the subgenre in the decades to come.

More than any song he recorded, Scarface’s legacy will be his leadership in those early years in Houston and his ability to bridge the divide between East and West. He would earn national notoriety and, eventually, become the lead in Def Jam’s southern division. Acting in that capacity, he signed Ludacris in 1999.

Unlike other rappers who reached his level, Scarface never strayed far from his Houston roots, releasing music irregularly and occasionally teaming up with the Insane Clown Posse for their Gathering of the Juggalos.

Utah

Artist – Jamesthemormon

Years Active – 2016?

Notable Track – “Motivation”

Sample Rhyme:

“Trying to buy my great grandkid a house

So I can say I got ’em even when I’m out

That’s the only thing that matters to me now

I pay no mind to the haters cause they’re only talking shop

Put a drive on those and don’t stop until I say so

Gotta turn these tracks into pesos”

—

It doesn’t seem like the holy land of the Church of Latter Day Saints would ever inspire anyone to rap. Maybe pick up a guitar. Maybe write a few lines to a poem. But definitely not rap.

That’s admittedly a pretty narrow view. While Mormonism has a reputation for being very conservative, there’s still plenty of room in 2016 within conservatism for something like rap.

That’s particularly true when the church is aggressively trying to inspire a new generation to follow in their parents’ footsteps. Not to be too cynical, but rap in the right hands is an excellent marketing tool.

To Jamesthemormon’s credit, he’s not half bad at what he’s setting out to do. He and his posse have the aesthetics of rap down to a T, so much so that you might not even notice that he’s rapping about wanting to have a family and settle down instead of about inner city life, sex or violence.

Vermont

Artist – X10

Years Active – 2007?

Notable Track – “802”

Sample Rhyme:

“Up and Vermont, this is how we do

We got one area code and it’s 802

Green mountain state where we roll on skis

Don’t mess with our cows or we’re break your knees”

—

One last parody rap video, and this time it’s actually somewhat notable.

X10 — the name of a couple of bratty looking dudes who probably rue the day they decided to foray into rap — released their “hit” song “802” in 2007, making it perhaps the very first example of white people making a funny by rapping about inane things.

For being such an early example of the “artform,” the song isn’t all bad. It’s got some depreciating humor and a bunch of punchlines that even those of us who are from outside Vermont might get. It’s got some nice landmarks that were only marred by the terrible quality of the production equipment.

And it’s got a couple white dudes. This was all well past Vanilla Ice and Eminem, but still the idea that a couple white dudes would rap was just funny enough to a significant segment of the population to rack up what, at the time, must have been a huge number of views.

Virginia

Artist – Pusha T

Years Active – 1992-Present

Notable Album – My Name if My Name

Sample Rhyme (from the track “King Push”):

“Vultures to my culture

Exploit the struggle, insult ya

They name dropping about caine copping

But never been a foot soldier

Let’s have another look, just get a little closer

Rage against the machine, black Zack de la Rocha

In a cranberry Rossta, inside track

on the G rap poster

Best d-boy all I’m missing is a dash

Difference between me and Hova”

—

Virginia originally went to Missy Eliott. She gets a big honorable mention — an absolute legend in rap.

Pusha T, though. It’s impossible not to include the President of G.O.O.D. Music on this list. If only he was, however improbably, born in Idaho or Wyoming, this would be so much easier.

But he wasn’t. He was actually born in the Bronx, New York City, and relocated to Norfolk, Virginia as a child.

Hampton Roads in the 80s and 90s was a shockingly fertile ground for rappers. Not only is it responsible for the development of Pusha and Missy, but Timbaland and Pharrell both also came up in the suburbs of Norfolk and Virginia Beach.

Being in such close proximity, it’s no wonder they would team up. Pharrell produced for Pusha and his brother (No Malice) when they worked together as Clipse, including on their hit single “Grindin'”.

Pusha would move onto his own solo career, launched in part by his friendship with Kanye West. The Chicago rapper would go on to produce a good chunk of Pusha’s solo debut commercial release, My Name is My Name. It was that album that put Pusha on the map as a master lyricist.

Washington

Artist – Macklemore

Years Active – 2000-Present

Notable Album – The Heist

Sample Rhyme:

“One man’s trash, that’s another man’s come up

Thank your granddad for donating that plaid button-up

shirt, cause right now I’m up in here stunting

I’m at the Goodwill, you can find me in the bins”

—

As we approach the end of the this list, it feels about the right time to address a prevalent theme: a lot of these rappers are white guys. That is far from intentional, but it is a reflection of the changing-but-still-majority status of white people in the United States.

Currently, as Eminem’s star begins to fade, Macklemore is perhaps the most well known white rapper in the country.

The Seattle native came onto the scene as an uneasy mixture of Social Conscious Rapper and Joke Rapper. Such a pairing is basically cat nip for your average white person, and consequently when Macklemore finally found traction in the early ’10s his career skyrocketed.

His YouTube hits are tremendous — nearly a billion alone for the above video for “Thrift Shop” — and he swept the Best Rap Album, Best New Artist, Best Rap Performance and Best Rap Song Grammy Awards in the same year that Kendrick Lamar released his masterpiece, Good Kid, M.A.A.D. City. That latter fact might be the saddest on this list.

West Virginia

Artist – Mini Thin

Years Active – 2009?

Notable Track – Hillbilly Murda

Sample Rhyme:

See I gotta be real

Can’t come fake on this track

When you see Mini Thin the whole state’s on his back

I got love for you cats whether you white or you black

And I’ll murder whoever don’t put my state on the map

—

There’s something to be said for embracing the labels others apply to you and rolling with them. In some ways, that is a core concept of rap culture. True to the culture he’s adopted, Mini Thin does just that.

West Virginia’s stuck in a strange place both geographically and culturally. Crammed between historic north and south, and so dependent on the coal it mines that it has at times in its history resembled a feudal state.

Straddling the Appalachians as it does, many residents of West Virginia have (unfairly) been labeled as hillbillies, when in fact that pejorative could just as easily be applied to residents of Virginia, Ohio, Maryland or Kentucky.

Mini Thin revels in the hillbilly label, using it as a jumping off point to defend his state and prove just how hard he’s repping it. He can be forgiven if he veers a bit too hard toward rap stereotypes that might not entirely apply to life in his home state.

Wisconsin

Artist – Brother Ali

Years Active – 1990s-Present

Notable Album – Shadows on the Sun

Sample Rhyme (from the track “Uncle Sam Goddamn”):

“Smoke and mirrors, stripes and stars

Stolen for the cross in the name of God

Bloodshed, genocide, rape and fraud

Writ into the pages of the law good lord

The Cold Continent latch key child

Ran away one day and starting acting foul

King of where the wild things are daddy’s proud

Because the Roman Empire done passed it down”

—

This contains another pretty persistent theme: those rappers who are “other” — either racially or politically or economically or otherwise — usually end up producing the most compelling stuff. Beginning well behind the starting line only compels these rappers to work harder and make something more exceptional.

Brother Ali understands this well, being both albino and Muslim. His album Shadows on the Sun is an under-appreciated gem of ’00s rap. His lyricism alone would put him near the top if this list were ranked.

Like his Rhymesayers label-mate P.O.S., Brother Ali focuses a keen eye on social and political issues, and has spent a good chunk of his career lambasting Bush-era America. It’s not surprising that such subject matter might not sell an insane amount of records — hence why you probably have never heard of Brother Ali — which only makes the Wisconsin native’s career all the more impressive.

Wyoming

Artist – Y-O

Years Active – 2012?

Notable Track – “Hometown”

Sample Rhyme (from the track “Hometown”:

“I wasn’t raised around that killing shit

But I grew up killing shit

When I lay my lyrics down it’s on me if you don’t give a shit

Understand that my hometown made me keep it real as shit”

—

God forbid that one day some alien civilization uses this list to get an idea of what this rap music thing is all about.

They would get a fairly comprehensive list of some — though by no means all — of the best rappers working today. They’d also get a taste of indie and underground rap, performed by individuals who put down roots in places well outside of any of rap’s hubs and yet still find refuge and inspiration in the art form.

By the time they reached the end of the list, however, they would have to be forgiven for thinking that rap music is mostly about enumerating the various virtues, beauties and cities of the state a given rapper is from.

Y-O’s tribute to his home state of Wyoming punctuates this list, and perhaps that’s appropriate. Rap began as a local phenomenon, something performed at parties or at clubs. It was not intended to be consumed by a diverse, nationwide audience. Rather, it was the people’s music, dealing with themes and struggles and jokes that that specific audience would understand.

Even at rap’s highest levels — where wealth and excess are the most common themes — rappers are never too far away from rapping about their origins and how they came up.

Jay-Z’s “Empire State of Mind,” Wiz Khalifa’s “Black and Yellow,” basically everything that Kendrick Lamar produces and so many others go out of their way to evoke a sense of place — and specifically home. That’s not for lack of ideas or some cynical plow to boost album sales. It’s because rap, more than most art forms, is as much about where the rapper’s from as it is anything else.

Page 2

Artist – Yelawolf

Years Active – 2005-Present

Notable Album – Trunk Muzik 0-60 (2010)

Sample Rhyme:

“Act like you don’t wanna see how much of this Jack

Daniels you can handle

You wanna drink and get cut like Rambo?

And let me drive your Daddy’s Lambo”

—

The magic of the alphabet delivers to us right at the top of the list perhaps the best possible example of the type of eccentric regionalism rap has to offer.

Yelawolf’s career took a weird turn when he began releasing actual albums, but his early mixtape Trunk Muzik 0-60 finds a rapper unafraid to be himself.

Being from Alabama, Yela was never going to find it ease to hide his accent or unique southern cadence. Instead, he leaned into it. His raps at times sound like slightly sped up — and significantly more filthy — country. It shouldn’t be surprising that this would be crazy fun, but it absolutely is.

The crossover appeal of rap among the typically conservative country music set wasn’t exactly enough to make a viable career, however. Yela continues to show a lot of the same spirit as he did on that early mixtape, but it all seems confined to the requisite marketability of being on a label.

The average rappers might not define themselves in terms of East or West anymore, but there’s still a healthy sense of location in the music.

The DIY spirit of rap — perhaps the strongest of any form of music — means that virtually anyone, anywhere can pick up a mic, acquire even the most basic understanding of drum machines or mixing software and become, almost overnight, a rapper.

The results are well documented. New York, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston  — all have nurtured wildly fertile rap cultures, ones that over time found themselves spreading to the nation at large. Each city has its own unique take, its own sound, its own attitude. The intermingling of all of these subgenres into a single, nationwide conversation raises the artform as a whole, and we’re all better off for it.

Now, a word of caution: just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should do something. The low entry cost for rap combines poorly with the tendency toward overconfidence in budding rappers, and the consequences can be dire. The United States’ smaller markets — far from the metropolises that spawned rap’s greats — often find themselves mired in rap mediocrity.

Perhaps that’s unfair, though. There might be plenty good reasons that the Oklahoma rap scene hasn’t exactly exploded, but it’s hard to make that generalization everywhere. Some states and regions are stuck, for better or for worse, in the pull of the nearest of rap’s many poles.

It would be hard, for instance, for a kid in Connecticut or New Jersey, coming up in the shadow of New York City, to not to show a lot of deference to Biggie and Jay Z. Similarly, few aspiring rappers in the South can admit to owing nothing to Outkast.

Outside of those poles, rap can be wonderfully idiosyncratic and even weird. It can also be square and traditionalist, gritty and dangerous or just plain boring. All are reflections of their location, the rapper’s origin and countless other factors.

The variety makes exploring the United States’ many iterations kind of exciting. For simplicity’s sake, here are the stories of the top rappers from all 50 states in the Union, presented to you in alphabetical order.

Alabama

Artist – Yelawolf

Years Active – 2005-Present

Notable Album – Trunk Muzik 0-60 (2010)

Sample Rhyme:

“Act like you don’t wanna see how much of this Jack

Daniels you can handle

You wanna drink and get cut like Rambo?

And let me drive your Daddy’s Lambo”

—

The magic of the alphabet delivers to us right at the top of the list perhaps the best possible example of the type of eccentric regionalism rap has to offer.

Yelawolf’s career took a weird turn when he began releasing actual albums, but his early mixtape Trunk Muzik 0-60 finds a rapper unafraid to be himself.

Being from Alabama, Yela was never going to find it ease to hide his accent or unique southern cadence. Instead, he leaned into it. His raps at times sound like slightly sped up — and significantly more filthy — country. It shouldn’t be surprising that this would be crazy fun, but it absolutely is.

The crossover appeal of rap among the typically conservative country music set wasn’t exactly enough to make a viable career, however. Yela continues to show a lot of the same spirit as he did on that early mixtape, but it all seems confined to the requisite marketability of being on a label.

Alaska

Artist – Bay Dilla

Years Active – 2000s

Notable Track – They Know 

Sample Rhyme:

“Up north, A-town

Anchorage

Can you feel me? Can you feel me?”

—

Somehow, someway, Alaska’s (miniscule) rap scene managed to produce one of the most insane stories on this list.

The above video is for an artist named Bay Dilla. He was reasonably popular in Alaska, in that way that anyone offering what almost literally no one else was offering is popular.

Simple reason tells us that a rapper rapping about experiences in and around the Arctic Circle won’t have national appeal, and indeed Bay Dilla does not defy this expectation.

Yet for a brief time he appeared to. The only rapper from Alaska to ever film a professional music video (disclaimer: this is an assumption that is probably correct) was absolutely swimming in money.

But how? Oh, it’s because his entire rap empire was a front for importing drugs from the Lower 48. The Feds caught him and prosecuted him for importing between 50 and 150 kilograms of cocaine into Alaska between 2009 and 2012.

Assuming he ever gets released from prison, perhaps Bay Dilla will have a rich mine of material to continue his rap career, in Alaska or elsewhere.

Arizona

Artist – Judge Da Boss

Years Active – 2010s

Notable Track – Hell Yeah

Sample Rhyme:

“When I get around y’all broke hoes I act bougie hell yeah

I rock Gucci, hell yeah

Louis, hell yeah

Truey, hell yeah

Versace, hell yeah”

—

America’s Southwest is majestic, beautiful and entirely worth your time if you ever have the chance to visit.

That said, there’s not a tremendous amount of music from that region that makes its way out to America at large.

Cities like Phoenix, for instance, exist only because of the marvels of the modern world. There’s no iconic industry, at least not one that would produce the kinds of conditions rap would thrive in.

A lack of deep roots doesn’t mean it’s incapable of producing talent, however. Judge Da Boss is a good example.

After winning a competition against local rappers, Judge — nee Robert Louis Carr II — caught the attention of Amar’e Stoudemire, who convinced the Phoenix native to put pen to paper for the NBA star’s label, Hypocalypto Records.

Progress has been slow, however. Though he released a mixtape called The Chosen One shortly after signing, an official album has yet to surface. A deal with with Sony Records in 2014 is encouraging news.

Arkansas

Artist – SL Jones

Years Active – 2010s

Notable Track– “Big Bank (No Ones)” (2013)

Sample Rhyme:

“Granddaddy was a hustler

Yeah I’m sticking to tradition”

—

Little Rock — from which young rapper SL Jones hails — is about halfway between Atlanta and Houston. The style was always going to be southern, but the question remained under which sphere of influence a rapper like SL Jones would fall.

Early on, his inspirations were decidedly mixed. His first solo mixtape, C.O.L.O.R.S: Bangin’ on Wax featured names from all corners of southern rap’s territory, from Virginia’s Clipse to Houston’s Chamillionaire to Atlanta’s Killer Mike.

With arguably his biggest track to date, SL Jones’ true loyalty became more clear. Featuring production by Metro Boomin — Future’s trusty sidekick — “Big Banks” sounds very Atlanta, while still retaining a unique enough flavor to make it SL Jones’ own.

As a sort of aside, isn’t it impressive when a young rapper like SL Jones can just nail the look on the first try? Mastering that mix of confidence, pseudo-dancing and style really pays off for music videos like the one made for “Big Banks.” Now if he could only come out with a follow up record …

California

Artist – Kendrick Lamar

Years Active – 2003-Present

Notable Album – Good Kid, M.A.A.D City

Sample Rhyme (from a guest verse on Push-T’s track “Nosetalgia”) :

“I said, ‘Daddy, one day Imma get you right with 36 zips

One thousand grams of cocaine, then your name will be rich

Now you can rock it up or sell it soft as leather interior

Drop some ice cubes in it, Deebo on perimeter’

He said ‘Son, how come you think you be my connect?’

I said ‘Pops, your ass is washed up, with all due respect’

He said “Well n*gga, then show me how it all makes sense’

Go figure, motherfucker, every verse is a brick

Your son dope n*gga”

—

It speaks to just how deep California’s stable of rappers is that picking Kendrick Lamar here was maybe the most difficult decision on this entire list.

By fairly broad consensus, Kendrick is the best rapper working today. No, he might not top the charts as much as Drake, and maybe he doesn’t generate Kanye’s headlines. He might not even be many people’s favorite rapper.

But in terms of pure artistry, no one can match him. He molds albums that are as much cultural dissertations as they are music. He doesn’t write party songs, or club bangers, or even introspective digressions about lost loves. He composes political and social thinkpieces, posing questions that many of us struggle to answer. He’s the rapper America needs in 2016.

None of which would have been possible without the man Kendrick credits as being a primary influence: Tupac Shakur. Many would protest, fairly, that Tupac should represent California on this list, as he embodies a huge part of rap’s growing pains in the 90s.

While his career was tragically cut short, Kendrick is only just heating up. He might not ever surpass 2Pac’s legend, but Kendrick’s fighting as hard as anyone to keep it alive.

Colorado

Artist – Mr. J. Medeiros

Years Active – 1998-Present

Notable Album – Of Gods and Girls

Sample Rhyme (from single “Pale Blue Dot”):

“Wrapped around a block of C-4 pow your minced meat

And now you’ve blown it

Using physics your god is distant and don’t condone it

Using mystics to bomb your critics and your opponents

You a bigot, misogynistic and homophobic.”

—

Kendrick, of course, isn’t the only one out there who turns to rap to address social ills. Rap’s poetic nature makes it easier to tell a story or frame a case than, say, your average rock ballad or pop song.

Rap’s long history outside the mainstream of American culture also makes it the ideal medium to bear the weight of what might be considered subversive or controversial opinions. It might be used more often these days to sing about cars, women and drugs, but at its core it’s protest music.

Mr. J. Medeiros captures this spirit well. It’s telling that he got his start in Colorado, a state almost literally in the country’s middle, one that’s waxed and waned so much politically over the decades that it is the definition of a “purple” state come election year.

Connecticut

Artist – Chris Webby

Years Active – 2008-Present

Notable Album – Chemically Imbalanced

Sample Rhyme (from “Ohh No”):

“So many bars you would think I’m living on Death Row

Webby just a motherfucking dog, where’s Petco?

Follow a plate of kibbles n bits with an egg roll

Genius in the laboratory cooking blue meth, yo

Call me Heisenberg, cause when I rhyme with words

These motherfuckers are behind the curve”

—

For every rapper like Kendrick or Mr. J. Medeiros, there are 10 (20? 30?) rappers like Chris Webby.

Hailing from Connecticut, Webby’s raps are kinetic, steeped in cultural references and, perhaps most of all, unfocused. He has, by his own admission, suffered from Attention Deficit Disorder all his life, a condition that seeps through to his raps.

Which isn’t a criticism. If anything, Webby’s style is part of the trend, one that owes a lot to freestyling and rap battling — two avenues on which many budding rappers first find traction. It’s a style that is far more concerned about getting out witty one liners than telling a story or advocating for a cause.

Webby rolls with it, creating rhymes that, combined with his rapid pace, make the listener feel like they’re caught in a verbal tornado.

Delaware

Artist – Wok (nee Chan)

Years Active – 2010s

Notable Track – “20 Missed Calls”

Sample Rhyme:

“Purple that I’m smoking you can smell it down the block

All I do is stunt

Onion in the blunt

Better have my money if I’m giving you the front”

—

Look, Delaware was never going to be an easy state to write about. With no major metropolitan area, it’s got a smaller population than the smallest state in the Union, Rhode Island, despite being almost twice as large in area.

Thankfully, the excellent folks over at Complex had us covered. Back in 2014, they posted a brief article featuring a brief clip of a Delaware rapper, then named Chan and now named Wok.

To them — and to us — the song “20 Missed Calls” is as much novelty as it is quality music. It’s rap from Delaware. What in the Blue Hen State could be worth rapping about?

Turns out, a lot of the same stuff as you’d find in any other state. Chan raps over some notably well-made beats about women and drugs and it’s not half bad.

Unfortunately this is just about all we from Wok. “20 Missed Calls” came out in 2013 and, to date, seems to be the artist’s high point.

Florida

Artist – Rick Ross

Years Active – 2001-Present

Notable Album – Teflon Don, 2010

Sample Rhyme (from track “I’m Not a Star”):

“I’m not a star, somebody lied

I got a pistol in the car, a 45

If I’d die today, remember me like John Lennon

Buried in Louie, I’m talking all brown linen”

—

In a strange way, Rick Ross’ ascent up rap’s hierarchy is the embodiment of the American Dream.

His raps are full of references to drug dealing, to violence, to a life lived outside the law. It’s all standard rap fodder, the kind of experiences that have built careers since rap’s beginnings.

Only it might not be true. Rick Ross — real name William Leonard Roberts II — was raised in Florida and went to college in Georgia on a football scholarship. After graduating, he worked for roughly 18 months as a correctional officer.

He would eventually move on to making music and, as his doubters argue, he found that designing a fake persona around drug dealing made for a better look. He would adopt the name “Rick Ross” from a famous cocaine kingpin in 1980s Los Angeles.

The truth, though, is that Rick Ross is a good rapper, perhaps even very good. He made himself into a character to add weight to what he rapped about, and it worked. No famous rap artist out there can claim to have done any different.

Georgia

Artist – Outkast

Years Active – 1992-Present

Notable Album – Stankonia (2000)

Sample Rhyme (from the track “Ms. Jackson”):

“Me and your daughter got a special thing going on

You say it’s puppy love, we say it’s full-grown

Hope that we feel this, feel this way forever

You can plan a pretty picnic

But you can’t predict the weather, Ms. Jackson”

—

We’ll take the opposite approach with Georgia than we did with California. Instead of naming an artist more popular today, we’re going down to the foundations of modern rap, not just in Georgia but across the genre.

Outkast — a duo consisting of André 3000 and Big Boi — released their first album in 1994, and over the next decade would change rap’s DNA.

Their style embodied Atlanta, the city from which they hailed. It was psychedelic, playful and unique. Their music was conscientious and smart, paying respect to community, women and themselves in equal measure, and they still had fun with it. Songs like “B.O.B” and “Ms. Jackson” could appear on the air for the first time in 2016 and still be tremendous hits.

The duo’s success also turned Atlanta into a dominant force in the rap ecosystem and elevated southern rap across the board. Outkast might not make new music together anymore, but they remain living legends.

Hawaii

Artist – Tassho Pearce

Years Active – 2010s

Notable Album– G.O.O.D. Company

Sample Rhyme (from the track “Satelites”):

“These are moments you could wait your whole life for

Standin’ next to Bob Barker trying to pick the right door

More Henny, more Swishers, more kush,

The more I drink the more better she look”

—

It’s a wonder that any solo rap venture starting in the middle of the Pacific Ocean could find traction in the mainland United States, and yet Tassho Pearce proved it was possible.

Half-Japanese and half-white, Tassho grew up in Hawaii’s nascent rap scene. His career didn’t really start until he hooked up with Kanye West when the famous Chicago rapper came to the islands to record My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy in 2010.

Tassho bonded with Kanye and his clique, and eventually impressed them enough to enlist the support of a few heavies to get his rap career off the ground. He first worked with Kanye’s mentor No I.D. to produce the aforementioned “Satelites,” featuring both him and Kid Cudi.

Then he made a whole album, released just this year, called G.O.O.D. Company — a tribute to Kanye’s G.O.O.D. record label. It’s a record that stays loyal to Hawaii, with Tassho bringing in a couple other local rappers to feature on tracks.

According to Pigeon and Planes’ interview with him, Tassho now mostly resides on the West Coast of the mainland, working on music as well as setting up his own burgeoning rap empire.

Idaho

Artist – Bret Johnson (?)

Years Active – 2013?

Notable Track – “The 208”

Sample Rhyme:

“I’m from Idaho, sound the alarms

Get in your cars

We’s about to party at the local Walmart”

—

Any discussion about rap in America would not be complete without acknowledging the rise of parody rap.

The genre’s low entry level cost — turning on your laptop’s microphone, searching Google for free mixing software — means that any (white) person with a vaguely funny joke can turn it into a career.

Sometimes the results border on great. The Lonely Island produces some well made and hilarious stuff.

Most times, though, parody rap inspires more eye rolls than laughs. Take the song above. It’s a rap about Idaho’s telephone area code, 208. It is among the first hits when you type “Idaho rappers” into Google, just above a link for a service that allows your to “hire rappers,” whatever that means.

“The 208” jabs at a lot of stuff many in rural America might recognize, and throws in some more specific Idaho stuff for good measure. It is a carbon copy of just about every other rap on YouTube that is about a specific place, made exclusively for people in that specific place. And, somehow, it’s the only example of homegrown rap in Idaho.

Illinois

Artist – Kanye West

Years Active – 2003-Present

Notable Album – My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

Sample Rhyme (from the track “N*ggas in Paris”):

“What’s Gucci, my n*gga? What’s Louis, my killa?

What’s drugs, my dealer? What’s that jacket, Margiela?

Doctors say I’m the illest, cause I’m suffering from realness

Got my n*ggas in Paris and they going gorillas, huh”

—

Chicago’s produced some great talent lately. It was tempting here to skip on Kanye — the city, Illinois and perhaps rap itself’s most recognizable name at the moment — and bestow this “honor” to someone like Chance the Rapper.

But there’s no denying Kanye’s immense role in rap over the last decade. He’s produced some of the most innovative, provocative and revolutionary music in any genre over that time period, becoming an icon in the process.

That he finds himself in the tabloids as often as the music charts is another matter entirely — we’re hear to focus on the rap itself. Though critics might argue that Kanye’s grasp of wordplay and flow aren’t always the greatest, his desire, and ability, to expand rap’s boundaries make him a legend.

He wanted to honor and repurpose the hits of the past, and he mixed them into his songs when he made College Dropout and Late Registration.

He wanted an arena feel to rap, and he made Graduation. He wanted to sing, and he made 808s & Heartbreaks. He wanted artistry, and he made My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. He wanted anger and he made Yeezus. He wanted attention and he made Life of Pablo.

His ability to change gears and elevate new styles and techniques might make him the single most influential rapper alive today. It’s difficult to name an artist working today, from Drake to Nicki Minaj to Chance, and not be able to clearly see Kanye’s hand.

Indiana

Artist – Freddie Gibbs

Years Active – 2003-Present

Notable Album– Shadow of a Doubt

Sample Rhyme: 

“Celly stead ringing for Freddie but where the things at?

Drove a half a ton, dropped it off and I took a plane back

Gangsta shit in my DNA, I just can’t explain that

Even if I die tell my enemies I remain that”

—

With the notable exception of Michael Jackson, Gary, Indiana does not produce a tremendous amount of American culture, despite virtually being a suburb of Chicago.

Freddie Gibbs nonetheless found his way up through rap’s ranks, thanks entirely to his unique delivery. His voice strains and reaches as he rhymes, an effect that adds an emotional or angry tinge to a lot of his best work.

It helps that Gibbs’ rhymes are also inspired on their own. He’s got a great ear for his own work, and with the help of some talented producers has created a sound that’s unique within rap. His 2015 album Shadow of a Doubt is darkly ambitious, recounting Gibbs’ roots in Gary and what was done in the name of success.

Gibbs might not be able to top Shadow of a Doubt, however. Last month, he was accused of raping a woman in Austria during his European tour. He was released on 50,000 Euros bail and awaits trial. He emphatically denies the charges.

Iowa

Artist – Json

Years Active – 2005-Present

Notable Album – Braille

Sample Rhyme:

“Tryna get people to trust in The King (My God)

The One they call Yahweh

Stand firm and affirm till they call my name

One thing I have blood bettin’ on my days

Unaware of a snake see I’m on that grace

I feel the pressure huh”

—

As rap’s popularity continues to grow, it can accommodate more and more multitudes. It can be fun, celebratory, angry, political, sad, horny and, evidently, also faithful.

Iowa-based rapper Json embodies that last surprising bit. He produces well made, exceptionally produced raps that are about and for God. That in and of itself isn’t unique — Chicago rappers Kanye West and Chance the Rapper both released albums this year that have been referred to as “gospel rap,” after all.

What makes Json stand out, in Iowa and elsewhere, is his wholesale commitment to being an evangelical rapper. His youth was split between St. Louis, Los Angeles and drugs, the latter of which seemed set to ruin his life.

He and his wife were able to get clean thanks in part to their faith in Jesus Christ. He would focus his life on Christianity, and use rap to preach the same message that saved his life.

Json’s career arc is almost entirely unique within rap. It’s a genre of music that tends to be crude and occasionally cruel, so the fact he could turn it into something unmistakably positive is something special.

Kansas

Artist – Mac Lethal

Years Active – 2001-Present

Notable Track – “Look at Me Now”

Sample Rhyme:

“There’s nothing beautiful about this world

I’m gonna pucker up my lips to barf

Gonna choke a fucking rapper with his hipster scarf

I’m never gonna put another piece of music out

deliberately if it isn’t genuine and grips the heart

Winter’s hard, so have some pancakes”

—

It’s the plight of the up-and-coming rapper that sometimes the most notable thing you can do is rap whilst making pancakes.

Kansas’ own Mac Lethal is clearly talented. He’s got flow that rivals Twista in terms of pace and cleverness, and he’s got a loyal following. He continues to tour around the US. He’s made a career that most aspiring rappers will never make for themselves.

Yet he’s still the guy who makes funny YouTube videos (he also posts hilarious text conversations with his maybe-made-up cousin Bennett on Tumblr, and later wrote a whole book about it).

Rap, for all its ease of access, is still a market, and not everyone’s shtick is going to have mass appeal. Some rappers are legendary hitmakers, others are one hit wonders, but most find themselves somewhere in between.

Maybe one day Mac Lethal gets the credit he deserves, but only time will tell.

Kentucky

Artist – CunningLynguists

Years Active – 2000-Present

Notable Track – Linguistics

Sample Rhyme:

“If you know you’re gonna die why step?

Show no mercy when bruising crews

You get hit with more bricks than New Jerus

Riddles confusing fools like Confucian rules

Cause most cats are most squared than Rubik’s Cubes”

—

Rap isn’t always about who you know, nor is it always a matter of the-more-you-give-the-more-you-get. Some artists come up with a great pedigree, plenty of experience and money, and still don’t make it.

CunningLynguists hail from Kentucky and through various incarnations have been working toward something like stardom for all of the 21st century. They’ve worked with other artists on this list and collaborated and toured with many more.

Still, like Kansas’ Mac Lethal, it’s never that easy. CunningLynguists fall into a vague middle ground in rap. Their sound is reminiscent of southern rap (indeed, some of the founding members were from Atlanta) but with an indie twist. This isn’t rap music being played to the back row of stadiums. It’s smaller, denser and gets better the more you listen to it.

Unfortunately, again like Lethal, they’ve yet to find a toehold in the national rap conversation. Perhaps a name change would do them good.

Louisiana

Artist – Lil Wayne

Years Active – 1996-Present

Notable Album – The Carter III

Sample Rhyme (from the track “6 Foot 7 Foot”):

“Life is the bitch, and death is her sister

Sleep is the cousin what a fuckin family picture

You know Father Time, and we all know Mother Nature

It’s all in the family but I am of no relation

No matter who’s buyin, I’m a celebration

Black and white diamonds, fuck segregation

Fuck that shit, my money up, you n*ggaz just Honey Nut

Young Money runnin shit and you n*ggaz just runner-ups

I don’t feel I done enough so I’ma keep on doin this shit

Lil Tunechi or Young Tunafish”

—

Is it fair to call Lil Wayne, arguably one of the two or three best rappers of his generation, a tragic figure?

Yes, he’s released multiple gold and platinum albums, has had 120 songs appear in Billboard’s Top 100 (more than any other individual artist) and can even release a disastrous rock album without losing an ounce of credibility.

He also struggled through childhood — shooting himself accidentally at age 12 and dropping out of a gifted high school program two years later — and frequently found himself in either a hospital room or jail cell in adulthood.

The perseverance it has taken for Lil Wayne to move on and continue to either release his own material or, as he does frequently, collaborate with other artists is unimaginable. By all rights, he should take a cue from Jay Z and enjoy the considerable success he’s earned. Instead he’s still promising to release The Carter V at some point in the near future.

To his credit, Wayne has promised that it will be his last album. He plans on retiring before his 35th birthday in order to have the time to spend with his four kids.

Maine

Artist – Spose

Years Active – 2004-Present

Notable Track – “The King of Maine”

Sample Rhyme:

“I’m from the 420 minus 213

I’m on the throne if you’re looking for who to unseat

I got moose blood in my goblet, lobsters in my optics

I’m live on the map where the dudes don’t rap”

—

For those readers who have not experienced the pleasures of Maine: Spose is the kind of rapper you might expect from the Lower 48’s northernmost state.

The Wells native essentially provides us with a turbo-powered, slightly more sincere version of Idaho’s official state rap (see above). He’s a professional though, and goes about making a case for his home state with some skill.

Again, though, it falls into the same category of music as Idaho’s song. It’s a joke, told specifically for the people of Maine to understand and for the rest of us to kind of shrug off confusedly.

Based on the YouTube comments though, Spose seems to nail what makes Maine Maine, and even to us outsiders it’s clear that he’s got the skill to succeed, even coming from as small a market as the Pine Tree State.

Spose’s fourth album Why Am I So Happy?  came out in 2015, so clearly he’s doing something right.

Maryland

Artist – Oddisee

Years Active – 1999-Present

Notable Album – People Hear What They See

Sample Rhyme (from the track “That’s Love”):

“And here we are again, just confronting fears

Whether pain, or gain, it’s a bunch of tears

Blood, sweat, and peers, probably disappear

When smoke starts to clear, their persistence near

Pay attention to the folks who’re fanning the glames

They’re the ones who matter most in the gravity game

When stakes weigh you down and they stay around

And pick up pieces and you off the ground

That’s love.”

—

This is the first — but not the last — time where we might be accused of cheating on this list.

Oddisee — real name Amir Elkhalifa — was born and raised in Maryland, but he really came to prominence as a leading light in Washington, DC’s music scene. He represents Maryland while honoring a lot of the funk and Go-Go traditions of the city he’s adopted.

Growing up in a wealthy suburb of the nation’s capital, Oddisee didn’t know a lot of hardship. While he was a rap fan all his life, he related more to the likes of A Tribe Called Quest and Eric B. & Rakim, rappers whose music didn’t orbit around violence or drugs.

As a result, Oddisee’s raps cover a whole rainbow of issues, ranging from familial love to poverty.

His rhymes are refreshing and unique and made better by his unique take on production. Indeed, Oddisee will release instrumental albums almost as often as he does pure rap albums, a reflection of his myriad abilities within the art form.

Massachusetts

Artist – Guru

Years Active – 1986-2010

Notable Album – Daily Operation (as one half of Gang Starr)

Sample Rhyme:

“You know I used to be a player, fly girl layer and a

heartbreaker

Lovemaker, backbreaker but then I made a

Mistake yes I fell in love with this ill chick

Sweating me for money, my name and the dilsnick”

—

Though he made a name for himself on his own, MC Guru was originally one half of the legendary hip hop duo Gang Starr, along with DJ Premier.

Gang Starr were an influential force in rap on the East Coast when they were at their heights in the early 1990s, a story made all the more exceptional due to the fact Guru originally hailed from Boston — not exactly the United States’ most well known rap city.

Guru formed Gang Starr in 1986 with several other producers and rappers, but barely three years later he was the sole remaining member. He would recruit PJ Premier to be the other half of the rejuvenated group just before signing with Chrysalis Records.

The UK-based label encouraged Gang Starr’s underground roots and went on to help release several albums, each of which forms another foundation block in 90s era rap.

While Gang Starr faded, Guru stayed in the game and released music under his own name right up until he tragically died of a heart attack in 2010.

Michigan

Artist – Danny Brown

Years Active – 2003-Present

Notable Album – Old (2013)

Sample Rhyme:

“While she listen to the oldie soap operas smoking bogies

On the phone gossiping telling homegirls stories

Girlfriend worries cause her son’s in a hurry

To see the state pen or a cemetery buried

Ma replied do her best but it’s still rough”

—

Alright, the elephant in the room, so to speak: Michigan’s best rapper isn’t Eminem, at least not on this list. Danny Brown needed to be represented. For those Shady loyalists, don’t worry: he’ll somehow appear later in this list.

Now, Danny Brown. Maybe you’ve heard of him? You should have heard from him. He’s great.

Rap’s appeal has broadened a lot over the last decade or two, but it doesn’t usually work so well as a crossover platform. Rap is rap. Maybe it co-mingles with R&B, but really it’s its own animal.

Danny Brown is the exception. He and his producers have a healthy appreciation for club culture, and it’s easy to hear the influence of EDM on his music.

This makes sense for a Detroit-based rapper. The city is responsible for creating the American middle class as well as some of the earliest examples of electronic music in the country.

Detroit is as present in Brown’s raps as anything else. Though his EDM roots make him surprisingly danceable, his songs are often sober reflections on life in a struggling city.

Minnesota

Artist – P.O.S.

Years Active – 2001-Present

Notable Album – Audition

Sample Rhyme (from “Stand Up (Let’s Get Murdered)”):

“See, you can’t fight a feeling. I feel terrified

There’s a war against me, my friends, my fam, my pride

My life, my job, my likes and like-minded

Folks are like, “Psh” like they just don’t mind it

So I’m cool, right?

They wag the dog. We catch the lipstick

What kind of city plumber thought that he could make these old and rusty pipes fit?

Well, they don’t. I’m catching the drip

I’ll practice holdin’ my breath, then sink with the ship”

—

Long before Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton were running for president, Minneapolis’ P.O.S. (short for Pissed Off Steph) was railing against the establishment. He spent the bulk of the 00s releasing tracks like “Stand Up (Let’s Get Murdered),” a sharp-tongued critique of the (then) Bush administration and a system that seemed like it was rigged against the average American citizen.

Were his complaints overblown? Maybe a little, but you have to remember this was at the height of the post 9/11/Iraq War/Great Recession era and to those paying attention it was hard not to think that someone somewhere was getting screwed over.

The important part for our purposes is that P.O.S. made some excellent rap. It was violent and angry yet thoughtful, a worthy tribute to the 90s Rage Against the Machine and a precursor (though likely not a direct influence of) the likes of conspiratorially-minded rappers like El-P and Killer Mike.

Mississippi

Artist – Rae Sremmurd

Years Active – 2005-Present

Notable Album – SremmLife (2015)

Sample Rhyme:

“Chop the top off the Porsche, that’s a headless horse

Extendo long as an extension cord

Bitch, I ball like Jordan and I play full court

And if you not my type then you know I gotta keep this shit short

What you know about a checK? What you got up in your pocket?

What you spending when you shopping, dawg?

Why you wanna go flex? Like you all in the mix

Like you got some shit poppin’ off

I got some models that you see up in the movies

And they want to make a flick for the camera

Wanna be Kim Kardashian, heard I was livin’ like a bachelor”

—

Those old enough to remember the mid-90s might be tempted to compare the youthful rap duo Rae Sremmurd with Kriss Kross. That wouldn’t be entirely fair however, as the latter were sort of gimmicky and wore their pants backwards for some reason.

Rae Sremmurd, in contrast, simply built off their older peers, creating some fun rap that can be enjoyed by both young and old.

Their story’s not half bad either. Given that Tupelo, Mississippi is something of a rap hinterland, the pair (then a trio) had to work exceptionally hard to get noticed. They played parties and bars, saving money to make trips to various competitions and venues before they finally came into contact with a record label willing to sign them.

A year later their effort paid off when Sremmlife was released in January 2015. The debut album was an near-immediate hit, reaching number one on Billboard’s rap and hip hop charts.

Missouri

Artist – Eminem

Years Active – 1992-Present

Notable Album – The Marshall Mathers LP (2000)

Sample Rhyme:

“The soul’s escaping through this hole that is gaping

This world’s mine for the taking, make me king

As we move toward a New World Order

A normal life is boring; but superstardom’s

Close to post-mortem, it only grows harder

Home grows hotter, he blows it’s all over

These hoes is all on him, coast to coast shows

He’s known as the Globetrotter, lonely roads

God only knows, he’s grown farther from home, he’s no father

He goes home and barely knows his own daughter”

—

As we mentioned in the Michigan slide, Eminem’s location on this list is a bit of a cheat. While the rapper came up and very much raps about a life in Detroit, he was originally born in St. Joseph, Missouri. He would split his time between his home state and Michigan for much of his childhood.

Eminem’s appearance here does a small disservice to some rappers who came up in Missouri. Tech N9ne in Kansas City, Nelly and Chiny from St Louis and a few others are being left out to make space for Mr. Mathers.

But Eminem’s too popular and marks too big a milestone in the genre to simply skip. His star might have faded somewhat from the heights of The Slim Shady LP and The Marshall Mathers LP, but he’s still a force within rap.

Beyond his considerable talent, Eminem stood out in those early years for being white. While far from the only white rapper out there at the time, he was the first to really break through with a mass appeal. For many — particularly in the whiter parts of America — his obnoxious and crude witticisms and bratty behavior made him more accessible than rappers who focused on drugs and violence and unjust treatment by the police.

Now, there’s something to be said about the fact it took Eminem for white America to appreciate the rap genre instead of, say, the dozens of black rappers who came before him who were as good and likely better. But that’s perhaps a discussion for a different slideshow.

Montana

Artist – French Montana

Years Active – 2007-Present

Notable Track – “Pop That”

Sample Rhyme:

“What you twerkin’ with?”

—

Here are some pertinent facts about the state of Montana:

-Montana is the fourth biggest state in the United States in terms of area

-Montana has the 44th largest population in the U.S.

-Montana ranks 48th in population density among U.S. states

-Montana doesn’t have any rappers

Three of those four facts are easy to come by, census data type stuff. One of them is a less concrete fact, but rather one that we can only assume after spending almost an hour Googling for an answer. Guess which is which!

In any case, we’re going to have to cheat really hard here. Elsewhere on this list we’ve taken rappers known to have come up in a particularly state or city and cast them instead in the state they were born in. Here, we’re going to be forced to make the most specious of connections in order to get this slide filled out.

French Montana is not from Montana. He wasn’t even born in the United States. He hails from Morocco.

Even his stage name isn’t an allusion to the state, but rather an attempt to link himself with Scarface anti-hero Tony Montana.

For all his lack of actual Montana-ness, French Montana is still a notable member of the circa-2016 rap pantheon. He’s a master collaborator with connections across rap’s geographical reach.

That he’s accomplished all this despite the fact that he and his family didn’t move to the U.S. until he was 14 years old makes French Montana’s story in the rap scene resemble the American Dream. Anyone can come to these shores and get the chance to party with Rick Ross, Lil Wayne and Drake deserves a place on this list. Even if we had to cheat to get him here.

Nebraska

Artist – Mars Black

Years Active – 2008-Present

Notable Track – “Scotch on the Rocks”

Sample Rhyme:

“Black label president, I’m also a member

Hope to get thick baby, word to my gender

Making it hot in the middle of December

Oh you forgot? Don’t you remember?

We were rockin’ jams, me and my man

Mike and Ham

Over beatbox or a live band”

—

Omaha, Nebraska is a strangely fertile little island of music in the dead center of the United States’ Midwest.

Saddle Creek Records directly or indirectly fostered the development of a crazy amount of indie music darlings. Bright Eyes, the Faint, Jenny Lewis, Cursive and many others found their start with the Omaha-based label.

To those readers in the know, none of those aforementioned acts are even remotely “rap.” They’re all either folk or punk or rock or a combination of the three. No rap.

That doesn’t mean that some rap culture hasn’t grown up alongside Saddle Creek and the like. Indeed, a small group of artists came up through Omaha and the environs through the 1970s and 80s that ended up presiding over a small but significant underground scene.

The legacy of that early Omaha rap scene is Mars Black. The Brooklyn-born rapper has earned some notoriety in recent years, thanks in some small part to his association with Conor Oberst.

The latter is the lead singer of Bright Eyes and Omaha’s beloved son, arguably the city’s most well-known musician. His label, Team Love, signed Mars Black as its only rapper back in the early 00s. Thus Omaha’s music scene continues to evolve.

Nevada

Artist – Feeki

Years Active – 2010?-Present

Notable Track – “You Know You Like It”

Sample Rhyme:

“Really fuck the fame I really just wanna motivate

Hard work motherfucker now you know my game

I see this generation fucking filled with all entitlement

These lazy motherfuckers get me heated like a solar pane”

—

Of all places in Nevada, you would think that its most (read: only) notable rapper would come from Las Vegas. It’s a city of excess, vulgarity and seemingly endless prosperity. Those sounds like ingredients to making a wonderful rapper.

Of course, those that live in or near Vegas aren’t exactly living the glamorous lives that the tourists might when they come through the desert oasis. Indeed, not too far out of Vegas city limits the realities (sometimes grim) of the rest of the country become readily apparent.

Feeki comes out of Reno, Vegas’ under-respected little brother. Appropriately enough, Feeki isn’t the kind of rapper to front. He’s earnest and positive and can rock a mullet that doesn’t come off as all that ironic. He raps about life and ambition and not getting discouraged.

Like so many other rappers on this list, particularly rappers from those states that might not be anxiously awaiting The Next Big Things, Feeki’s gotta work to get his name out there, and he works hard. It’s nearly impossible not to root for him.

New Hampshire

Artist – Roots of Creation

Years Active – 2014?

Notable Track – “Summer in the 603”

Sample Rhyme:

“When the sun is blazing and the summer gets hot

We don’t take it for granite that our home state rocks

You got the drive-in in Milford

Meadowbrook up in Gilford

Damn I miss Benton’s animal farm, that place was the illest”

—

This humble writer admits to not having much pride in his home state. Yes, it’s quite beautiful, and the wineries and hiking trails and, increasingly, breweries are all wonderful, but nothing about Virginia has ever really compelled me to want to break into song.

If the rap scene serves as any sort of barometer, then it can be said with some confidence that — contrary to this writer’s attitude — state pride is at its highest levels since the Civil War.

While your more mainstream rappers — your Lil Waynes and your Kendricks and your Outkasts — are more global, many rappers from smaller markets don’t have the luxury of speaking to a wider audience. They have to rap about what they know to people who also know what they know. Hence the preponderance of rappers on this list who have a lot to say about the virtues of their home state.

New Hampshire’s Roots of Creation really get into the minutiae of what makes the Granite State so wonderful to them, and to outsiders it all comes off as something close to gibberish. Hopefully making songs like this gets them the local press they need to eventually be able to rap about wider, more universal themes.

New Jersey

Artist – Lauryn Hill

Years Active – 1993-Present

Notable Album – The Miseducation of Lauryn  Hill

Sample Rhyme:

“It’s been three weeks since you were looking for your friend

The one you let hit it and never called you again

Member when he told you he was bout the Benjamins?

You act like you ain’t hear him, then give him a little trim”

—

The primary emotion many people have these days in regard to Lauryn Hill is some combination of regret and nostalgia.

She got her start in East Orange, New Jersey. While still in high school she joined a group that would eventually become known as the Fugees. The band would go on to become one of the standout names of mid-90s R&B and hip hop.

Riding on the wave of fame Fugees offered her, Hill broke off to record a solo record in 1997. The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill was released the following year and became an instant classic.

Her style owed itself to many early 90s female MCs like Salt-n-Pepa as well as male rappers like Ice Cube, and her ability to seamlessly transition between singing and rapping made her music stand out all the more.

Songs like “Doo-Wop (That Thing)” are now iconic 90s songs, and by all rights should have been followed by further songs that helped define the era they came out in. But Miseducation was the last true album Hill ever produced, barring a poorly received MTV Unplugged album in 2001.

New Mexico

Artist – Wake Self

Years Active – 2014?

Notable Track – “New Mexico”

Sample Rhyme:

“We got the best chile

That’s the truth really

I’m from Albuquerque, por que Duke City?

It’s more than a show about cooking meth

that you know from television”

—

The nearly 69,000 views Wake Self has on his video for the single “New Mexico” might represent the entire population of the state for all we know. Who else but overly ambitious writers would be searching for this video and then actually watching it?

Wake Self delivers yet another song for this list that seems like it could have been written by the state government’s in-house travel agency.

To his credit, the production levels are actually good here, and the photography really sells the state’s beauty.

A particular line in the song actually cuts to the heart of what raps like this are all about. To paraphrase: New Mexico doesn’t have any professional sports teams. Those of us who grew up in or near even a modest metropolis will find this an entirely alien concept. What does it mean to grow up in a place where thousands of your neighbors and fellow citizens don’t weekly — or even daily — convene in an arena and all shout for the same cause?

Wake Self and so many others on this list don’t have that type of community to feed off of. It’s no wonder they turn to rap, and in particular rap songs about their states.

New York

Artist – The Notorious B.I.G.

Years Active – 1992-1997

Notable Album – Ready to Die, 1994

Sample Rhyme:

“Poppa been smooth since the days of Underroos

Never lose, never choose to, bruise crews who

Do something to us, talk go through us

Girls walk to us, wanna do us, screw us”

—

Christopher George Latore Wallace was born in New York City in 1972 to Jamaican parents. He would come up in Brooklyn, excelling at school (particularly in English) while simultaneously dealing drugs. He eventually dropped out in favor of the latter pursuit, a decision that later resulted in nine months spent in jail for dealing crack cocaine.

He came into rap before he was out of his teens, and released his first (and only) album Ready to Die when he was 22 years old. It was an instant hit, big enough to re-calibrate the poles of rap music back toward the East Coast.

That success would be relatively short lived. Biggie was murdered in 1997 while visiting Los Angeles, just six months after his West Coast rival Tupac Shakur suffered the same fate in Las Vegas.

Given how short his career was, Biggie Smalls was wildly influential. He set the standard for how large (no pun intended) a rapper could be, both in reputation and in lifestyle and ability. His rhymes remain gospel to virtually any aspiring rapper coming up today, regardless if they hail from the East Coast or not.

Contrast Biggie’s accomplishments and his legacy formed in half a decade with the two decades Jay-Z — the man who would be listed here were it not for Biggie — had, and he becomes even more remarkable. With just a single solo album released in his lifetime, he set trends and styles that will last for decades to come.

North Carolina

Artist – J. Cole

Years Active – 2007-Present

Notable Album – Cole World: The Inside Story

Sample Rhyme:

“I like to write alone, be in my zone

Think back to Forest Hills, no perfect home

But the only thing like home I’ve ever known

Until they snatched it from my mama and foreclosed her on the loan

I’m so sorry that I left you there to deal with that alone”

—

Born in West Germany, J. Cole and his mother eventually made his way to Fayettesville, North Carolina, where he would spend the rest of his childhood.

Like Biggie, Cole was an exceptional student, eventually graduating and attending college in New York City. His interest in rap coincided with his education, and shortly after he returned home to North Carolina his future was laid out before him.

A mixtape released in 2009 caught the ear of Jay-Z, who included Cole on a track for Blueprint 3 and signed him to Roc Nation.

Since then Cole’s career has been nothing but ascendant. He’s the true modern rapper in a lot of ways. He got his start with Jay-Z, but being from North Carolina he’s also worked with southern rap icons like B.o.B. For good measure, he produced a track for Kendrick Lamar’s 2011 album Section.80 (and is working on a long-delayed joint album with the L.A. native) as well as touring with R&B luminary Rihanna.

More than virtually any other active rapper on this list, Cole’s got his fingers in virtually all of rap’s pies.

North Dakota

Artist – Wiz Khalifa

Years Active – 2005-Present

Notable Album – Rolling Papers

Sample Rhyme:

“Damn, who knew

All the planes we flew

Good things we been through

That I’d be standing right here talking to you

‘Bout another path

I know we loved to hit the road and laugh

But something told me that it wouldn’t last”

—

Another bit of cheating on our part here. Wiz Khalifa is much more closely associated with Pittsburgh, Pennslyvania, about which he wrote his hit song “Black and Yellow.” He was born in Minot, North Dakota, however, while his father was stationed there as part of his army service. He would live overseas for much of his childhood before eventually settling in Pittsburgh.

Still, we gotta fill North Dakota somehow. Midwestern rappers tend to cluster, understandably, around the region’s bigger metropolises, and sadly neither of the Dakotas are known for their city life.

Khalifa came up through the same rap graduating class, so to speak, as J. Cole, first appearing on the scene in the waning years of the first decade of the 21st century.

Though Khalifa remains a presence within rap, his two peaks have come in unique ways relative to many others on this list.

The first came with the aforementioned song “Black and Yellow,” which was released right at the beginning of a NFL season that would see the Pittsburgh Steelers reach the Super Bowl come February. Khalifa’s tribute to his adopted hometown understandably became ubiquitous, especially in and around the city itself.

The second came with 2015’s release of the movie Furious 7. Franchise star Paul Walker died in an unrelated car accident in the middle of filming, and the filmmakers saw fit to honor the actor with an appropriately touching ending, soundtracked by the song “See You Again,” written and performed by Khalifa featuring Charlie Puth.

By the end of the year the song was the best selling single worldwide, and Khalifa’s mark was again made not by a landmark album or statement verse, but by the co-mingling of rap and another cultural medium.

Ohio

Artist – Why?

Years Active – 2004-Present

Notable Album – Alopecia, 2008

Sample Rhyme (from “The Fall of Mr. Fifths”):

“Just another Sunday paddle boat ride

On a man made lake with another lady stranger

If I remain lost and die on a cross

Well at least I wasn’t born in a manger

I can sense somewhere right now

I’m being prayed for

Seems like I always arrive on the same shore

From where my sails set maybe

with one less lady than my vessel left with

Is that a threat?”

—

Nope, you’ve not heard of Why?, and that’s okay. Yoni Wolf’s rap “band” — based in Oakland, California, but originally out of Ohio — is still very indie despite having released four albums since 2005.

Listening to the song above, it might immediately become clear why you haven’t heard of Why? He’s not your typical rapper, put lightly. His delivery can be monotone, his subject matter esoteric at best. He raps about boredom, about infatuation, about depression, about his battles with Crohn’s disease. Taken together as an album, it might derogatorily be referred to as dense or, worse, arty.

And it is. There’s a slight bit of pretension to Why?’s whole shtick. It’s meant to be a little alienating to someone who is only casually listening. But further listens are rewarding. Stories unfurl, the rhymes and allusions become sharper and more devastating.

In sum, it’s well worth the effort to love Why?

Oklahoma

Artist – Okie Boy Goons

Years Active – 2012?

Notable Track – “OK City”

Sample Rhyme:

“Yeah y’all know me, the Okie boy from the East side

I stay higher than that tree holding that bee hive

There ain’t nothing like OKC, like nothing like where I’m from

There ain’t nothing like OKC, like nothing like where I’m from

There ain’t nothing like OKC, like nothing like where I’m from”

—

This man has a tattoo of Oklahoma on his face, as in: without expensive surgery there’s no way that Okie Boy Goons looks into the mirror ever again without being reminded of his home state.

Another fun fact is that roughly half the run time of “OK City” is spent naming different towns in Oklahoma. It’s an exhaustive list, one that you have to believe gets to any settlement of note in the Sooner State.

You’d be wrong if you thought that, though. The production company of this video promised earlier this month that a remix is coming out “featuring even MORE CITIES in OKLAHOMA.”

All of which is to say that Okie Boy Goons is trying his best to bring his inclusive style of rap to even more Okies.

Oregon

Artist – Illmaculate

Years Active – 2010s

Notable Track – “New Chain”

Sample Rhyme:

“My surrounding’s a warzone

The trees watching, police choppers, concrete cracks beneath my feet walking

Dream big, I’m asleep but I sing conscious

She feed me grapes while she draped like a Greek goddess

Christ-like, walked water and seemed flawless”

—

Interpret this how you will, but Illmaculate is … really good. Not that any of the other rappers you’ve never heard of on this list aren’t good. Plenty of them are just fine! A few of them might even be worth listening to again, particularly if you intend to visit the state they’re rapping about.

Illmaculate is like getting hooked up to an oxygen mask after wading through the states of the Midwest and New England. His flow is smooth and maybe his rhymes aren’t incredible, but this is still some seriously impressive stuff from a rapper who, by all appearances, still makes the rounds at rap battle competitions.

He’s not rapping about how beautiful Oregon’s pine forests are, or even how great the donuts are in Portland (really great). Being a Native American — like a real one, not just the 1/15 Cherokee we all think we are — he’s got a unique perspective and the skill to flesh it out for us.

Illmaculate’s so good that it’s almost discouraging. Why don’t we know more about this guy? Why isn’t he getting guest verses instead of, say, Big Sean?

Pennsylvania

Artist – Mac Miller

Years Active – 2007-Present

Notable Album – GO:OD AM, 2015

Sample Rhyme (from the track “Weekend”):

“I been having trouble sleeping

Battling these demons

Wondering what’s the thing that

keeps me breathing

Is it money, fame or neither?

I been thinking about the places

that I frequent

All the people that I see

I’m just out here livin’ decent

What do it mean to be a G

And all the time we fall behind, bitch’s in the concubine, I call her mine, crazy”

—

Precociousness is a quality that’s usually reserved more for pop stars than rappers, but there’s something to be said about a young kid trying to scrape a career together even as he’s still working his way through high school.

Pennsylvania’s Mac Miller began rapping at age 14, quickly catching the attention of some influential figures. Miller would release his first mixtapes at age 17 and join Wiz Khalifa as one of the biggest names on local label Rostrum Records by the time he graduated high school.

Since then he’s stayed busy, touring and releasing albums — including last year’s critically acclaimed GO:OD AM.

Rhode Island

Artist – araabMUZIK

Years Active – 2005-Present

Notable Album – Dream World (2016)

Sample Rhyme:

*drum machine*

—

Alright, another slight bit of cheating. AraabMUZIK isn’t a rapper. Rather, he’s a producer. He’s worked with countless rappers, including Cam’ron, 50 Cent, ASAP Rocky and Azealia Banks.

His mixture of quick beats, drum machine high hats and background strings puts him firmly at the center of trap music — essentially a cross-pollination between rap and EDM.

The original meaning of the term was used to describe the moody content of the verses as the tracks they were rapped over. AraabMUZIK’s Abraham Orellana — actually of Dominican and Guatemalan ancestry, despite his chosen DJ name — produces raps in the style and also his unique instrumental take on the subgenre of trap.

His only official album Dream World sees AraabMUZIK laying down tracks for a variety of guest artists to sing or rap over, but his earlier mixtapes skewed strongly toward the EDM scene. For Professional Use Only stands out as an excellent example of what trap can be when it’s just music alone.

Tragically, Orellana was shot in the head on a botched robbery attempt in New York in February of this year, right before Dream World was released. According to the most recently available reports, his recovery is going well.

South Carolina

Artist – Jeezy

Years Active – 1998-Present

Notable Album – Seen It All: The Autobiography

Sample Rhyme (from the track “Me OK”):

“Had you cashing out, paying for, you can’t pronounce the name

Had that Murcielago, it was green like margaritas

I sold yayo, I sold albums, might as well sell some tequila

Dropped so many Lambos, thought I was a Lambassador

Snow, it’s been a while, yeah, you know them streets missed you

I don’t eat, sleep or shit without my motherfuckin’ pistol”

—

Jeezy — then Young Jeezy — didn’t start out in rap expecting to rap. He was a suit, a label representative, a promoter. He worked for Cash Money Records around the turn of the century.

Being around the game — particularly that of his adopted hometown of Atalanta — inspired Jeezy to eventually start releasing his own material. When his material found traction in the rap scene, he quit the business end entirely and focused on becoming a rapper in his own right.

The last years of the 21st century’s first decade were Jeezy’s pinnacle. He released four albums and mix tapes from 2005 to 2008, capped by his ominously titled album Recession.

A diagnosis of bells palsy delayed any further production, but when he did come back he came back hard. Seen It All: The Autobiography came out in 2014 and might be his best material to date.

South Dakota

Artist – Various

Years Active – 2012?

Notable Track – “WTF!?? South Dakota Rappers (cypher)”

Sample Rhyme (from Frank Villon):

“I’m Charles Bronson bitch, with blood soaked pajamas on

You get in the tranq while I’m getting my cannon on

To many Mickeys all night and you think you can pick a fight

Y’all watching me till I’m outside of your window like, ‘Hello'”

—

Underground rap communities are a fairly unique thing in music. The infrastructure and logistics to, say, start a garage band aren’t always practical. Even the world’s many aspiring DJs need to be able to afford a semi-decent laptop.

Rap, in contrast, doesn’t need all that much to begin to sprout. A community center, an open mike night, a closed-for-the-day bookstore … these are all venues where communities can gather and experiment or dazzle or just practice.

South Dakota — and so many other states in the union — seems particularly ripe for this kind of development. It’s not as if there’s a market in Sioux Falls for rappers to regularly perform on stage. So instead they gather in loose groups and battle, record and support each other. It’s a comforting and encouraging thing to see rap emerge out of even the most sparsely populated places.

Tennessee

Artist – Three 6 Mafia

Years Active – 1991-Present

Notable Album – Most Known Unknown

Sample Rhyme:

“Now when it comes to getting bread I got the keys to the bakery

A lot of dudes wear they play, man they some fackery

Let me catch a girl up out some work in my site

And I believe I’m gon be atcha in the daylight with a flashlight

I’m trying to get paid however money is made”

—

Three 6 Mafia have lived more lives than perhaps any other entity in rap. They originated in Memphis in 1991 as a sort of horror-themed group, in the same way that Wu Tang Clan is kung fu themed. DJ Paul and Juicy J were two of the founding members, and the two members who stuck with the group the longest as others came and went.

Over the next 25 years, the Three 6 Mafia would have its ups and downs. For the most part they could never escape the “underground” label they started with, and their releases were never embraced the same way other acts were.

They did, however, win an Academy Award for their song “It’s Hard Out Here for Pimp,” used on the soundtrack for the movie Hustle & Flow. 

They would never reach such heights again. In-fighting and delays hurt their momentum, and to date they have not been able to work their way back into the limelight.

Texas

Artist – Scarface

Years Active – 1980s-Present

Notable Album – Mr. Scareface is Back

Sample Rhyme:

“Our lifestyles be close captained

Addicted to fatal attractions

Pictures of actions be played back

In the midst of mashin’

No fairy tales for this young black male

Some see me stranded in this land of hell, jail and crack sales.”

—

In the waning years of the 80s and start of the 90s, Houston’s Geto Boys and later Scarface carved out their own piece of the rap pie between the East Coast and West Coast rivalry. Scarface was among the first representatives of southern rap, and as such played a tremendous part in the development of the subgenre in the decades to come.

More than any song he recorded, Scarface’s legacy will be his leadership in those early years in Houston and his ability to bridge the divide between East and West. He would earn national notoriety and, eventually, become the lead in Def Jam’s southern division. Acting in that capacity, he signed Ludacris in 1999.

Unlike other rappers who reached his level, Scarface never strayed far from his Houston roots, releasing music irregularly and occasionally teaming up with the Insane Clown Posse for their Gathering of the Juggalos.

Utah

Artist – Jamesthemormon

Years Active – 2016?

Notable Track – “Motivation”

Sample Rhyme:

“Trying to buy my great grandkid a house

So I can say I got ’em even when I’m out

That’s the only thing that matters to me now

I pay no mind to the haters cause they’re only talking shop

Put a drive on those and don’t stop until I say so

Gotta turn these tracks into pesos”

—

It doesn’t seem like the holy land of the Church of Latter Day Saints would ever inspire anyone to rap. Maybe pick up a guitar. Maybe write a few lines to a poem. But definitely not rap.

That’s admittedly a pretty narrow view. While Mormonism has a reputation for being very conservative, there’s still plenty of room in 2016 within conservatism for something like rap.

That’s particularly true when the church is aggressively trying to inspire a new generation to follow in their parents’ footsteps. Not to be too cynical, but rap in the right hands is an excellent marketing tool.

To Jamesthemormon’s credit, he’s not half bad at what he’s setting out to do. He and his posse have the aesthetics of rap down to a T, so much so that you might not even notice that he’s rapping about wanting to have a family and settle down instead of about inner city life, sex or violence.

Vermont

Artist – X10

Years Active – 2007?

Notable Track – “802”

Sample Rhyme:

“Up and Vermont, this is how we do

We got one area code and it’s 802

Green mountain state where we roll on skis

Don’t mess with our cows or we’re break your knees”

—

One last parody rap video, and this time it’s actually somewhat notable.

X10 — the name of a couple of bratty looking dudes who probably rue the day they decided to foray into rap — released their “hit” song “802” in 2007, making it perhaps the very first example of white people making a funny by rapping about inane things.

For being such an early example of the “artform,” the song isn’t all bad. It’s got some depreciating humor and a bunch of punchlines that even those of us who are from outside Vermont might get. It’s got some nice landmarks that were only marred by the terrible quality of the production equipment.

And it’s got a couple white dudes. This was all well past Vanilla Ice and Eminem, but still the idea that a couple white dudes would rap was just funny enough to a significant segment of the population to rack up what, at the time, must have been a huge number of views.

Virginia

Artist – Pusha T

Years Active – 1992-Present

Notable Album – My Name if My Name

Sample Rhyme (from the track “King Push”):

“Vultures to my culture

Exploit the struggle, insult ya

They name dropping about caine copping

But never been a foot soldier

Let’s have another look, just get a little closer

Rage against the machine, black Zack de la Rocha

In a cranberry Rossta, inside track

on the G rap poster

Best d-boy all I’m missing is a dash

Difference between me and Hova”

—

Virginia originally went to Missy Eliott. She gets a big honorable mention — an absolute legend in rap.

Pusha T, though. It’s impossible not to include the President of G.O.O.D. Music on this list. If only he was, however improbably, born in Idaho or Wyoming, this would be so much easier.

But he wasn’t. He was actually born in the Bronx, New York City, and relocated to Norfolk, Virginia as a child.

Hampton Roads in the 80s and 90s was a shockingly fertile ground for rappers. Not only is it responsible for the development of Pusha and Missy, but Timbaland and Pharrell both also came up in the suburbs of Norfolk and Virginia Beach.

Being in such close proximity, it’s no wonder they would team up. Pharrell produced for Pusha and his brother (No Malice) when they worked together as Clipse, including on their hit single “Grindin'”.

Pusha would move onto his own solo career, launched in part by his friendship with Kanye West. The Chicago rapper would go on to produce a good chunk of Pusha’s solo debut commercial release, My Name is My Name. It was that album that put Pusha on the map as a master lyricist.

Washington

Artist – Macklemore

Years Active – 2000-Present

Notable Album – The Heist

Sample Rhyme:

“One man’s trash, that’s another man’s come up

Thank your granddad for donating that plaid button-up

shirt, cause right now I’m up in here stunting

I’m at the Goodwill, you can find me in the bins”

—

As we approach the end of the this list, it feels about the right time to address a prevalent theme: a lot of these rappers are white guys. That is far from intentional, but it is a reflection of the changing-but-still-majority status of white people in the United States.

Currently, as Eminem’s star begins to fade, Macklemore is perhaps the most well known white rapper in the country.

The Seattle native came onto the scene as an uneasy mixture of Social Conscious Rapper and Joke Rapper. Such a pairing is basically cat nip for your average white person, and consequently when Macklemore finally found traction in the early ’10s his career skyrocketed.

His YouTube hits are tremendous — nearly a billion alone for the above video for “Thrift Shop” — and he swept the Best Rap Album, Best New Artist, Best Rap Performance and Best Rap Song Grammy Awards in the same year that Kendrick Lamar released his masterpiece, Good Kid, M.A.A.D. City. That latter fact might be the saddest on this list.

West Virginia

Artist – Mini Thin

Years Active – 2009?

Notable Track – Hillbilly Murda

Sample Rhyme:

See I gotta be real

Can’t come fake on this track

When you see Mini Thin the whole state’s on his back

I got love for you cats whether you white or you black

And I’ll murder whoever don’t put my state on the map

—

There’s something to be said for embracing the labels others apply to you and rolling with them. In some ways, that is a core concept of rap culture. True to the culture he’s adopted, Mini Thin does just that.

West Virginia’s stuck in a strange place both geographically and culturally. Crammed between historic north and south, and so dependent on the coal it mines that it has at times in its history resembled a feudal state.

Straddling the Appalachians as it does, many residents of West Virginia have (unfairly) been labeled as hillbillies, when in fact that pejorative could just as easily be applied to residents of Virginia, Ohio, Maryland or Kentucky.

Mini Thin revels in the hillbilly label, using it as a jumping off point to defend his state and prove just how hard he’s repping it. He can be forgiven if he veers a bit too hard toward rap stereotypes that might not entirely apply to life in his home state.

Wisconsin

Artist – Brother Ali

Years Active – 1990s-Present

Notable Album – Shadows on the Sun

Sample Rhyme (from the track “Uncle Sam Goddamn”):

“Smoke and mirrors, stripes and stars

Stolen for the cross in the name of God

Bloodshed, genocide, rape and fraud

Writ into the pages of the law good lord

The Cold Continent latch key child

Ran away one day and starting acting foul

King of where the wild things are daddy’s proud

Because the Roman Empire done passed it down”

—

This contains another pretty persistent theme: those rappers who are “other” — either racially or politically or economically or otherwise — usually end up producing the most compelling stuff. Beginning well behind the starting line only compels these rappers to work harder and make something more exceptional.

Brother Ali understands this well, being both albino and Muslim. His album Shadows on the Sun is an under-appreciated gem of ’00s rap. His lyricism alone would put him near the top if this list were ranked.

Like his Rhymesayers label-mate P.O.S., Brother Ali focuses a keen eye on social and political issues, and has spent a good chunk of his career lambasting Bush-era America. It’s not surprising that such subject matter might not sell an insane amount of records — hence why you probably have never heard of Brother Ali — which only makes the Wisconsin native’s career all the more impressive.

Wyoming

Artist – Y-O

Years Active – 2012?

Notable Track – “Hometown”

Sample Rhyme (from the track “Hometown”:

“I wasn’t raised around that killing shit

But I grew up killing shit

When I lay my lyrics down it’s on me if you don’t give a shit

Understand that my hometown made me keep it real as shit”

—

God forbid that one day some alien civilization uses this list to get an idea of what this rap music thing is all about.

They would get a fairly comprehensive list of some — though by no means all — of the best rappers working today. They’d also get a taste of indie and underground rap, performed by individuals who put down roots in places well outside of any of rap’s hubs and yet still find refuge and inspiration in the art form.

By the time they reached the end of the list, however, they would have to be forgiven for thinking that rap music is mostly about enumerating the various virtues, beauties and cities of the state a given rapper is from.

Y-O’s tribute to his home state of Wyoming punctuates this list, and perhaps that’s appropriate. Rap began as a local phenomenon, something performed at parties or at clubs. It was not intended to be consumed by a diverse, nationwide audience. Rather, it was the people’s music, dealing with themes and struggles and jokes that that specific audience would understand.

Even at rap’s highest levels — where wealth and excess are the most common themes — rappers are never too far away from rapping about their origins and how they came up.

Jay-Z’s “Empire State of Mind,” Wiz Khalifa’s “Black and Yellow,” basically everything that Kendrick Lamar produces and so many others go out of their way to evoke a sense of place — and specifically home. That’s not for lack of ideas or some cynical plow to boost album sales. It’s because rap, more than most art forms, is as much about where the rapper’s from as it is anything else.

Page 3

Artist – Bay Dilla

Years Active – 2000s

Notable Track – They Know 

Sample Rhyme:

“Up north, A-town

Anchorage

Can you feel me? Can you feel me?”

—

Somehow, someway, Alaska’s (miniscule) rap scene managed to produce one of the most insane stories on this list.

The above video is for an artist named Bay Dilla. He was reasonably popular in Alaska, in that way that anyone offering what almost literally no one else was offering is popular.

Simple reason tells us that a rapper rapping about experiences in and around the Arctic Circle won’t have national appeal, and indeed Bay Dilla does not defy this expectation.

Yet for a brief time he appeared to. The only rapper from Alaska to ever film a professional music video (disclaimer: this is an assumption that is probably correct) was absolutely swimming in money.

But how? Oh, it’s because his entire rap empire was a front for importing drugs from the Lower 48. The Feds caught him and prosecuted him for importing between 50 and 150 kilograms of cocaine into Alaska between 2009 and 2012.

Assuming he ever gets released from prison, perhaps Bay Dilla will have a rich mine of material to continue his rap career, in Alaska or elsewhere.

The average rappers might not define themselves in terms of East or West anymore, but there’s still a healthy sense of location in the music.

The DIY spirit of rap — perhaps the strongest of any form of music — means that virtually anyone, anywhere can pick up a mic, acquire even the most basic understanding of drum machines or mixing software and become, almost overnight, a rapper.

The results are well documented. New York, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston  — all have nurtured wildly fertile rap cultures, ones that over time found themselves spreading to the nation at large. Each city has its own unique take, its own sound, its own attitude. The intermingling of all of these subgenres into a single, nationwide conversation raises the artform as a whole, and we’re all better off for it.

Now, a word of caution: just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should do something. The low entry cost for rap combines poorly with the tendency toward overconfidence in budding rappers, and the consequences can be dire. The United States’ smaller markets — far from the metropolises that spawned rap’s greats — often find themselves mired in rap mediocrity.

Perhaps that’s unfair, though. There might be plenty good reasons that the Oklahoma rap scene hasn’t exactly exploded, but it’s hard to make that generalization everywhere. Some states and regions are stuck, for better or for worse, in the pull of the nearest of rap’s many poles.

It would be hard, for instance, for a kid in Connecticut or New Jersey, coming up in the shadow of New York City, to not to show a lot of deference to Biggie and Jay Z. Similarly, few aspiring rappers in the South can admit to owing nothing to Outkast.

Outside of those poles, rap can be wonderfully idiosyncratic and even weird. It can also be square and traditionalist, gritty and dangerous or just plain boring. All are reflections of their location, the rapper’s origin and countless other factors.

The variety makes exploring the United States’ many iterations kind of exciting. For simplicity’s sake, here are the stories of the top rappers from all 50 states in the Union, presented to you in alphabetical order.

Alabama

Artist – Yelawolf

Years Active – 2005-Present

Notable Album – Trunk Muzik 0-60 (2010)

Sample Rhyme:

“Act like you don’t wanna see how much of this Jack

Daniels you can handle

You wanna drink and get cut like Rambo?

And let me drive your Daddy’s Lambo”

—

The magic of the alphabet delivers to us right at the top of the list perhaps the best possible example of the type of eccentric regionalism rap has to offer.

Yelawolf’s career took a weird turn when he began releasing actual albums, but his early mixtape Trunk Muzik 0-60 finds a rapper unafraid to be himself.

Being from Alabama, Yela was never going to find it ease to hide his accent or unique southern cadence. Instead, he leaned into it. His raps at times sound like slightly sped up — and significantly more filthy — country. It shouldn’t be surprising that this would be crazy fun, but it absolutely is.

The crossover appeal of rap among the typically conservative country music set wasn’t exactly enough to make a viable career, however. Yela continues to show a lot of the same spirit as he did on that early mixtape, but it all seems confined to the requisite marketability of being on a label.

Alaska

Artist – Bay Dilla

Years Active – 2000s

Notable Track – They Know 

Sample Rhyme:

“Up north, A-town

Anchorage

Can you feel me? Can you feel me?”

—

Somehow, someway, Alaska’s (miniscule) rap scene managed to produce one of the most insane stories on this list.

The above video is for an artist named Bay Dilla. He was reasonably popular in Alaska, in that way that anyone offering what almost literally no one else was offering is popular.

Simple reason tells us that a rapper rapping about experiences in and around the Arctic Circle won’t have national appeal, and indeed Bay Dilla does not defy this expectation.

Yet for a brief time he appeared to. The only rapper from Alaska to ever film a professional music video (disclaimer: this is an assumption that is probably correct) was absolutely swimming in money.

But how? Oh, it’s because his entire rap empire was a front for importing drugs from the Lower 48. The Feds caught him and prosecuted him for importing between 50 and 150 kilograms of cocaine into Alaska between 2009 and 2012.

Assuming he ever gets released from prison, perhaps Bay Dilla will have a rich mine of material to continue his rap career, in Alaska or elsewhere.

Arizona

Artist – Judge Da Boss

Years Active – 2010s

Notable Track – Hell Yeah

Sample Rhyme:

“When I get around y’all broke hoes I act bougie hell yeah

I rock Gucci, hell yeah

Louis, hell yeah

Truey, hell yeah

Versace, hell yeah”

—

America’s Southwest is majestic, beautiful and entirely worth your time if you ever have the chance to visit.

That said, there’s not a tremendous amount of music from that region that makes its way out to America at large.

Cities like Phoenix, for instance, exist only because of the marvels of the modern world. There’s no iconic industry, at least not one that would produce the kinds of conditions rap would thrive in.

A lack of deep roots doesn’t mean it’s incapable of producing talent, however. Judge Da Boss is a good example.

After winning a competition against local rappers, Judge — nee Robert Louis Carr II — caught the attention of Amar’e Stoudemire, who convinced the Phoenix native to put pen to paper for the NBA star’s label, Hypocalypto Records.

Progress has been slow, however. Though he released a mixtape called The Chosen One shortly after signing, an official album has yet to surface. A deal with with Sony Records in 2014 is encouraging news.

Arkansas

Artist – SL Jones

Years Active – 2010s

Notable Track– “Big Bank (No Ones)” (2013)

Sample Rhyme:

“Granddaddy was a hustler

Yeah I’m sticking to tradition”

—

Little Rock — from which young rapper SL Jones hails — is about halfway between Atlanta and Houston. The style was always going to be southern, but the question remained under which sphere of influence a rapper like SL Jones would fall.

Early on, his inspirations were decidedly mixed. His first solo mixtape, C.O.L.O.R.S: Bangin’ on Wax featured names from all corners of southern rap’s territory, from Virginia’s Clipse to Houston’s Chamillionaire to Atlanta’s Killer Mike.

With arguably his biggest track to date, SL Jones’ true loyalty became more clear. Featuring production by Metro Boomin — Future’s trusty sidekick — “Big Banks” sounds very Atlanta, while still retaining a unique enough flavor to make it SL Jones’ own.

As a sort of aside, isn’t it impressive when a young rapper like SL Jones can just nail the look on the first try? Mastering that mix of confidence, pseudo-dancing and style really pays off for music videos like the one made for “Big Banks.” Now if he could only come out with a follow up record …

California

Artist – Kendrick Lamar

Years Active – 2003-Present

Notable Album – Good Kid, M.A.A.D City

Sample Rhyme (from a guest verse on Push-T’s track “Nosetalgia”) :

“I said, ‘Daddy, one day Imma get you right with 36 zips

One thousand grams of cocaine, then your name will be rich

Now you can rock it up or sell it soft as leather interior

Drop some ice cubes in it, Deebo on perimeter’

He said ‘Son, how come you think you be my connect?’

I said ‘Pops, your ass is washed up, with all due respect’

He said “Well n*gga, then show me how it all makes sense’

Go figure, motherfucker, every verse is a brick

Your son dope n*gga”

—

It speaks to just how deep California’s stable of rappers is that picking Kendrick Lamar here was maybe the most difficult decision on this entire list.

By fairly broad consensus, Kendrick is the best rapper working today. No, he might not top the charts as much as Drake, and maybe he doesn’t generate Kanye’s headlines. He might not even be many people’s favorite rapper.

But in terms of pure artistry, no one can match him. He molds albums that are as much cultural dissertations as they are music. He doesn’t write party songs, or club bangers, or even introspective digressions about lost loves. He composes political and social thinkpieces, posing questions that many of us struggle to answer. He’s the rapper America needs in 2016.

None of which would have been possible without the man Kendrick credits as being a primary influence: Tupac Shakur. Many would protest, fairly, that Tupac should represent California on this list, as he embodies a huge part of rap’s growing pains in the 90s.

While his career was tragically cut short, Kendrick is only just heating up. He might not ever surpass 2Pac’s legend, but Kendrick’s fighting as hard as anyone to keep it alive.

Colorado

Artist – Mr. J. Medeiros

Years Active – 1998-Present

Notable Album – Of Gods and Girls

Sample Rhyme (from single “Pale Blue Dot”):

“Wrapped around a block of C-4 pow your minced meat

And now you’ve blown it

Using physics your god is distant and don’t condone it

Using mystics to bomb your critics and your opponents

You a bigot, misogynistic and homophobic.”

—

Kendrick, of course, isn’t the only one out there who turns to rap to address social ills. Rap’s poetic nature makes it easier to tell a story or frame a case than, say, your average rock ballad or pop song.

Rap’s long history outside the mainstream of American culture also makes it the ideal medium to bear the weight of what might be considered subversive or controversial opinions. It might be used more often these days to sing about cars, women and drugs, but at its core it’s protest music.

Mr. J. Medeiros captures this spirit well. It’s telling that he got his start in Colorado, a state almost literally in the country’s middle, one that’s waxed and waned so much politically over the decades that it is the definition of a “purple” state come election year.

Connecticut

Artist – Chris Webby

Years Active – 2008-Present

Notable Album – Chemically Imbalanced

Sample Rhyme (from “Ohh No”):

“So many bars you would think I’m living on Death Row

Webby just a motherfucking dog, where’s Petco?

Follow a plate of kibbles n bits with an egg roll

Genius in the laboratory cooking blue meth, yo

Call me Heisenberg, cause when I rhyme with words

These motherfuckers are behind the curve”

—

For every rapper like Kendrick or Mr. J. Medeiros, there are 10 (20? 30?) rappers like Chris Webby.

Hailing from Connecticut, Webby’s raps are kinetic, steeped in cultural references and, perhaps most of all, unfocused. He has, by his own admission, suffered from Attention Deficit Disorder all his life, a condition that seeps through to his raps.

Which isn’t a criticism. If anything, Webby’s style is part of the trend, one that owes a lot to freestyling and rap battling — two avenues on which many budding rappers first find traction. It’s a style that is far more concerned about getting out witty one liners than telling a story or advocating for a cause.

Webby rolls with it, creating rhymes that, combined with his rapid pace, make the listener feel like they’re caught in a verbal tornado.

Delaware

Artist – Wok (nee Chan)

Years Active – 2010s

Notable Track – “20 Missed Calls”

Sample Rhyme:

“Purple that I’m smoking you can smell it down the block

All I do is stunt

Onion in the blunt

Better have my money if I’m giving you the front”

—

Look, Delaware was never going to be an easy state to write about. With no major metropolitan area, it’s got a smaller population than the smallest state in the Union, Rhode Island, despite being almost twice as large in area.

Thankfully, the excellent folks over at Complex had us covered. Back in 2014, they posted a brief article featuring a brief clip of a Delaware rapper, then named Chan and now named Wok.

To them — and to us — the song “20 Missed Calls” is as much novelty as it is quality music. It’s rap from Delaware. What in the Blue Hen State could be worth rapping about?

Turns out, a lot of the same stuff as you’d find in any other state. Chan raps over some notably well-made beats about women and drugs and it’s not half bad.

Unfortunately this is just about all we from Wok. “20 Missed Calls” came out in 2013 and, to date, seems to be the artist’s high point.

Florida

Artist – Rick Ross

Years Active – 2001-Present

Notable Album – Teflon Don, 2010

Sample Rhyme (from track “I’m Not a Star”):

“I’m not a star, somebody lied

I got a pistol in the car, a 45

If I’d die today, remember me like John Lennon

Buried in Louie, I’m talking all brown linen”

—

In a strange way, Rick Ross’ ascent up rap’s hierarchy is the embodiment of the American Dream.

His raps are full of references to drug dealing, to violence, to a life lived outside the law. It’s all standard rap fodder, the kind of experiences that have built careers since rap’s beginnings.

Only it might not be true. Rick Ross — real name William Leonard Roberts II — was raised in Florida and went to college in Georgia on a football scholarship. After graduating, he worked for roughly 18 months as a correctional officer.

He would eventually move on to making music and, as his doubters argue, he found that designing a fake persona around drug dealing made for a better look. He would adopt the name “Rick Ross” from a famous cocaine kingpin in 1980s Los Angeles.

The truth, though, is that Rick Ross is a good rapper, perhaps even very good. He made himself into a character to add weight to what he rapped about, and it worked. No famous rap artist out there can claim to have done any different.

Georgia

Artist – Outkast

Years Active – 1992-Present

Notable Album – Stankonia (2000)

Sample Rhyme (from the track “Ms. Jackson”):

“Me and your daughter got a special thing going on

You say it’s puppy love, we say it’s full-grown

Hope that we feel this, feel this way forever

You can plan a pretty picnic

But you can’t predict the weather, Ms. Jackson”

—

We’ll take the opposite approach with Georgia than we did with California. Instead of naming an artist more popular today, we’re going down to the foundations of modern rap, not just in Georgia but across the genre.

Outkast — a duo consisting of André 3000 and Big Boi — released their first album in 1994, and over the next decade would change rap’s DNA.

Their style embodied Atlanta, the city from which they hailed. It was psychedelic, playful and unique. Their music was conscientious and smart, paying respect to community, women and themselves in equal measure, and they still had fun with it. Songs like “B.O.B” and “Ms. Jackson” could appear on the air for the first time in 2016 and still be tremendous hits.

The duo’s success also turned Atlanta into a dominant force in the rap ecosystem and elevated southern rap across the board. Outkast might not make new music together anymore, but they remain living legends.

Hawaii

Artist – Tassho Pearce

Years Active – 2010s

Notable Album– G.O.O.D. Company

Sample Rhyme (from the track “Satelites”):

“These are moments you could wait your whole life for

Standin’ next to Bob Barker trying to pick the right door

More Henny, more Swishers, more kush,

The more I drink the more better she look”

—

It’s a wonder that any solo rap venture starting in the middle of the Pacific Ocean could find traction in the mainland United States, and yet Tassho Pearce proved it was possible.

Half-Japanese and half-white, Tassho grew up in Hawaii’s nascent rap scene. His career didn’t really start until he hooked up with Kanye West when the famous Chicago rapper came to the islands to record My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy in 2010.

Tassho bonded with Kanye and his clique, and eventually impressed them enough to enlist the support of a few heavies to get his rap career off the ground. He first worked with Kanye’s mentor No I.D. to produce the aforementioned “Satelites,” featuring both him and Kid Cudi.

Then he made a whole album, released just this year, called G.O.O.D. Company — a tribute to Kanye’s G.O.O.D. record label. It’s a record that stays loyal to Hawaii, with Tassho bringing in a couple other local rappers to feature on tracks.

According to Pigeon and Planes’ interview with him, Tassho now mostly resides on the West Coast of the mainland, working on music as well as setting up his own burgeoning rap empire.

Idaho

Artist – Bret Johnson (?)

Years Active – 2013?

Notable Track – “The 208”

Sample Rhyme:

“I’m from Idaho, sound the alarms

Get in your cars

We’s about to party at the local Walmart”

—

Any discussion about rap in America would not be complete without acknowledging the rise of parody rap.

The genre’s low entry level cost — turning on your laptop’s microphone, searching Google for free mixing software — means that any (white) person with a vaguely funny joke can turn it into a career.

Sometimes the results border on great. The Lonely Island produces some well made and hilarious stuff.

Most times, though, parody rap inspires more eye rolls than laughs. Take the song above. It’s a rap about Idaho’s telephone area code, 208. It is among the first hits when you type “Idaho rappers” into Google, just above a link for a service that allows your to “hire rappers,” whatever that means.

“The 208” jabs at a lot of stuff many in rural America might recognize, and throws in some more specific Idaho stuff for good measure. It is a carbon copy of just about every other rap on YouTube that is about a specific place, made exclusively for people in that specific place. And, somehow, it’s the only example of homegrown rap in Idaho.

Illinois

Artist – Kanye West

Years Active – 2003-Present

Notable Album – My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

Sample Rhyme (from the track “N*ggas in Paris”):

“What’s Gucci, my n*gga? What’s Louis, my killa?

What’s drugs, my dealer? What’s that jacket, Margiela?

Doctors say I’m the illest, cause I’m suffering from realness

Got my n*ggas in Paris and they going gorillas, huh”

—

Chicago’s produced some great talent lately. It was tempting here to skip on Kanye — the city, Illinois and perhaps rap itself’s most recognizable name at the moment — and bestow this “honor” to someone like Chance the Rapper.

But there’s no denying Kanye’s immense role in rap over the last decade. He’s produced some of the most innovative, provocative and revolutionary music in any genre over that time period, becoming an icon in the process.

That he finds himself in the tabloids as often as the music charts is another matter entirely — we’re hear to focus on the rap itself. Though critics might argue that Kanye’s grasp of wordplay and flow aren’t always the greatest, his desire, and ability, to expand rap’s boundaries make him a legend.

He wanted to honor and repurpose the hits of the past, and he mixed them into his songs when he made College Dropout and Late Registration.

He wanted an arena feel to rap, and he made Graduation. He wanted to sing, and he made 808s & Heartbreaks. He wanted artistry, and he made My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. He wanted anger and he made Yeezus. He wanted attention and he made Life of Pablo.

His ability to change gears and elevate new styles and techniques might make him the single most influential rapper alive today. It’s difficult to name an artist working today, from Drake to Nicki Minaj to Chance, and not be able to clearly see Kanye’s hand.

Indiana

Artist – Freddie Gibbs

Years Active – 2003-Present

Notable Album– Shadow of a Doubt

Sample Rhyme: 

“Celly stead ringing for Freddie but where the things at?

Drove a half a ton, dropped it off and I took a plane back

Gangsta shit in my DNA, I just can’t explain that

Even if I die tell my enemies I remain that”

—

With the notable exception of Michael Jackson, Gary, Indiana does not produce a tremendous amount of American culture, despite virtually being a suburb of Chicago.

Freddie Gibbs nonetheless found his way up through rap’s ranks, thanks entirely to his unique delivery. His voice strains and reaches as he rhymes, an effect that adds an emotional or angry tinge to a lot of his best work.

It helps that Gibbs’ rhymes are also inspired on their own. He’s got a great ear for his own work, and with the help of some talented producers has created a sound that’s unique within rap. His 2015 album Shadow of a Doubt is darkly ambitious, recounting Gibbs’ roots in Gary and what was done in the name of success.

Gibbs might not be able to top Shadow of a Doubt, however. Last month, he was accused of raping a woman in Austria during his European tour. He was released on 50,000 Euros bail and awaits trial. He emphatically denies the charges.

Iowa

Artist – Json

Years Active – 2005-Present

Notable Album – Braille

Sample Rhyme:

“Tryna get people to trust in The King (My God)

The One they call Yahweh

Stand firm and affirm till they call my name

One thing I have blood bettin’ on my days

Unaware of a snake see I’m on that grace

I feel the pressure huh”

—

As rap’s popularity continues to grow, it can accommodate more and more multitudes. It can be fun, celebratory, angry, political, sad, horny and, evidently, also faithful.

Iowa-based rapper Json embodies that last surprising bit. He produces well made, exceptionally produced raps that are about and for God. That in and of itself isn’t unique — Chicago rappers Kanye West and Chance the Rapper both released albums this year that have been referred to as “gospel rap,” after all.

What makes Json stand out, in Iowa and elsewhere, is his wholesale commitment to being an evangelical rapper. His youth was split between St. Louis, Los Angeles and drugs, the latter of which seemed set to ruin his life.

He and his wife were able to get clean thanks in part to their faith in Jesus Christ. He would focus his life on Christianity, and use rap to preach the same message that saved his life.

Json’s career arc is almost entirely unique within rap. It’s a genre of music that tends to be crude and occasionally cruel, so the fact he could turn it into something unmistakably positive is something special.

Kansas

Artist – Mac Lethal

Years Active – 2001-Present

Notable Track – “Look at Me Now”

Sample Rhyme:

“There’s nothing beautiful about this world

I’m gonna pucker up my lips to barf

Gonna choke a fucking rapper with his hipster scarf

I’m never gonna put another piece of music out

deliberately if it isn’t genuine and grips the heart

Winter’s hard, so have some pancakes”

—

It’s the plight of the up-and-coming rapper that sometimes the most notable thing you can do is rap whilst making pancakes.

Kansas’ own Mac Lethal is clearly talented. He’s got flow that rivals Twista in terms of pace and cleverness, and he’s got a loyal following. He continues to tour around the US. He’s made a career that most aspiring rappers will never make for themselves.

Yet he’s still the guy who makes funny YouTube videos (he also posts hilarious text conversations with his maybe-made-up cousin Bennett on Tumblr, and later wrote a whole book about it).

Rap, for all its ease of access, is still a market, and not everyone’s shtick is going to have mass appeal. Some rappers are legendary hitmakers, others are one hit wonders, but most find themselves somewhere in between.

Maybe one day Mac Lethal gets the credit he deserves, but only time will tell.

Kentucky

Artist – CunningLynguists

Years Active – 2000-Present

Notable Track – Linguistics

Sample Rhyme:

“If you know you’re gonna die why step?

Show no mercy when bruising crews

You get hit with more bricks than New Jerus

Riddles confusing fools like Confucian rules

Cause most cats are most squared than Rubik’s Cubes”

—

Rap isn’t always about who you know, nor is it always a matter of the-more-you-give-the-more-you-get. Some artists come up with a great pedigree, plenty of experience and money, and still don’t make it.

CunningLynguists hail from Kentucky and through various incarnations have been working toward something like stardom for all of the 21st century. They’ve worked with other artists on this list and collaborated and toured with many more.

Still, like Kansas’ Mac Lethal, it’s never that easy. CunningLynguists fall into a vague middle ground in rap. Their sound is reminiscent of southern rap (indeed, some of the founding members were from Atlanta) but with an indie twist. This isn’t rap music being played to the back row of stadiums. It’s smaller, denser and gets better the more you listen to it.

Unfortunately, again like Lethal, they’ve yet to find a toehold in the national rap conversation. Perhaps a name change would do them good.

Louisiana

Artist – Lil Wayne

Years Active – 1996-Present

Notable Album – The Carter III

Sample Rhyme (from the track “6 Foot 7 Foot”):

“Life is the bitch, and death is her sister

Sleep is the cousin what a fuckin family picture

You know Father Time, and we all know Mother Nature

It’s all in the family but I am of no relation

No matter who’s buyin, I’m a celebration

Black and white diamonds, fuck segregation

Fuck that shit, my money up, you n*ggaz just Honey Nut

Young Money runnin shit and you n*ggaz just runner-ups

I don’t feel I done enough so I’ma keep on doin this shit

Lil Tunechi or Young Tunafish”

—

Is it fair to call Lil Wayne, arguably one of the two or three best rappers of his generation, a tragic figure?

Yes, he’s released multiple gold and platinum albums, has had 120 songs appear in Billboard’s Top 100 (more than any other individual artist) and can even release a disastrous rock album without losing an ounce of credibility.

He also struggled through childhood — shooting himself accidentally at age 12 and dropping out of a gifted high school program two years later — and frequently found himself in either a hospital room or jail cell in adulthood.

The perseverance it has taken for Lil Wayne to move on and continue to either release his own material or, as he does frequently, collaborate with other artists is unimaginable. By all rights, he should take a cue from Jay Z and enjoy the considerable success he’s earned. Instead he’s still promising to release The Carter V at some point in the near future.

To his credit, Wayne has promised that it will be his last album. He plans on retiring before his 35th birthday in order to have the time to spend with his four kids.

Maine

Artist – Spose

Years Active – 2004-Present

Notable Track – “The King of Maine”

Sample Rhyme:

“I’m from the 420 minus 213

I’m on the throne if you’re looking for who to unseat

I got moose blood in my goblet, lobsters in my optics

I’m live on the map where the dudes don’t rap”

—

For those readers who have not experienced the pleasures of Maine: Spose is the kind of rapper you might expect from the Lower 48’s northernmost state.

The Wells native essentially provides us with a turbo-powered, slightly more sincere version of Idaho’s official state rap (see above). He’s a professional though, and goes about making a case for his home state with some skill.

Again, though, it falls into the same category of music as Idaho’s song. It’s a joke, told specifically for the people of Maine to understand and for the rest of us to kind of shrug off confusedly.

Based on the YouTube comments though, Spose seems to nail what makes Maine Maine, and even to us outsiders it’s clear that he’s got the skill to succeed, even coming from as small a market as the Pine Tree State.

Spose’s fourth album Why Am I So Happy?  came out in 2015, so clearly he’s doing something right.

Maryland

Artist – Oddisee

Years Active – 1999-Present

Notable Album – People Hear What They See

Sample Rhyme (from the track “That’s Love”):

“And here we are again, just confronting fears

Whether pain, or gain, it’s a bunch of tears

Blood, sweat, and peers, probably disappear

When smoke starts to clear, their persistence near

Pay attention to the folks who’re fanning the glames

They’re the ones who matter most in the gravity game

When stakes weigh you down and they stay around

And pick up pieces and you off the ground

That’s love.”

—

This is the first — but not the last — time where we might be accused of cheating on this list.

Oddisee — real name Amir Elkhalifa — was born and raised in Maryland, but he really came to prominence as a leading light in Washington, DC’s music scene. He represents Maryland while honoring a lot of the funk and Go-Go traditions of the city he’s adopted.

Growing up in a wealthy suburb of the nation’s capital, Oddisee didn’t know a lot of hardship. While he was a rap fan all his life, he related more to the likes of A Tribe Called Quest and Eric B. & Rakim, rappers whose music didn’t orbit around violence or drugs.

As a result, Oddisee’s raps cover a whole rainbow of issues, ranging from familial love to poverty.

His rhymes are refreshing and unique and made better by his unique take on production. Indeed, Oddisee will release instrumental albums almost as often as he does pure rap albums, a reflection of his myriad abilities within the art form.

Massachusetts

Artist – Guru

Years Active – 1986-2010

Notable Album – Daily Operation (as one half of Gang Starr)

Sample Rhyme:

“You know I used to be a player, fly girl layer and a

heartbreaker

Lovemaker, backbreaker but then I made a

Mistake yes I fell in love with this ill chick

Sweating me for money, my name and the dilsnick”

—

Though he made a name for himself on his own, MC Guru was originally one half of the legendary hip hop duo Gang Starr, along with DJ Premier.

Gang Starr were an influential force in rap on the East Coast when they were at their heights in the early 1990s, a story made all the more exceptional due to the fact Guru originally hailed from Boston — not exactly the United States’ most well known rap city.

Guru formed Gang Starr in 1986 with several other producers and rappers, but barely three years later he was the sole remaining member. He would recruit PJ Premier to be the other half of the rejuvenated group just before signing with Chrysalis Records.

The UK-based label encouraged Gang Starr’s underground roots and went on to help release several albums, each of which forms another foundation block in 90s era rap.

While Gang Starr faded, Guru stayed in the game and released music under his own name right up until he tragically died of a heart attack in 2010.

Michigan

Artist – Danny Brown

Years Active – 2003-Present

Notable Album – Old (2013)

Sample Rhyme:

“While she listen to the oldie soap operas smoking bogies

On the phone gossiping telling homegirls stories

Girlfriend worries cause her son’s in a hurry

To see the state pen or a cemetery buried

Ma replied do her best but it’s still rough”

—

Alright, the elephant in the room, so to speak: Michigan’s best rapper isn’t Eminem, at least not on this list. Danny Brown needed to be represented. For those Shady loyalists, don’t worry: he’ll somehow appear later in this list.

Now, Danny Brown. Maybe you’ve heard of him? You should have heard from him. He’s great.

Rap’s appeal has broadened a lot over the last decade or two, but it doesn’t usually work so well as a crossover platform. Rap is rap. Maybe it co-mingles with R&B, but really it’s its own animal.

Danny Brown is the exception. He and his producers have a healthy appreciation for club culture, and it’s easy to hear the influence of EDM on his music.

This makes sense for a Detroit-based rapper. The city is responsible for creating the American middle class as well as some of the earliest examples of electronic music in the country.

Detroit is as present in Brown’s raps as anything else. Though his EDM roots make him surprisingly danceable, his songs are often sober reflections on life in a struggling city.

Minnesota

Artist – P.O.S.

Years Active – 2001-Present

Notable Album – Audition

Sample Rhyme (from “Stand Up (Let’s Get Murdered)”):

“See, you can’t fight a feeling. I feel terrified

There’s a war against me, my friends, my fam, my pride

My life, my job, my likes and like-minded

Folks are like, “Psh” like they just don’t mind it

So I’m cool, right?

They wag the dog. We catch the lipstick

What kind of city plumber thought that he could make these old and rusty pipes fit?

Well, they don’t. I’m catching the drip

I’ll practice holdin’ my breath, then sink with the ship”

—

Long before Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton were running for president, Minneapolis’ P.O.S. (short for Pissed Off Steph) was railing against the establishment. He spent the bulk of the 00s releasing tracks like “Stand Up (Let’s Get Murdered),” a sharp-tongued critique of the (then) Bush administration and a system that seemed like it was rigged against the average American citizen.

Were his complaints overblown? Maybe a little, but you have to remember this was at the height of the post 9/11/Iraq War/Great Recession era and to those paying attention it was hard not to think that someone somewhere was getting screwed over.

The important part for our purposes is that P.O.S. made some excellent rap. It was violent and angry yet thoughtful, a worthy tribute to the 90s Rage Against the Machine and a precursor (though likely not a direct influence of) the likes of conspiratorially-minded rappers like El-P and Killer Mike.

Mississippi

Artist – Rae Sremmurd

Years Active – 2005-Present

Notable Album – SremmLife (2015)

Sample Rhyme:

“Chop the top off the Porsche, that’s a headless horse

Extendo long as an extension cord

Bitch, I ball like Jordan and I play full court

And if you not my type then you know I gotta keep this shit short

What you know about a checK? What you got up in your pocket?

What you spending when you shopping, dawg?

Why you wanna go flex? Like you all in the mix

Like you got some shit poppin’ off

I got some models that you see up in the movies

And they want to make a flick for the camera

Wanna be Kim Kardashian, heard I was livin’ like a bachelor”

—

Those old enough to remember the mid-90s might be tempted to compare the youthful rap duo Rae Sremmurd with Kriss Kross. That wouldn’t be entirely fair however, as the latter were sort of gimmicky and wore their pants backwards for some reason.

Rae Sremmurd, in contrast, simply built off their older peers, creating some fun rap that can be enjoyed by both young and old.

Their story’s not half bad either. Given that Tupelo, Mississippi is something of a rap hinterland, the pair (then a trio) had to work exceptionally hard to get noticed. They played parties and bars, saving money to make trips to various competitions and venues before they finally came into contact with a record label willing to sign them.

A year later their effort paid off when Sremmlife was released in January 2015. The debut album was an near-immediate hit, reaching number one on Billboard’s rap and hip hop charts.

Missouri

Artist – Eminem

Years Active – 1992-Present

Notable Album – The Marshall Mathers LP (2000)

Sample Rhyme:

“The soul’s escaping through this hole that is gaping

This world’s mine for the taking, make me king

As we move toward a New World Order

A normal life is boring; but superstardom’s

Close to post-mortem, it only grows harder

Home grows hotter, he blows it’s all over

These hoes is all on him, coast to coast shows

He’s known as the Globetrotter, lonely roads

God only knows, he’s grown farther from home, he’s no father

He goes home and barely knows his own daughter”

—

As we mentioned in the Michigan slide, Eminem’s location on this list is a bit of a cheat. While the rapper came up and very much raps about a life in Detroit, he was originally born in St. Joseph, Missouri. He would split his time between his home state and Michigan for much of his childhood.

Eminem’s appearance here does a small disservice to some rappers who came up in Missouri. Tech N9ne in Kansas City, Nelly and Chiny from St Louis and a few others are being left out to make space for Mr. Mathers.

But Eminem’s too popular and marks too big a milestone in the genre to simply skip. His star might have faded somewhat from the heights of The Slim Shady LP and The Marshall Mathers LP, but he’s still a force within rap.

Beyond his considerable talent, Eminem stood out in those early years for being white. While far from the only white rapper out there at the time, he was the first to really break through with a mass appeal. For many — particularly in the whiter parts of America — his obnoxious and crude witticisms and bratty behavior made him more accessible than rappers who focused on drugs and violence and unjust treatment by the police.

Now, there’s something to be said about the fact it took Eminem for white America to appreciate the rap genre instead of, say, the dozens of black rappers who came before him who were as good and likely better. But that’s perhaps a discussion for a different slideshow.

Montana

Artist – French Montana

Years Active – 2007-Present

Notable Track – “Pop That”

Sample Rhyme:

“What you twerkin’ with?”

—

Here are some pertinent facts about the state of Montana:

-Montana is the fourth biggest state in the United States in terms of area

-Montana has the 44th largest population in the U.S.

-Montana ranks 48th in population density among U.S. states

-Montana doesn’t have any rappers

Three of those four facts are easy to come by, census data type stuff. One of them is a less concrete fact, but rather one that we can only assume after spending almost an hour Googling for an answer. Guess which is which!

In any case, we’re going to have to cheat really hard here. Elsewhere on this list we’ve taken rappers known to have come up in a particularly state or city and cast them instead in the state they were born in. Here, we’re going to be forced to make the most specious of connections in order to get this slide filled out.

French Montana is not from Montana. He wasn’t even born in the United States. He hails from Morocco.

Even his stage name isn’t an allusion to the state, but rather an attempt to link himself with Scarface anti-hero Tony Montana.

For all his lack of actual Montana-ness, French Montana is still a notable member of the circa-2016 rap pantheon. He’s a master collaborator with connections across rap’s geographical reach.

That he’s accomplished all this despite the fact that he and his family didn’t move to the U.S. until he was 14 years old makes French Montana’s story in the rap scene resemble the American Dream. Anyone can come to these shores and get the chance to party with Rick Ross, Lil Wayne and Drake deserves a place on this list. Even if we had to cheat to get him here.

Nebraska

Artist – Mars Black

Years Active – 2008-Present

Notable Track – “Scotch on the Rocks”

Sample Rhyme:

“Black label president, I’m also a member

Hope to get thick baby, word to my gender

Making it hot in the middle of December

Oh you forgot? Don’t you remember?

We were rockin’ jams, me and my man

Mike and Ham

Over beatbox or a live band”

—

Omaha, Nebraska is a strangely fertile little island of music in the dead center of the United States’ Midwest.

Saddle Creek Records directly or indirectly fostered the development of a crazy amount of indie music darlings. Bright Eyes, the Faint, Jenny Lewis, Cursive and many others found their start with the Omaha-based label.

To those readers in the know, none of those aforementioned acts are even remotely “rap.” They’re all either folk or punk or rock or a combination of the three. No rap.

That doesn’t mean that some rap culture hasn’t grown up alongside Saddle Creek and the like. Indeed, a small group of artists came up through Omaha and the environs through the 1970s and 80s that ended up presiding over a small but significant underground scene.

The legacy of that early Omaha rap scene is Mars Black. The Brooklyn-born rapper has earned some notoriety in recent years, thanks in some small part to his association with Conor Oberst.

The latter is the lead singer of Bright Eyes and Omaha’s beloved son, arguably the city’s most well-known musician. His label, Team Love, signed Mars Black as its only rapper back in the early 00s. Thus Omaha’s music scene continues to evolve.

Nevada

Artist – Feeki

Years Active – 2010?-Present

Notable Track – “You Know You Like It”

Sample Rhyme:

“Really fuck the fame I really just wanna motivate

Hard work motherfucker now you know my game

I see this generation fucking filled with all entitlement

These lazy motherfuckers get me heated like a solar pane”

—

Of all places in Nevada, you would think that its most (read: only) notable rapper would come from Las Vegas. It’s a city of excess, vulgarity and seemingly endless prosperity. Those sounds like ingredients to making a wonderful rapper.

Of course, those that live in or near Vegas aren’t exactly living the glamorous lives that the tourists might when they come through the desert oasis. Indeed, not too far out of Vegas city limits the realities (sometimes grim) of the rest of the country become readily apparent.

Feeki comes out of Reno, Vegas’ under-respected little brother. Appropriately enough, Feeki isn’t the kind of rapper to front. He’s earnest and positive and can rock a mullet that doesn’t come off as all that ironic. He raps about life and ambition and not getting discouraged.

Like so many other rappers on this list, particularly rappers from those states that might not be anxiously awaiting The Next Big Things, Feeki’s gotta work to get his name out there, and he works hard. It’s nearly impossible not to root for him.

New Hampshire

Artist – Roots of Creation

Years Active – 2014?

Notable Track – “Summer in the 603”

Sample Rhyme:

“When the sun is blazing and the summer gets hot

We don’t take it for granite that our home state rocks

You got the drive-in in Milford

Meadowbrook up in Gilford

Damn I miss Benton’s animal farm, that place was the illest”

—

This humble writer admits to not having much pride in his home state. Yes, it’s quite beautiful, and the wineries and hiking trails and, increasingly, breweries are all wonderful, but nothing about Virginia has ever really compelled me to want to break into song.

If the rap scene serves as any sort of barometer, then it can be said with some confidence that — contrary to this writer’s attitude — state pride is at its highest levels since the Civil War.

While your more mainstream rappers — your Lil Waynes and your Kendricks and your Outkasts — are more global, many rappers from smaller markets don’t have the luxury of speaking to a wider audience. They have to rap about what they know to people who also know what they know. Hence the preponderance of rappers on this list who have a lot to say about the virtues of their home state.

New Hampshire’s Roots of Creation really get into the minutiae of what makes the Granite State so wonderful to them, and to outsiders it all comes off as something close to gibberish. Hopefully making songs like this gets them the local press they need to eventually be able to rap about wider, more universal themes.

New Jersey

Artist – Lauryn Hill

Years Active – 1993-Present

Notable Album – The Miseducation of Lauryn  Hill

Sample Rhyme:

“It’s been three weeks since you were looking for your friend

The one you let hit it and never called you again

Member when he told you he was bout the Benjamins?

You act like you ain’t hear him, then give him a little trim”

—

The primary emotion many people have these days in regard to Lauryn Hill is some combination of regret and nostalgia.

She got her start in East Orange, New Jersey. While still in high school she joined a group that would eventually become known as the Fugees. The band would go on to become one of the standout names of mid-90s R&B and hip hop.

Riding on the wave of fame Fugees offered her, Hill broke off to record a solo record in 1997. The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill was released the following year and became an instant classic.

Her style owed itself to many early 90s female MCs like Salt-n-Pepa as well as male rappers like Ice Cube, and her ability to seamlessly transition between singing and rapping made her music stand out all the more.

Songs like “Doo-Wop (That Thing)” are now iconic 90s songs, and by all rights should have been followed by further songs that helped define the era they came out in. But Miseducation was the last true album Hill ever produced, barring a poorly received MTV Unplugged album in 2001.

New Mexico

Artist – Wake Self

Years Active – 2014?

Notable Track – “New Mexico”

Sample Rhyme:

“We got the best chile

That’s the truth really

I’m from Albuquerque, por que Duke City?

It’s more than a show about cooking meth

that you know from television”

—

The nearly 69,000 views Wake Self has on his video for the single “New Mexico” might represent the entire population of the state for all we know. Who else but overly ambitious writers would be searching for this video and then actually watching it?

Wake Self delivers yet another song for this list that seems like it could have been written by the state government’s in-house travel agency.

To his credit, the production levels are actually good here, and the photography really sells the state’s beauty.

A particular line in the song actually cuts to the heart of what raps like this are all about. To paraphrase: New Mexico doesn’t have any professional sports teams. Those of us who grew up in or near even a modest metropolis will find this an entirely alien concept. What does it mean to grow up in a place where thousands of your neighbors and fellow citizens don’t weekly — or even daily — convene in an arena and all shout for the same cause?

Wake Self and so many others on this list don’t have that type of community to feed off of. It’s no wonder they turn to rap, and in particular rap songs about their states.

New York

Artist – The Notorious B.I.G.

Years Active – 1992-1997

Notable Album – Ready to Die, 1994

Sample Rhyme:

“Poppa been smooth since the days of Underroos

Never lose, never choose to, bruise crews who

Do something to us, talk go through us

Girls walk to us, wanna do us, screw us”

—

Christopher George Latore Wallace was born in New York City in 1972 to Jamaican parents. He would come up in Brooklyn, excelling at school (particularly in English) while simultaneously dealing drugs. He eventually dropped out in favor of the latter pursuit, a decision that later resulted in nine months spent in jail for dealing crack cocaine.

He came into rap before he was out of his teens, and released his first (and only) album Ready to Die when he was 22 years old. It was an instant hit, big enough to re-calibrate the poles of rap music back toward the East Coast.

That success would be relatively short lived. Biggie was murdered in 1997 while visiting Los Angeles, just six months after his West Coast rival Tupac Shakur suffered the same fate in Las Vegas.

Given how short his career was, Biggie Smalls was wildly influential. He set the standard for how large (no pun intended) a rapper could be, both in reputation and in lifestyle and ability. His rhymes remain gospel to virtually any aspiring rapper coming up today, regardless if they hail from the East Coast or not.

Contrast Biggie’s accomplishments and his legacy formed in half a decade with the two decades Jay-Z — the man who would be listed here were it not for Biggie — had, and he becomes even more remarkable. With just a single solo album released in his lifetime, he set trends and styles that will last for decades to come.

North Carolina

Artist – J. Cole

Years Active – 2007-Present

Notable Album – Cole World: The Inside Story

Sample Rhyme:

“I like to write alone, be in my zone

Think back to Forest Hills, no perfect home

But the only thing like home I’ve ever known

Until they snatched it from my mama and foreclosed her on the loan

I’m so sorry that I left you there to deal with that alone”

—

Born in West Germany, J. Cole and his mother eventually made his way to Fayettesville, North Carolina, where he would spend the rest of his childhood.

Like Biggie, Cole was an exceptional student, eventually graduating and attending college in New York City. His interest in rap coincided with his education, and shortly after he returned home to North Carolina his future was laid out before him.

A mixtape released in 2009 caught the ear of Jay-Z, who included Cole on a track for Blueprint 3 and signed him to Roc Nation.

Since then Cole’s career has been nothing but ascendant. He’s the true modern rapper in a lot of ways. He got his start with Jay-Z, but being from North Carolina he’s also worked with southern rap icons like B.o.B. For good measure, he produced a track for Kendrick Lamar’s 2011 album Section.80 (and is working on a long-delayed joint album with the L.A. native) as well as touring with R&B luminary Rihanna.

More than virtually any other active rapper on this list, Cole’s got his fingers in virtually all of rap’s pies.

North Dakota

Artist – Wiz Khalifa

Years Active – 2005-Present

Notable Album – Rolling Papers

Sample Rhyme:

“Damn, who knew

All the planes we flew

Good things we been through

That I’d be standing right here talking to you

‘Bout another path

I know we loved to hit the road and laugh

But something told me that it wouldn’t last”

—

Another bit of cheating on our part here. Wiz Khalifa is much more closely associated with Pittsburgh, Pennslyvania, about which he wrote his hit song “Black and Yellow.” He was born in Minot, North Dakota, however, while his father was stationed there as part of his army service. He would live overseas for much of his childhood before eventually settling in Pittsburgh.

Still, we gotta fill North Dakota somehow. Midwestern rappers tend to cluster, understandably, around the region’s bigger metropolises, and sadly neither of the Dakotas are known for their city life.

Khalifa came up through the same rap graduating class, so to speak, as J. Cole, first appearing on the scene in the waning years of the first decade of the 21st century.

Though Khalifa remains a presence within rap, his two peaks have come in unique ways relative to many others on this list.

The first came with the aforementioned song “Black and Yellow,” which was released right at the beginning of a NFL season that would see the Pittsburgh Steelers reach the Super Bowl come February. Khalifa’s tribute to his adopted hometown understandably became ubiquitous, especially in and around the city itself.

The second came with 2015’s release of the movie Furious 7. Franchise star Paul Walker died in an unrelated car accident in the middle of filming, and the filmmakers saw fit to honor the actor with an appropriately touching ending, soundtracked by the song “See You Again,” written and performed by Khalifa featuring Charlie Puth.

By the end of the year the song was the best selling single worldwide, and Khalifa’s mark was again made not by a landmark album or statement verse, but by the co-mingling of rap and another cultural medium.

Ohio

Artist – Why?

Years Active – 2004-Present

Notable Album – Alopecia, 2008

Sample Rhyme (from “The Fall of Mr. Fifths”):

“Just another Sunday paddle boat ride

On a man made lake with another lady stranger

If I remain lost and die on a cross

Well at least I wasn’t born in a manger

I can sense somewhere right now

I’m being prayed for

Seems like I always arrive on the same shore

From where my sails set maybe

with one less lady than my vessel left with

Is that a threat?”

—

Nope, you’ve not heard of Why?, and that’s okay. Yoni Wolf’s rap “band” — based in Oakland, California, but originally out of Ohio — is still very indie despite having released four albums since 2005.

Listening to the song above, it might immediately become clear why you haven’t heard of Why? He’s not your typical rapper, put lightly. His delivery can be monotone, his subject matter esoteric at best. He raps about boredom, about infatuation, about depression, about his battles with Crohn’s disease. Taken together as an album, it might derogatorily be referred to as dense or, worse, arty.

And it is. There’s a slight bit of pretension to Why?’s whole shtick. It’s meant to be a little alienating to someone who is only casually listening. But further listens are rewarding. Stories unfurl, the rhymes and allusions become sharper and more devastating.

In sum, it’s well worth the effort to love Why?

Oklahoma

Artist – Okie Boy Goons

Years Active – 2012?

Notable Track – “OK City”

Sample Rhyme:

“Yeah y’all know me, the Okie boy from the East side

I stay higher than that tree holding that bee hive

There ain’t nothing like OKC, like nothing like where I’m from

There ain’t nothing like OKC, like nothing like where I’m from

There ain’t nothing like OKC, like nothing like where I’m from”

—

This man has a tattoo of Oklahoma on his face, as in: without expensive surgery there’s no way that Okie Boy Goons looks into the mirror ever again without being reminded of his home state.

Another fun fact is that roughly half the run time of “OK City” is spent naming different towns in Oklahoma. It’s an exhaustive list, one that you have to believe gets to any settlement of note in the Sooner State.

You’d be wrong if you thought that, though. The production company of this video promised earlier this month that a remix is coming out “featuring even MORE CITIES in OKLAHOMA.”

All of which is to say that Okie Boy Goons is trying his best to bring his inclusive style of rap to even more Okies.

Oregon

Artist – Illmaculate

Years Active – 2010s

Notable Track – “New Chain”

Sample Rhyme:

“My surrounding’s a warzone

The trees watching, police choppers, concrete cracks beneath my feet walking

Dream big, I’m asleep but I sing conscious

She feed me grapes while she draped like a Greek goddess

Christ-like, walked water and seemed flawless”

—

Interpret this how you will, but Illmaculate is … really good. Not that any of the other rappers you’ve never heard of on this list aren’t good. Plenty of them are just fine! A few of them might even be worth listening to again, particularly if you intend to visit the state they’re rapping about.

Illmaculate is like getting hooked up to an oxygen mask after wading through the states of the Midwest and New England. His flow is smooth and maybe his rhymes aren’t incredible, but this is still some seriously impressive stuff from a rapper who, by all appearances, still makes the rounds at rap battle competitions.

He’s not rapping about how beautiful Oregon’s pine forests are, or even how great the donuts are in Portland (really great). Being a Native American — like a real one, not just the 1/15 Cherokee we all think we are — he’s got a unique perspective and the skill to flesh it out for us.

Illmaculate’s so good that it’s almost discouraging. Why don’t we know more about this guy? Why isn’t he getting guest verses instead of, say, Big Sean?

Pennsylvania

Artist – Mac Miller

Years Active – 2007-Present

Notable Album – GO:OD AM, 2015

Sample Rhyme (from the track “Weekend”):

“I been having trouble sleeping

Battling these demons

Wondering what’s the thing that

keeps me breathing

Is it money, fame or neither?

I been thinking about the places

that I frequent

All the people that I see

I’m just out here livin’ decent

What do it mean to be a G

And all the time we fall behind, bitch’s in the concubine, I call her mine, crazy”

—

Precociousness is a quality that’s usually reserved more for pop stars than rappers, but there’s something to be said about a young kid trying to scrape a career together even as he’s still working his way through high school.

Pennsylvania’s Mac Miller began rapping at age 14, quickly catching the attention of some influential figures. Miller would release his first mixtapes at age 17 and join Wiz Khalifa as one of the biggest names on local label Rostrum Records by the time he graduated high school.

Since then he’s stayed busy, touring and releasing albums — including last year’s critically acclaimed GO:OD AM.

Rhode Island

Artist – araabMUZIK

Years Active – 2005-Present

Notable Album – Dream World (2016)

Sample Rhyme:

*drum machine*

—

Alright, another slight bit of cheating. AraabMUZIK isn’t a rapper. Rather, he’s a producer. He’s worked with countless rappers, including Cam’ron, 50 Cent, ASAP Rocky and Azealia Banks.

His mixture of quick beats, drum machine high hats and background strings puts him firmly at the center of trap music — essentially a cross-pollination between rap and EDM.

The original meaning of the term was used to describe the moody content of the verses as the tracks they were rapped over. AraabMUZIK’s Abraham Orellana — actually of Dominican and Guatemalan ancestry, despite his chosen DJ name — produces raps in the style and also his unique instrumental take on the subgenre of trap.

His only official album Dream World sees AraabMUZIK laying down tracks for a variety of guest artists to sing or rap over, but his earlier mixtapes skewed strongly toward the EDM scene. For Professional Use Only stands out as an excellent example of what trap can be when it’s just music alone.

Tragically, Orellana was shot in the head on a botched robbery attempt in New York in February of this year, right before Dream World was released. According to the most recently available reports, his recovery is going well.

South Carolina

Artist – Jeezy

Years Active – 1998-Present

Notable Album – Seen It All: The Autobiography

Sample Rhyme (from the track “Me OK”):

“Had you cashing out, paying for, you can’t pronounce the name

Had that Murcielago, it was green like margaritas

I sold yayo, I sold albums, might as well sell some tequila

Dropped so many Lambos, thought I was a Lambassador

Snow, it’s been a while, yeah, you know them streets missed you

I don’t eat, sleep or shit without my motherfuckin’ pistol”

—

Jeezy — then Young Jeezy — didn’t start out in rap expecting to rap. He was a suit, a label representative, a promoter. He worked for Cash Money Records around the turn of the century.

Being around the game — particularly that of his adopted hometown of Atalanta — inspired Jeezy to eventually start releasing his own material. When his material found traction in the rap scene, he quit the business end entirely and focused on becoming a rapper in his own right.

The last years of the 21st century’s first decade were Jeezy’s pinnacle. He released four albums and mix tapes from 2005 to 2008, capped by his ominously titled album Recession.

A diagnosis of bells palsy delayed any further production, but when he did come back he came back hard. Seen It All: The Autobiography came out in 2014 and might be his best material to date.

South Dakota

Artist – Various

Years Active – 2012?

Notable Track – “WTF!?? South Dakota Rappers (cypher)”

Sample Rhyme (from Frank Villon):

“I’m Charles Bronson bitch, with blood soaked pajamas on

You get in the tranq while I’m getting my cannon on

To many Mickeys all night and you think you can pick a fight

Y’all watching me till I’m outside of your window like, ‘Hello'”

—

Underground rap communities are a fairly unique thing in music. The infrastructure and logistics to, say, start a garage band aren’t always practical. Even the world’s many aspiring DJs need to be able to afford a semi-decent laptop.

Rap, in contrast, doesn’t need all that much to begin to sprout. A community center, an open mike night, a closed-for-the-day bookstore … these are all venues where communities can gather and experiment or dazzle or just practice.

South Dakota — and so many other states in the union — seems particularly ripe for this kind of development. It’s not as if there’s a market in Sioux Falls for rappers to regularly perform on stage. So instead they gather in loose groups and battle, record and support each other. It’s a comforting and encouraging thing to see rap emerge out of even the most sparsely populated places.

Tennessee

Artist – Three 6 Mafia

Years Active – 1991-Present

Notable Album – Most Known Unknown

Sample Rhyme:

“Now when it comes to getting bread I got the keys to the bakery

A lot of dudes wear they play, man they some fackery

Let me catch a girl up out some work in my site

And I believe I’m gon be atcha in the daylight with a flashlight

I’m trying to get paid however money is made”

—

Three 6 Mafia have lived more lives than perhaps any other entity in rap. They originated in Memphis in 1991 as a sort of horror-themed group, in the same way that Wu Tang Clan is kung fu themed. DJ Paul and Juicy J were two of the founding members, and the two members who stuck with the group the longest as others came and went.

Over the next 25 years, the Three 6 Mafia would have its ups and downs. For the most part they could never escape the “underground” label they started with, and their releases were never embraced the same way other acts were.

They did, however, win an Academy Award for their song “It’s Hard Out Here for Pimp,” used on the soundtrack for the movie Hustle & Flow. 

They would never reach such heights again. In-fighting and delays hurt their momentum, and to date they have not been able to work their way back into the limelight.

Texas

Artist – Scarface

Years Active – 1980s-Present

Notable Album – Mr. Scareface is Back

Sample Rhyme:

“Our lifestyles be close captained

Addicted to fatal attractions

Pictures of actions be played back

In the midst of mashin’

No fairy tales for this young black male

Some see me stranded in this land of hell, jail and crack sales.”

—

In the waning years of the 80s and start of the 90s, Houston’s Geto Boys and later Scarface carved out their own piece of the rap pie between the East Coast and West Coast rivalry. Scarface was among the first representatives of southern rap, and as such played a tremendous part in the development of the subgenre in the decades to come.

More than any song he recorded, Scarface’s legacy will be his leadership in those early years in Houston and his ability to bridge the divide between East and West. He would earn national notoriety and, eventually, become the lead in Def Jam’s southern division. Acting in that capacity, he signed Ludacris in 1999.

Unlike other rappers who reached his level, Scarface never strayed far from his Houston roots, releasing music irregularly and occasionally teaming up with the Insane Clown Posse for their Gathering of the Juggalos.

Utah

Artist – Jamesthemormon

Years Active – 2016?

Notable Track – “Motivation”

Sample Rhyme:

“Trying to buy my great grandkid a house

So I can say I got ’em even when I’m out

That’s the only thing that matters to me now

I pay no mind to the haters cause they’re only talking shop

Put a drive on those and don’t stop until I say so

Gotta turn these tracks into pesos”

—

It doesn’t seem like the holy land of the Church of Latter Day Saints would ever inspire anyone to rap. Maybe pick up a guitar. Maybe write a few lines to a poem. But definitely not rap.

That’s admittedly a pretty narrow view. While Mormonism has a reputation for being very conservative, there’s still plenty of room in 2016 within conservatism for something like rap.

That’s particularly true when the church is aggressively trying to inspire a new generation to follow in their parents’ footsteps. Not to be too cynical, but rap in the right hands is an excellent marketing tool.

To Jamesthemormon’s credit, he’s not half bad at what he’s setting out to do. He and his posse have the aesthetics of rap down to a T, so much so that you might not even notice that he’s rapping about wanting to have a family and settle down instead of about inner city life, sex or violence.

Vermont

Artist – X10

Years Active – 2007?

Notable Track – “802”

Sample Rhyme:

“Up and Vermont, this is how we do

We got one area code and it’s 802

Green mountain state where we roll on skis

Don’t mess with our cows or we’re break your knees”

—

One last parody rap video, and this time it’s actually somewhat notable.

X10 — the name of a couple of bratty looking dudes who probably rue the day they decided to foray into rap — released their “hit” song “802” in 2007, making it perhaps the very first example of white people making a funny by rapping about inane things.

For being such an early example of the “artform,” the song isn’t all bad. It’s got some depreciating humor and a bunch of punchlines that even those of us who are from outside Vermont might get. It’s got some nice landmarks that were only marred by the terrible quality of the production equipment.

And it’s got a couple white dudes. This was all well past Vanilla Ice and Eminem, but still the idea that a couple white dudes would rap was just funny enough to a significant segment of the population to rack up what, at the time, must have been a huge number of views.

Virginia

Artist – Pusha T

Years Active – 1992-Present

Notable Album – My Name if My Name

Sample Rhyme (from the track “King Push”):

“Vultures to my culture

Exploit the struggle, insult ya

They name dropping about caine copping

But never been a foot soldier

Let’s have another look, just get a little closer

Rage against the machine, black Zack de la Rocha

In a cranberry Rossta, inside track

on the G rap poster

Best d-boy all I’m missing is a dash

Difference between me and Hova”

—

Virginia originally went to Missy Eliott. She gets a big honorable mention — an absolute legend in rap.

Pusha T, though. It’s impossible not to include the President of G.O.O.D. Music on this list. If only he was, however improbably, born in Idaho or Wyoming, this would be so much easier.

But he wasn’t. He was actually born in the Bronx, New York City, and relocated to Norfolk, Virginia as a child.

Hampton Roads in the 80s and 90s was a shockingly fertile ground for rappers. Not only is it responsible for the development of Pusha and Missy, but Timbaland and Pharrell both also came up in the suburbs of Norfolk and Virginia Beach.

Being in such close proximity, it’s no wonder they would team up. Pharrell produced for Pusha and his brother (No Malice) when they worked together as Clipse, including on their hit single “Grindin'”.

Pusha would move onto his own solo career, launched in part by his friendship with Kanye West. The Chicago rapper would go on to produce a good chunk of Pusha’s solo debut commercial release, My Name is My Name. It was that album that put Pusha on the map as a master lyricist.

Washington

Artist – Macklemore

Years Active – 2000-Present

Notable Album – The Heist

Sample Rhyme:

“One man’s trash, that’s another man’s come up

Thank your granddad for donating that plaid button-up

shirt, cause right now I’m up in here stunting

I’m at the Goodwill, you can find me in the bins”

—

As we approach the end of the this list, it feels about the right time to address a prevalent theme: a lot of these rappers are white guys. That is far from intentional, but it is a reflection of the changing-but-still-majority status of white people in the United States.

Currently, as Eminem’s star begins to fade, Macklemore is perhaps the most well known white rapper in the country.

The Seattle native came onto the scene as an uneasy mixture of Social Conscious Rapper and Joke Rapper. Such a pairing is basically cat nip for your average white person, and consequently when Macklemore finally found traction in the early ’10s his career skyrocketed.

His YouTube hits are tremendous — nearly a billion alone for the above video for “Thrift Shop” — and he swept the Best Rap Album, Best New Artist, Best Rap Performance and Best Rap Song Grammy Awards in the same year that Kendrick Lamar released his masterpiece, Good Kid, M.A.A.D. City. That latter fact might be the saddest on this list.

West Virginia

Artist – Mini Thin

Years Active – 2009?

Notable Track – Hillbilly Murda

Sample Rhyme:

See I gotta be real

Can’t come fake on this track

When you see Mini Thin the whole state’s on his back

I got love for you cats whether you white or you black

And I’ll murder whoever don’t put my state on the map

—

There’s something to be said for embracing the labels others apply to you and rolling with them. In some ways, that is a core concept of rap culture. True to the culture he’s adopted, Mini Thin does just that.

West Virginia’s stuck in a strange place both geographically and culturally. Crammed between historic north and south, and so dependent on the coal it mines that it has at times in its history resembled a feudal state.

Straddling the Appalachians as it does, many residents of West Virginia have (unfairly) been labeled as hillbillies, when in fact that pejorative could just as easily be applied to residents of Virginia, Ohio, Maryland or Kentucky.

Mini Thin revels in the hillbilly label, using it as a jumping off point to defend his state and prove just how hard he’s repping it. He can be forgiven if he veers a bit too hard toward rap stereotypes that might not entirely apply to life in his home state.

Wisconsin

Artist – Brother Ali

Years Active – 1990s-Present

Notable Album – Shadows on the Sun

Sample Rhyme (from the track “Uncle Sam Goddamn”):

“Smoke and mirrors, stripes and stars

Stolen for the cross in the name of God

Bloodshed, genocide, rape and fraud

Writ into the pages of the law good lord

The Cold Continent latch key child

Ran away one day and starting acting foul

King of where the wild things are daddy’s proud

Because the Roman Empire done passed it down”

—

This contains another pretty persistent theme: those rappers who are “other” — either racially or politically or economically or otherwise — usually end up producing the most compelling stuff. Beginning well behind the starting line only compels these rappers to work harder and make something more exceptional.

Brother Ali understands this well, being both albino and Muslim. His album Shadows on the Sun is an under-appreciated gem of ’00s rap. His lyricism alone would put him near the top if this list were ranked.

Like his Rhymesayers label-mate P.O.S., Brother Ali focuses a keen eye on social and political issues, and has spent a good chunk of his career lambasting Bush-era America. It’s not surprising that such subject matter might not sell an insane amount of records — hence why you probably have never heard of Brother Ali — which only makes the Wisconsin native’s career all the more impressive.

Wyoming

Artist – Y-O

Years Active – 2012?

Notable Track – “Hometown”

Sample Rhyme (from the track “Hometown”:

“I wasn’t raised around that killing shit

But I grew up killing shit

When I lay my lyrics down it’s on me if you don’t give a shit

Understand that my hometown made me keep it real as shit”

—

God forbid that one day some alien civilization uses this list to get an idea of what this rap music thing is all about.

They would get a fairly comprehensive list of some — though by no means all — of the best rappers working today. They’d also get a taste of indie and underground rap, performed by individuals who put down roots in places well outside of any of rap’s hubs and yet still find refuge and inspiration in the art form.

By the time they reached the end of the list, however, they would have to be forgiven for thinking that rap music is mostly about enumerating the various virtues, beauties and cities of the state a given rapper is from.

Y-O’s tribute to his home state of Wyoming punctuates this list, and perhaps that’s appropriate. Rap began as a local phenomenon, something performed at parties or at clubs. It was not intended to be consumed by a diverse, nationwide audience. Rather, it was the people’s music, dealing with themes and struggles and jokes that that specific audience would understand.

Even at rap’s highest levels — where wealth and excess are the most common themes — rappers are never too far away from rapping about their origins and how they came up.

Jay-Z’s “Empire State of Mind,” Wiz Khalifa’s “Black and Yellow,” basically everything that Kendrick Lamar produces and so many others go out of their way to evoke a sense of place — and specifically home. That’s not for lack of ideas or some cynical plow to boost album sales. It’s because rap, more than most art forms, is as much about where the rapper’s from as it is anything else.

Page 4

Artist – Judge Da Boss

Years Active – 2010s

Notable Track – Hell Yeah

Sample Rhyme:

“When I get around y’all broke hoes I act bougie hell yeah

I rock Gucci, hell yeah

Louis, hell yeah

Truey, hell yeah

Versace, hell yeah”

—

America’s Southwest is majestic, beautiful and entirely worth your time if you ever have the chance to visit.

That said, there’s not a tremendous amount of music from that region that makes its way out to America at large.

Cities like Phoenix, for instance, exist only because of the marvels of the modern world. There’s no iconic industry, at least not one that would produce the kinds of conditions rap would thrive in.

A lack of deep roots doesn’t mean it’s incapable of producing talent, however. Judge Da Boss is a good example.

After winning a competition against local rappers, Judge — nee Robert Louis Carr II — caught the attention of Amar’e Stoudemire, who convinced the Phoenix native to put pen to paper for the NBA star’s label, Hypocalypto Records.

Progress has been slow, however. Though he released a mixtape called The Chosen One shortly after signing, an official album has yet to surface. A deal with with Sony Records in 2014 is encouraging news.

The average rappers might not define themselves in terms of East or West anymore, but there’s still a healthy sense of location in the music.

The DIY spirit of rap — perhaps the strongest of any form of music — means that virtually anyone, anywhere can pick up a mic, acquire even the most basic understanding of drum machines or mixing software and become, almost overnight, a rapper.

The results are well documented. New York, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston  — all have nurtured wildly fertile rap cultures, ones that over time found themselves spreading to the nation at large. Each city has its own unique take, its own sound, its own attitude. The intermingling of all of these subgenres into a single, nationwide conversation raises the artform as a whole, and we’re all better off for it.

Now, a word of caution: just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should do something. The low entry cost for rap combines poorly with the tendency toward overconfidence in budding rappers, and the consequences can be dire. The United States’ smaller markets — far from the metropolises that spawned rap’s greats — often find themselves mired in rap mediocrity.

Perhaps that’s unfair, though. There might be plenty good reasons that the Oklahoma rap scene hasn’t exactly exploded, but it’s hard to make that generalization everywhere. Some states and regions are stuck, for better or for worse, in the pull of the nearest of rap’s many poles.

It would be hard, for instance, for a kid in Connecticut or New Jersey, coming up in the shadow of New York City, to not to show a lot of deference to Biggie and Jay Z. Similarly, few aspiring rappers in the South can admit to owing nothing to Outkast.

Outside of those poles, rap can be wonderfully idiosyncratic and even weird. It can also be square and traditionalist, gritty and dangerous or just plain boring. All are reflections of their location, the rapper’s origin and countless other factors.

The variety makes exploring the United States’ many iterations kind of exciting. For simplicity’s sake, here are the stories of the top rappers from all 50 states in the Union, presented to you in alphabetical order.

Alabama

Artist – Yelawolf

Years Active – 2005-Present

Notable Album – Trunk Muzik 0-60 (2010)

Sample Rhyme:

“Act like you don’t wanna see how much of this Jack

Daniels you can handle

You wanna drink and get cut like Rambo?

And let me drive your Daddy’s Lambo”

—

The magic of the alphabet delivers to us right at the top of the list perhaps the best possible example of the type of eccentric regionalism rap has to offer.

Yelawolf’s career took a weird turn when he began releasing actual albums, but his early mixtape Trunk Muzik 0-60 finds a rapper unafraid to be himself.

Being from Alabama, Yela was never going to find it ease to hide his accent or unique southern cadence. Instead, he leaned into it. His raps at times sound like slightly sped up — and significantly more filthy — country. It shouldn’t be surprising that this would be crazy fun, but it absolutely is.

The crossover appeal of rap among the typically conservative country music set wasn’t exactly enough to make a viable career, however. Yela continues to show a lot of the same spirit as he did on that early mixtape, but it all seems confined to the requisite marketability of being on a label.

Alaska

Artist – Bay Dilla

Years Active – 2000s

Notable Track – They Know 

Sample Rhyme:

“Up north, A-town

Anchorage

Can you feel me? Can you feel me?”

—

Somehow, someway, Alaska’s (miniscule) rap scene managed to produce one of the most insane stories on this list.

The above video is for an artist named Bay Dilla. He was reasonably popular in Alaska, in that way that anyone offering what almost literally no one else was offering is popular.

Simple reason tells us that a rapper rapping about experiences in and around the Arctic Circle won’t have national appeal, and indeed Bay Dilla does not defy this expectation.

Yet for a brief time he appeared to. The only rapper from Alaska to ever film a professional music video (disclaimer: this is an assumption that is probably correct) was absolutely swimming in money.

But how? Oh, it’s because his entire rap empire was a front for importing drugs from the Lower 48. The Feds caught him and prosecuted him for importing between 50 and 150 kilograms of cocaine into Alaska between 2009 and 2012.

Assuming he ever gets released from prison, perhaps Bay Dilla will have a rich mine of material to continue his rap career, in Alaska or elsewhere.

Arizona

Artist – Judge Da Boss

Years Active – 2010s

Notable Track – Hell Yeah

Sample Rhyme:

“When I get around y’all broke hoes I act bougie hell yeah

I rock Gucci, hell yeah

Louis, hell yeah

Truey, hell yeah

Versace, hell yeah”

—

America’s Southwest is majestic, beautiful and entirely worth your time if you ever have the chance to visit.

That said, there’s not a tremendous amount of music from that region that makes its way out to America at large.

Cities like Phoenix, for instance, exist only because of the marvels of the modern world. There’s no iconic industry, at least not one that would produce the kinds of conditions rap would thrive in.

A lack of deep roots doesn’t mean it’s incapable of producing talent, however. Judge Da Boss is a good example.

After winning a competition against local rappers, Judge — nee Robert Louis Carr II — caught the attention of Amar’e Stoudemire, who convinced the Phoenix native to put pen to paper for the NBA star’s label, Hypocalypto Records.

Progress has been slow, however. Though he released a mixtape called The Chosen One shortly after signing, an official album has yet to surface. A deal with with Sony Records in 2014 is encouraging news.

Arkansas

Artist – SL Jones

Years Active – 2010s

Notable Track– “Big Bank (No Ones)” (2013)

Sample Rhyme:

“Granddaddy was a hustler

Yeah I’m sticking to tradition”

—

Little Rock — from which young rapper SL Jones hails — is about halfway between Atlanta and Houston. The style was always going to be southern, but the question remained under which sphere of influence a rapper like SL Jones would fall.

Early on, his inspirations were decidedly mixed. His first solo mixtape, C.O.L.O.R.S: Bangin’ on Wax featured names from all corners of southern rap’s territory, from Virginia’s Clipse to Houston’s Chamillionaire to Atlanta’s Killer Mike.

With arguably his biggest track to date, SL Jones’ true loyalty became more clear. Featuring production by Metro Boomin — Future’s trusty sidekick — “Big Banks” sounds very Atlanta, while still retaining a unique enough flavor to make it SL Jones’ own.

As a sort of aside, isn’t it impressive when a young rapper like SL Jones can just nail the look on the first try? Mastering that mix of confidence, pseudo-dancing and style really pays off for music videos like the one made for “Big Banks.” Now if he could only come out with a follow up record …

California

Artist – Kendrick Lamar

Years Active – 2003-Present

Notable Album – Good Kid, M.A.A.D City

Sample Rhyme (from a guest verse on Push-T’s track “Nosetalgia”) :

“I said, ‘Daddy, one day Imma get you right with 36 zips

One thousand grams of cocaine, then your name will be rich

Now you can rock it up or sell it soft as leather interior

Drop some ice cubes in it, Deebo on perimeter’

He said ‘Son, how come you think you be my connect?’

I said ‘Pops, your ass is washed up, with all due respect’

He said “Well n*gga, then show me how it all makes sense’

Go figure, motherfucker, every verse is a brick

Your son dope n*gga”

—

It speaks to just how deep California’s stable of rappers is that picking Kendrick Lamar here was maybe the most difficult decision on this entire list.

By fairly broad consensus, Kendrick is the best rapper working today. No, he might not top the charts as much as Drake, and maybe he doesn’t generate Kanye’s headlines. He might not even be many people’s favorite rapper.

But in terms of pure artistry, no one can match him. He molds albums that are as much cultural dissertations as they are music. He doesn’t write party songs, or club bangers, or even introspective digressions about lost loves. He composes political and social thinkpieces, posing questions that many of us struggle to answer. He’s the rapper America needs in 2016.

None of which would have been possible without the man Kendrick credits as being a primary influence: Tupac Shakur. Many would protest, fairly, that Tupac should represent California on this list, as he embodies a huge part of rap’s growing pains in the 90s.

While his career was tragically cut short, Kendrick is only just heating up. He might not ever surpass 2Pac’s legend, but Kendrick’s fighting as hard as anyone to keep it alive.

Colorado

Artist – Mr. J. Medeiros

Years Active – 1998-Present

Notable Album – Of Gods and Girls

Sample Rhyme (from single “Pale Blue Dot”):

“Wrapped around a block of C-4 pow your minced meat

And now you’ve blown it

Using physics your god is distant and don’t condone it

Using mystics to bomb your critics and your opponents

You a bigot, misogynistic and homophobic.”

—

Kendrick, of course, isn’t the only one out there who turns to rap to address social ills. Rap’s poetic nature makes it easier to tell a story or frame a case than, say, your average rock ballad or pop song.

Rap’s long history outside the mainstream of American culture also makes it the ideal medium to bear the weight of what might be considered subversive or controversial opinions. It might be used more often these days to sing about cars, women and drugs, but at its core it’s protest music.

Mr. J. Medeiros captures this spirit well. It’s telling that he got his start in Colorado, a state almost literally in the country’s middle, one that’s waxed and waned so much politically over the decades that it is the definition of a “purple” state come election year.

Connecticut

Artist – Chris Webby

Years Active – 2008-Present

Notable Album – Chemically Imbalanced

Sample Rhyme (from “Ohh No”):

“So many bars you would think I’m living on Death Row

Webby just a motherfucking dog, where’s Petco?

Follow a plate of kibbles n bits with an egg roll

Genius in the laboratory cooking blue meth, yo

Call me Heisenberg, cause when I rhyme with words

These motherfuckers are behind the curve”

—

For every rapper like Kendrick or Mr. J. Medeiros, there are 10 (20? 30?) rappers like Chris Webby.

Hailing from Connecticut, Webby’s raps are kinetic, steeped in cultural references and, perhaps most of all, unfocused. He has, by his own admission, suffered from Attention Deficit Disorder all his life, a condition that seeps through to his raps.

Which isn’t a criticism. If anything, Webby’s style is part of the trend, one that owes a lot to freestyling and rap battling — two avenues on which many budding rappers first find traction. It’s a style that is far more concerned about getting out witty one liners than telling a story or advocating for a cause.

Webby rolls with it, creating rhymes that, combined with his rapid pace, make the listener feel like they’re caught in a verbal tornado.

Delaware

Artist – Wok (nee Chan)

Years Active – 2010s

Notable Track – “20 Missed Calls”

Sample Rhyme:

“Purple that I’m smoking you can smell it down the block

All I do is stunt

Onion in the blunt

Better have my money if I’m giving you the front”

—

Look, Delaware was never going to be an easy state to write about. With no major metropolitan area, it’s got a smaller population than the smallest state in the Union, Rhode Island, despite being almost twice as large in area.

Thankfully, the excellent folks over at Complex had us covered. Back in 2014, they posted a brief article featuring a brief clip of a Delaware rapper, then named Chan and now named Wok.

To them — and to us — the song “20 Missed Calls” is as much novelty as it is quality music. It’s rap from Delaware. What in the Blue Hen State could be worth rapping about?

Turns out, a lot of the same stuff as you’d find in any other state. Chan raps over some notably well-made beats about women and drugs and it’s not half bad.

Unfortunately this is just about all we from Wok. “20 Missed Calls” came out in 2013 and, to date, seems to be the artist’s high point.

Florida

Artist – Rick Ross

Years Active – 2001-Present

Notable Album – Teflon Don, 2010

Sample Rhyme (from track “I’m Not a Star”):

“I’m not a star, somebody lied

I got a pistol in the car, a 45

If I’d die today, remember me like John Lennon

Buried in Louie, I’m talking all brown linen”

—

In a strange way, Rick Ross’ ascent up rap’s hierarchy is the embodiment of the American Dream.

His raps are full of references to drug dealing, to violence, to a life lived outside the law. It’s all standard rap fodder, the kind of experiences that have built careers since rap’s beginnings.

Only it might not be true. Rick Ross — real name William Leonard Roberts II — was raised in Florida and went to college in Georgia on a football scholarship. After graduating, he worked for roughly 18 months as a correctional officer.

He would eventually move on to making music and, as his doubters argue, he found that designing a fake persona around drug dealing made for a better look. He would adopt the name “Rick Ross” from a famous cocaine kingpin in 1980s Los Angeles.

The truth, though, is that Rick Ross is a good rapper, perhaps even very good. He made himself into a character to add weight to what he rapped about, and it worked. No famous rap artist out there can claim to have done any different.

Georgia

Artist – Outkast

Years Active – 1992-Present

Notable Album – Stankonia (2000)

Sample Rhyme (from the track “Ms. Jackson”):

“Me and your daughter got a special thing going on

You say it’s puppy love, we say it’s full-grown

Hope that we feel this, feel this way forever

You can plan a pretty picnic

But you can’t predict the weather, Ms. Jackson”

—

We’ll take the opposite approach with Georgia than we did with California. Instead of naming an artist more popular today, we’re going down to the foundations of modern rap, not just in Georgia but across the genre.

Outkast — a duo consisting of André 3000 and Big Boi — released their first album in 1994, and over the next decade would change rap’s DNA.

Their style embodied Atlanta, the city from which they hailed. It was psychedelic, playful and unique. Their music was conscientious and smart, paying respect to community, women and themselves in equal measure, and they still had fun with it. Songs like “B.O.B” and “Ms. Jackson” could appear on the air for the first time in 2016 and still be tremendous hits.

The duo’s success also turned Atlanta into a dominant force in the rap ecosystem and elevated southern rap across the board. Outkast might not make new music together anymore, but they remain living legends.

Hawaii

Artist – Tassho Pearce

Years Active – 2010s

Notable Album– G.O.O.D. Company

Sample Rhyme (from the track “Satelites”):

“These are moments you could wait your whole life for

Standin’ next to Bob Barker trying to pick the right door

More Henny, more Swishers, more kush,

The more I drink the more better she look”

—

It’s a wonder that any solo rap venture starting in the middle of the Pacific Ocean could find traction in the mainland United States, and yet Tassho Pearce proved it was possible.

Half-Japanese and half-white, Tassho grew up in Hawaii’s nascent rap scene. His career didn’t really start until he hooked up with Kanye West when the famous Chicago rapper came to the islands to record My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy in 2010.

Tassho bonded with Kanye and his clique, and eventually impressed them enough to enlist the support of a few heavies to get his rap career off the ground. He first worked with Kanye’s mentor No I.D. to produce the aforementioned “Satelites,” featuring both him and Kid Cudi.

Then he made a whole album, released just this year, called G.O.O.D. Company — a tribute to Kanye’s G.O.O.D. record label. It’s a record that stays loyal to Hawaii, with Tassho bringing in a couple other local rappers to feature on tracks.

According to Pigeon and Planes’ interview with him, Tassho now mostly resides on the West Coast of the mainland, working on music as well as setting up his own burgeoning rap empire.

Idaho

Artist – Bret Johnson (?)

Years Active – 2013?

Notable Track – “The 208”

Sample Rhyme:

“I’m from Idaho, sound the alarms

Get in your cars

We’s about to party at the local Walmart”

—

Any discussion about rap in America would not be complete without acknowledging the rise of parody rap.

The genre’s low entry level cost — turning on your laptop’s microphone, searching Google for free mixing software — means that any (white) person with a vaguely funny joke can turn it into a career.

Sometimes the results border on great. The Lonely Island produces some well made and hilarious stuff.

Most times, though, parody rap inspires more eye rolls than laughs. Take the song above. It’s a rap about Idaho’s telephone area code, 208. It is among the first hits when you type “Idaho rappers” into Google, just above a link for a service that allows your to “hire rappers,” whatever that means.

“The 208” jabs at a lot of stuff many in rural America might recognize, and throws in some more specific Idaho stuff for good measure. It is a carbon copy of just about every other rap on YouTube that is about a specific place, made exclusively for people in that specific place. And, somehow, it’s the only example of homegrown rap in Idaho.

Illinois

Artist – Kanye West

Years Active – 2003-Present

Notable Album – My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

Sample Rhyme (from the track “N*ggas in Paris”):

“What’s Gucci, my n*gga? What’s Louis, my killa?

What’s drugs, my dealer? What’s that jacket, Margiela?

Doctors say I’m the illest, cause I’m suffering from realness

Got my n*ggas in Paris and they going gorillas, huh”

—

Chicago’s produced some great talent lately. It was tempting here to skip on Kanye — the city, Illinois and perhaps rap itself’s most recognizable name at the moment — and bestow this “honor” to someone like Chance the Rapper.

But there’s no denying Kanye’s immense role in rap over the last decade. He’s produced some of the most innovative, provocative and revolutionary music in any genre over that time period, becoming an icon in the process.

That he finds himself in the tabloids as often as the music charts is another matter entirely — we’re hear to focus on the rap itself. Though critics might argue that Kanye’s grasp of wordplay and flow aren’t always the greatest, his desire, and ability, to expand rap’s boundaries make him a legend.

He wanted to honor and repurpose the hits of the past, and he mixed them into his songs when he made College Dropout and Late Registration.

He wanted an arena feel to rap, and he made Graduation. He wanted to sing, and he made 808s & Heartbreaks. He wanted artistry, and he made My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. He wanted anger and he made Yeezus. He wanted attention and he made Life of Pablo.

His ability to change gears and elevate new styles and techniques might make him the single most influential rapper alive today. It’s difficult to name an artist working today, from Drake to Nicki Minaj to Chance, and not be able to clearly see Kanye’s hand.

Indiana

Artist – Freddie Gibbs

Years Active – 2003-Present

Notable Album– Shadow of a Doubt

Sample Rhyme: 

“Celly stead ringing for Freddie but where the things at?

Drove a half a ton, dropped it off and I took a plane back

Gangsta shit in my DNA, I just can’t explain that

Even if I die tell my enemies I remain that”

—

With the notable exception of Michael Jackson, Gary, Indiana does not produce a tremendous amount of American culture, despite virtually being a suburb of Chicago.

Freddie Gibbs nonetheless found his way up through rap’s ranks, thanks entirely to his unique delivery. His voice strains and reaches as he rhymes, an effect that adds an emotional or angry tinge to a lot of his best work.

It helps that Gibbs’ rhymes are also inspired on their own. He’s got a great ear for his own work, and with the help of some talented producers has created a sound that’s unique within rap. His 2015 album Shadow of a Doubt is darkly ambitious, recounting Gibbs’ roots in Gary and what was done in the name of success.

Gibbs might not be able to top Shadow of a Doubt, however. Last month, he was accused of raping a woman in Austria during his European tour. He was released on 50,000 Euros bail and awaits trial. He emphatically denies the charges.

Iowa

Artist – Json

Years Active – 2005-Present

Notable Album – Braille

Sample Rhyme:

“Tryna get people to trust in The King (My God)

The One they call Yahweh

Stand firm and affirm till they call my name

One thing I have blood bettin’ on my days

Unaware of a snake see I’m on that grace

I feel the pressure huh”

—

As rap’s popularity continues to grow, it can accommodate more and more multitudes. It can be fun, celebratory, angry, political, sad, horny and, evidently, also faithful.

Iowa-based rapper Json embodies that last surprising bit. He produces well made, exceptionally produced raps that are about and for God. That in and of itself isn’t unique — Chicago rappers Kanye West and Chance the Rapper both released albums this year that have been referred to as “gospel rap,” after all.

What makes Json stand out, in Iowa and elsewhere, is his wholesale commitment to being an evangelical rapper. His youth was split between St. Louis, Los Angeles and drugs, the latter of which seemed set to ruin his life.

He and his wife were able to get clean thanks in part to their faith in Jesus Christ. He would focus his life on Christianity, and use rap to preach the same message that saved his life.

Json’s career arc is almost entirely unique within rap. It’s a genre of music that tends to be crude and occasionally cruel, so the fact he could turn it into something unmistakably positive is something special.

Kansas

Artist – Mac Lethal

Years Active – 2001-Present

Notable Track – “Look at Me Now”

Sample Rhyme:

“There’s nothing beautiful about this world

I’m gonna pucker up my lips to barf

Gonna choke a fucking rapper with his hipster scarf

I’m never gonna put another piece of music out

deliberately if it isn’t genuine and grips the heart

Winter’s hard, so have some pancakes”

—

It’s the plight of the up-and-coming rapper that sometimes the most notable thing you can do is rap whilst making pancakes.

Kansas’ own Mac Lethal is clearly talented. He’s got flow that rivals Twista in terms of pace and cleverness, and he’s got a loyal following. He continues to tour around the US. He’s made a career that most aspiring rappers will never make for themselves.

Yet he’s still the guy who makes funny YouTube videos (he also posts hilarious text conversations with his maybe-made-up cousin Bennett on Tumblr, and later wrote a whole book about it).

Rap, for all its ease of access, is still a market, and not everyone’s shtick is going to have mass appeal. Some rappers are legendary hitmakers, others are one hit wonders, but most find themselves somewhere in between.

Maybe one day Mac Lethal gets the credit he deserves, but only time will tell.

Kentucky

Artist – CunningLynguists

Years Active – 2000-Present

Notable Track – Linguistics

Sample Rhyme:

“If you know you’re gonna die why step?

Show no mercy when bruising crews

You get hit with more bricks than New Jerus

Riddles confusing fools like Confucian rules

Cause most cats are most squared than Rubik’s Cubes”

—

Rap isn’t always about who you know, nor is it always a matter of the-more-you-give-the-more-you-get. Some artists come up with a great pedigree, plenty of experience and money, and still don’t make it.

CunningLynguists hail from Kentucky and through various incarnations have been working toward something like stardom for all of the 21st century. They’ve worked with other artists on this list and collaborated and toured with many more.

Still, like Kansas’ Mac Lethal, it’s never that easy. CunningLynguists fall into a vague middle ground in rap. Their sound is reminiscent of southern rap (indeed, some of the founding members were from Atlanta) but with an indie twist. This isn’t rap music being played to the back row of stadiums. It’s smaller, denser and gets better the more you listen to it.

Unfortunately, again like Lethal, they’ve yet to find a toehold in the national rap conversation. Perhaps a name change would do them good.

Louisiana

Artist – Lil Wayne

Years Active – 1996-Present

Notable Album – The Carter III

Sample Rhyme (from the track “6 Foot 7 Foot”):

“Life is the bitch, and death is her sister

Sleep is the cousin what a fuckin family picture

You know Father Time, and we all know Mother Nature

It’s all in the family but I am of no relation

No matter who’s buyin, I’m a celebration

Black and white diamonds, fuck segregation

Fuck that shit, my money up, you n*ggaz just Honey Nut

Young Money runnin shit and you n*ggaz just runner-ups

I don’t feel I done enough so I’ma keep on doin this shit

Lil Tunechi or Young Tunafish”

—

Is it fair to call Lil Wayne, arguably one of the two or three best rappers of his generation, a tragic figure?

Yes, he’s released multiple gold and platinum albums, has had 120 songs appear in Billboard’s Top 100 (more than any other individual artist) and can even release a disastrous rock album without losing an ounce of credibility.

He also struggled through childhood — shooting himself accidentally at age 12 and dropping out of a gifted high school program two years later — and frequently found himself in either a hospital room or jail cell in adulthood.

The perseverance it has taken for Lil Wayne to move on and continue to either release his own material or, as he does frequently, collaborate with other artists is unimaginable. By all rights, he should take a cue from Jay Z and enjoy the considerable success he’s earned. Instead he’s still promising to release The Carter V at some point in the near future.

To his credit, Wayne has promised that it will be his last album. He plans on retiring before his 35th birthday in order to have the time to spend with his four kids.

Maine

Artist – Spose

Years Active – 2004-Present

Notable Track – “The King of Maine”

Sample Rhyme:

“I’m from the 420 minus 213

I’m on the throne if you’re looking for who to unseat

I got moose blood in my goblet, lobsters in my optics

I’m live on the map where the dudes don’t rap”

—

For those readers who have not experienced the pleasures of Maine: Spose is the kind of rapper you might expect from the Lower 48’s northernmost state.

The Wells native essentially provides us with a turbo-powered, slightly more sincere version of Idaho’s official state rap (see above). He’s a professional though, and goes about making a case for his home state with some skill.

Again, though, it falls into the same category of music as Idaho’s song. It’s a joke, told specifically for the people of Maine to understand and for the rest of us to kind of shrug off confusedly.

Based on the YouTube comments though, Spose seems to nail what makes Maine Maine, and even to us outsiders it’s clear that he’s got the skill to succeed, even coming from as small a market as the Pine Tree State.

Spose’s fourth album Why Am I So Happy?  came out in 2015, so clearly he’s doing something right.

Maryland

Artist – Oddisee

Years Active – 1999-Present

Notable Album – People Hear What They See

Sample Rhyme (from the track “That’s Love”):

“And here we are again, just confronting fears

Whether pain, or gain, it’s a bunch of tears

Blood, sweat, and peers, probably disappear

When smoke starts to clear, their persistence near

Pay attention to the folks who’re fanning the glames

They’re the ones who matter most in the gravity game

When stakes weigh you down and they stay around

And pick up pieces and you off the ground

That’s love.”

—

This is the first — but not the last — time where we might be accused of cheating on this list.

Oddisee — real name Amir Elkhalifa — was born and raised in Maryland, but he really came to prominence as a leading light in Washington, DC’s music scene. He represents Maryland while honoring a lot of the funk and Go-Go traditions of the city he’s adopted.

Growing up in a wealthy suburb of the nation’s capital, Oddisee didn’t know a lot of hardship. While he was a rap fan all his life, he related more to the likes of A Tribe Called Quest and Eric B. & Rakim, rappers whose music didn’t orbit around violence or drugs.

As a result, Oddisee’s raps cover a whole rainbow of issues, ranging from familial love to poverty.

His rhymes are refreshing and unique and made better by his unique take on production. Indeed, Oddisee will release instrumental albums almost as often as he does pure rap albums, a reflection of his myriad abilities within the art form.

Massachusetts

Artist – Guru

Years Active – 1986-2010

Notable Album – Daily Operation (as one half of Gang Starr)

Sample Rhyme:

“You know I used to be a player, fly girl layer and a

heartbreaker

Lovemaker, backbreaker but then I made a

Mistake yes I fell in love with this ill chick

Sweating me for money, my name and the dilsnick”

—

Though he made a name for himself on his own, MC Guru was originally one half of the legendary hip hop duo Gang Starr, along with DJ Premier.

Gang Starr were an influential force in rap on the East Coast when they were at their heights in the early 1990s, a story made all the more exceptional due to the fact Guru originally hailed from Boston — not exactly the United States’ most well known rap city.

Guru formed Gang Starr in 1986 with several other producers and rappers, but barely three years later he was the sole remaining member. He would recruit PJ Premier to be the other half of the rejuvenated group just before signing with Chrysalis Records.

The UK-based label encouraged Gang Starr’s underground roots and went on to help release several albums, each of which forms another foundation block in 90s era rap.

While Gang Starr faded, Guru stayed in the game and released music under his own name right up until he tragically died of a heart attack in 2010.

Michigan

Artist – Danny Brown

Years Active – 2003-Present

Notable Album – Old (2013)

Sample Rhyme:

“While she listen to the oldie soap operas smoking bogies

On the phone gossiping telling homegirls stories

Girlfriend worries cause her son’s in a hurry

To see the state pen or a cemetery buried

Ma replied do her best but it’s still rough”

—

Alright, the elephant in the room, so to speak: Michigan’s best rapper isn’t Eminem, at least not on this list. Danny Brown needed to be represented. For those Shady loyalists, don’t worry: he’ll somehow appear later in this list.

Now, Danny Brown. Maybe you’ve heard of him? You should have heard from him. He’s great.

Rap’s appeal has broadened a lot over the last decade or two, but it doesn’t usually work so well as a crossover platform. Rap is rap. Maybe it co-mingles with R&B, but really it’s its own animal.

Danny Brown is the exception. He and his producers have a healthy appreciation for club culture, and it’s easy to hear the influence of EDM on his music.

This makes sense for a Detroit-based rapper. The city is responsible for creating the American middle class as well as some of the earliest examples of electronic music in the country.

Detroit is as present in Brown’s raps as anything else. Though his EDM roots make him surprisingly danceable, his songs are often sober reflections on life in a struggling city.

Minnesota

Artist – P.O.S.

Years Active – 2001-Present

Notable Album – Audition

Sample Rhyme (from “Stand Up (Let’s Get Murdered)”):

“See, you can’t fight a feeling. I feel terrified

There’s a war against me, my friends, my fam, my pride

My life, my job, my likes and like-minded

Folks are like, “Psh” like they just don’t mind it

So I’m cool, right?

They wag the dog. We catch the lipstick

What kind of city plumber thought that he could make these old and rusty pipes fit?

Well, they don’t. I’m catching the drip

I’ll practice holdin’ my breath, then sink with the ship”

—

Long before Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton were running for president, Minneapolis’ P.O.S. (short for Pissed Off Steph) was railing against the establishment. He spent the bulk of the 00s releasing tracks like “Stand Up (Let’s Get Murdered),” a sharp-tongued critique of the (then) Bush administration and a system that seemed like it was rigged against the average American citizen.

Were his complaints overblown? Maybe a little, but you have to remember this was at the height of the post 9/11/Iraq War/Great Recession era and to those paying attention it was hard not to think that someone somewhere was getting screwed over.

The important part for our purposes is that P.O.S. made some excellent rap. It was violent and angry yet thoughtful, a worthy tribute to the 90s Rage Against the Machine and a precursor (though likely not a direct influence of) the likes of conspiratorially-minded rappers like El-P and Killer Mike.

Mississippi

Artist – Rae Sremmurd

Years Active – 2005-Present

Notable Album – SremmLife (2015)

Sample Rhyme:

“Chop the top off the Porsche, that’s a headless horse

Extendo long as an extension cord

Bitch, I ball like Jordan and I play full court

And if you not my type then you know I gotta keep this shit short

What you know about a checK? What you got up in your pocket?

What you spending when you shopping, dawg?

Why you wanna go flex? Like you all in the mix

Like you got some shit poppin’ off

I got some models that you see up in the movies

And they want to make a flick for the camera

Wanna be Kim Kardashian, heard I was livin’ like a bachelor”

—

Those old enough to remember the mid-90s might be tempted to compare the youthful rap duo Rae Sremmurd with Kriss Kross. That wouldn’t be entirely fair however, as the latter were sort of gimmicky and wore their pants backwards for some reason.

Rae Sremmurd, in contrast, simply built off their older peers, creating some fun rap that can be enjoyed by both young and old.

Their story’s not half bad either. Given that Tupelo, Mississippi is something of a rap hinterland, the pair (then a trio) had to work exceptionally hard to get noticed. They played parties and bars, saving money to make trips to various competitions and venues before they finally came into contact with a record label willing to sign them.

A year later their effort paid off when Sremmlife was released in January 2015. The debut album was an near-immediate hit, reaching number one on Billboard’s rap and hip hop charts.

Missouri

Artist – Eminem

Years Active – 1992-Present

Notable Album – The Marshall Mathers LP (2000)

Sample Rhyme:

“The soul’s escaping through this hole that is gaping

This world’s mine for the taking, make me king

As we move toward a New World Order

A normal life is boring; but superstardom’s

Close to post-mortem, it only grows harder

Home grows hotter, he blows it’s all over

These hoes is all on him, coast to coast shows

He’s known as the Globetrotter, lonely roads

God only knows, he’s grown farther from home, he’s no father

He goes home and barely knows his own daughter”

—

As we mentioned in the Michigan slide, Eminem’s location on this list is a bit of a cheat. While the rapper came up and very much raps about a life in Detroit, he was originally born in St. Joseph, Missouri. He would split his time between his home state and Michigan for much of his childhood.

Eminem’s appearance here does a small disservice to some rappers who came up in Missouri. Tech N9ne in Kansas City, Nelly and Chiny from St Louis and a few others are being left out to make space for Mr. Mathers.

But Eminem’s too popular and marks too big a milestone in the genre to simply skip. His star might have faded somewhat from the heights of The Slim Shady LP and The Marshall Mathers LP, but he’s still a force within rap.

Beyond his considerable talent, Eminem stood out in those early years for being white. While far from the only white rapper out there at the time, he was the first to really break through with a mass appeal. For many — particularly in the whiter parts of America — his obnoxious and crude witticisms and bratty behavior made him more accessible than rappers who focused on drugs and violence and unjust treatment by the police.

Now, there’s something to be said about the fact it took Eminem for white America to appreciate the rap genre instead of, say, the dozens of black rappers who came before him who were as good and likely better. But that’s perhaps a discussion for a different slideshow.

Montana

Artist – French Montana

Years Active – 2007-Present

Notable Track – “Pop That”

Sample Rhyme:

“What you twerkin’ with?”

—

Here are some pertinent facts about the state of Montana:

-Montana is the fourth biggest state in the United States in terms of area

-Montana has the 44th largest population in the U.S.

-Montana ranks 48th in population density among U.S. states

-Montana doesn’t have any rappers

Three of those four facts are easy to come by, census data type stuff. One of them is a less concrete fact, but rather one that we can only assume after spending almost an hour Googling for an answer. Guess which is which!

In any case, we’re going to have to cheat really hard here. Elsewhere on this list we’ve taken rappers known to have come up in a particularly state or city and cast them instead in the state they were born in. Here, we’re going to be forced to make the most specious of connections in order to get this slide filled out.

French Montana is not from Montana. He wasn’t even born in the United States. He hails from Morocco.

Even his stage name isn’t an allusion to the state, but rather an attempt to link himself with Scarface anti-hero Tony Montana.

For all his lack of actual Montana-ness, French Montana is still a notable member of the circa-2016 rap pantheon. He’s a master collaborator with connections across rap’s geographical reach.

That he’s accomplished all this despite the fact that he and his family didn’t move to the U.S. until he was 14 years old makes French Montana’s story in the rap scene resemble the American Dream. Anyone can come to these shores and get the chance to party with Rick Ross, Lil Wayne and Drake deserves a place on this list. Even if we had to cheat to get him here.

Nebraska

Artist – Mars Black

Years Active – 2008-Present

Notable Track – “Scotch on the Rocks”

Sample Rhyme:

“Black label president, I’m also a member

Hope to get thick baby, word to my gender

Making it hot in the middle of December

Oh you forgot? Don’t you remember?

We were rockin’ jams, me and my man

Mike and Ham

Over beatbox or a live band”

—

Omaha, Nebraska is a strangely fertile little island of music in the dead center of the United States’ Midwest.

Saddle Creek Records directly or indirectly fostered the development of a crazy amount of indie music darlings. Bright Eyes, the Faint, Jenny Lewis, Cursive and many others found their start with the Omaha-based label.

To those readers in the know, none of those aforementioned acts are even remotely “rap.” They’re all either folk or punk or rock or a combination of the three. No rap.

That doesn’t mean that some rap culture hasn’t grown up alongside Saddle Creek and the like. Indeed, a small group of artists came up through Omaha and the environs through the 1970s and 80s that ended up presiding over a small but significant underground scene.

The legacy of that early Omaha rap scene is Mars Black. The Brooklyn-born rapper has earned some notoriety in recent years, thanks in some small part to his association with Conor Oberst.

The latter is the lead singer of Bright Eyes and Omaha’s beloved son, arguably the city’s most well-known musician. His label, Team Love, signed Mars Black as its only rapper back in the early 00s. Thus Omaha’s music scene continues to evolve.

Nevada

Artist – Feeki

Years Active – 2010?-Present

Notable Track – “You Know You Like It”

Sample Rhyme:

“Really fuck the fame I really just wanna motivate

Hard work motherfucker now you know my game

I see this generation fucking filled with all entitlement

These lazy motherfuckers get me heated like a solar pane”

—

Of all places in Nevada, you would think that its most (read: only) notable rapper would come from Las Vegas. It’s a city of excess, vulgarity and seemingly endless prosperity. Those sounds like ingredients to making a wonderful rapper.

Of course, those that live in or near Vegas aren’t exactly living the glamorous lives that the tourists might when they come through the desert oasis. Indeed, not too far out of Vegas city limits the realities (sometimes grim) of the rest of the country become readily apparent.

Feeki comes out of Reno, Vegas’ under-respected little brother. Appropriately enough, Feeki isn’t the kind of rapper to front. He’s earnest and positive and can rock a mullet that doesn’t come off as all that ironic. He raps about life and ambition and not getting discouraged.

Like so many other rappers on this list, particularly rappers from those states that might not be anxiously awaiting The Next Big Things, Feeki’s gotta work to get his name out there, and he works hard. It’s nearly impossible not to root for him.

New Hampshire

Artist – Roots of Creation

Years Active – 2014?

Notable Track – “Summer in the 603”

Sample Rhyme:

“When the sun is blazing and the summer gets hot

We don’t take it for granite that our home state rocks

You got the drive-in in Milford

Meadowbrook up in Gilford

Damn I miss Benton’s animal farm, that place was the illest”

—

This humble writer admits to not having much pride in his home state. Yes, it’s quite beautiful, and the wineries and hiking trails and, increasingly, breweries are all wonderful, but nothing about Virginia has ever really compelled me to want to break into song.

If the rap scene serves as any sort of barometer, then it can be said with some confidence that — contrary to this writer’s attitude — state pride is at its highest levels since the Civil War.

While your more mainstream rappers — your Lil Waynes and your Kendricks and your Outkasts — are more global, many rappers from smaller markets don’t have the luxury of speaking to a wider audience. They have to rap about what they know to people who also know what they know. Hence the preponderance of rappers on this list who have a lot to say about the virtues of their home state.

New Hampshire’s Roots of Creation really get into the minutiae of what makes the Granite State so wonderful to them, and to outsiders it all comes off as something close to gibberish. Hopefully making songs like this gets them the local press they need to eventually be able to rap about wider, more universal themes.

New Jersey

Artist – Lauryn Hill

Years Active – 1993-Present

Notable Album – The Miseducation of Lauryn  Hill

Sample Rhyme:

“It’s been three weeks since you were looking for your friend

The one you let hit it and never called you again

Member when he told you he was bout the Benjamins?

You act like you ain’t hear him, then give him a little trim”

—

The primary emotion many people have these days in regard to Lauryn Hill is some combination of regret and nostalgia.

She got her start in East Orange, New Jersey. While still in high school she joined a group that would eventually become known as the Fugees. The band would go on to become one of the standout names of mid-90s R&B and hip hop.

Riding on the wave of fame Fugees offered her, Hill broke off to record a solo record in 1997. The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill was released the following year and became an instant classic.

Her style owed itself to many early 90s female MCs like Salt-n-Pepa as well as male rappers like Ice Cube, and her ability to seamlessly transition between singing and rapping made her music stand out all the more.

Songs like “Doo-Wop (That Thing)” are now iconic 90s songs, and by all rights should have been followed by further songs that helped define the era they came out in. But Miseducation was the last true album Hill ever produced, barring a poorly received MTV Unplugged album in 2001.

New Mexico

Artist – Wake Self

Years Active – 2014?

Notable Track – “New Mexico”

Sample Rhyme:

“We got the best chile

That’s the truth really

I’m from Albuquerque, por que Duke City?

It’s more than a show about cooking meth

that you know from television”

—

The nearly 69,000 views Wake Self has on his video for the single “New Mexico” might represent the entire population of the state for all we know. Who else but overly ambitious writers would be searching for this video and then actually watching it?

Wake Self delivers yet another song for this list that seems like it could have been written by the state government’s in-house travel agency.

To his credit, the production levels are actually good here, and the photography really sells the state’s beauty.

A particular line in the song actually cuts to the heart of what raps like this are all about. To paraphrase: New Mexico doesn’t have any professional sports teams. Those of us who grew up in or near even a modest metropolis will find this an entirely alien concept. What does it mean to grow up in a place where thousands of your neighbors and fellow citizens don’t weekly — or even daily — convene in an arena and all shout for the same cause?

Wake Self and so many others on this list don’t have that type of community to feed off of. It’s no wonder they turn to rap, and in particular rap songs about their states.

New York

Artist – The Notorious B.I.G.

Years Active – 1992-1997

Notable Album – Ready to Die, 1994

Sample Rhyme:

“Poppa been smooth since the days of Underroos

Never lose, never choose to, bruise crews who

Do something to us, talk go through us

Girls walk to us, wanna do us, screw us”

—

Christopher George Latore Wallace was born in New York City in 1972 to Jamaican parents. He would come up in Brooklyn, excelling at school (particularly in English) while simultaneously dealing drugs. He eventually dropped out in favor of the latter pursuit, a decision that later resulted in nine months spent in jail for dealing crack cocaine.

He came into rap before he was out of his teens, and released his first (and only) album Ready to Die when he was 22 years old. It was an instant hit, big enough to re-calibrate the poles of rap music back toward the East Coast.

That success would be relatively short lived. Biggie was murdered in 1997 while visiting Los Angeles, just six months after his West Coast rival Tupac Shakur suffered the same fate in Las Vegas.

Given how short his career was, Biggie Smalls was wildly influential. He set the standard for how large (no pun intended) a rapper could be, both in reputation and in lifestyle and ability. His rhymes remain gospel to virtually any aspiring rapper coming up today, regardless if they hail from the East Coast or not.

Contrast Biggie’s accomplishments and his legacy formed in half a decade with the two decades Jay-Z — the man who would be listed here were it not for Biggie — had, and he becomes even more remarkable. With just a single solo album released in his lifetime, he set trends and styles that will last for decades to come.

North Carolina

Artist – J. Cole

Years Active – 2007-Present

Notable Album – Cole World: The Inside Story

Sample Rhyme:

“I like to write alone, be in my zone

Think back to Forest Hills, no perfect home

But the only thing like home I’ve ever known

Until they snatched it from my mama and foreclosed her on the loan

I’m so sorry that I left you there to deal with that alone”

—

Born in West Germany, J. Cole and his mother eventually made his way to Fayettesville, North Carolina, where he would spend the rest of his childhood.

Like Biggie, Cole was an exceptional student, eventually graduating and attending college in New York City. His interest in rap coincided with his education, and shortly after he returned home to North Carolina his future was laid out before him.

A mixtape released in 2009 caught the ear of Jay-Z, who included Cole on a track for Blueprint 3 and signed him to Roc Nation.

Since then Cole’s career has been nothing but ascendant. He’s the true modern rapper in a lot of ways. He got his start with Jay-Z, but being from North Carolina he’s also worked with southern rap icons like B.o.B. For good measure, he produced a track for Kendrick Lamar’s 2011 album Section.80 (and is working on a long-delayed joint album with the L.A. native) as well as touring with R&B luminary Rihanna.

More than virtually any other active rapper on this list, Cole’s got his fingers in virtually all of rap’s pies.

North Dakota

Artist – Wiz Khalifa

Years Active – 2005-Present

Notable Album – Rolling Papers

Sample Rhyme:

“Damn, who knew

All the planes we flew

Good things we been through

That I’d be standing right here talking to you

‘Bout another path

I know we loved to hit the road and laugh

But something told me that it wouldn’t last”

—

Another bit of cheating on our part here. Wiz Khalifa is much more closely associated with Pittsburgh, Pennslyvania, about which he wrote his hit song “Black and Yellow.” He was born in Minot, North Dakota, however, while his father was stationed there as part of his army service. He would live overseas for much of his childhood before eventually settling in Pittsburgh.

Still, we gotta fill North Dakota somehow. Midwestern rappers tend to cluster, understandably, around the region’s bigger metropolises, and sadly neither of the Dakotas are known for their city life.

Khalifa came up through the same rap graduating class, so to speak, as J. Cole, first appearing on the scene in the waning years of the first decade of the 21st century.

Though Khalifa remains a presence within rap, his two peaks have come in unique ways relative to many others on this list.

The first came with the aforementioned song “Black and Yellow,” which was released right at the beginning of a NFL season that would see the Pittsburgh Steelers reach the Super Bowl come February. Khalifa’s tribute to his adopted hometown understandably became ubiquitous, especially in and around the city itself.

The second came with 2015’s release of the movie Furious 7. Franchise star Paul Walker died in an unrelated car accident in the middle of filming, and the filmmakers saw fit to honor the actor with an appropriately touching ending, soundtracked by the song “See You Again,” written and performed by Khalifa featuring Charlie Puth.

By the end of the year the song was the best selling single worldwide, and Khalifa’s mark was again made not by a landmark album or statement verse, but by the co-mingling of rap and another cultural medium.

Ohio

Artist – Why?

Years Active – 2004-Present

Notable Album – Alopecia, 2008

Sample Rhyme (from “The Fall of Mr. Fifths”):

“Just another Sunday paddle boat ride

On a man made lake with another lady stranger

If I remain lost and die on a cross

Well at least I wasn’t born in a manger

I can sense somewhere right now

I’m being prayed for

Seems like I always arrive on the same shore

From where my sails set maybe

with one less lady than my vessel left with

Is that a threat?”

—

Nope, you’ve not heard of Why?, and that’s okay. Yoni Wolf’s rap “band” — based in Oakland, California, but originally out of Ohio — is still very indie despite having released four albums since 2005.

Listening to the song above, it might immediately become clear why you haven’t heard of Why? He’s not your typical rapper, put lightly. His delivery can be monotone, his subject matter esoteric at best. He raps about boredom, about infatuation, about depression, about his battles with Crohn’s disease. Taken together as an album, it might derogatorily be referred to as dense or, worse, arty.

And it is. There’s a slight bit of pretension to Why?’s whole shtick. It’s meant to be a little alienating to someone who is only casually listening. But further listens are rewarding. Stories unfurl, the rhymes and allusions become sharper and more devastating.

In sum, it’s well worth the effort to love Why?

Oklahoma

Artist – Okie Boy Goons

Years Active – 2012?

Notable Track – “OK City”

Sample Rhyme:

“Yeah y’all know me, the Okie boy from the East side

I stay higher than that tree holding that bee hive

There ain’t nothing like OKC, like nothing like where I’m from

There ain’t nothing like OKC, like nothing like where I’m from

There ain’t nothing like OKC, like nothing like where I’m from”

—

This man has a tattoo of Oklahoma on his face, as in: without expensive surgery there’s no way that Okie Boy Goons looks into the mirror ever again without being reminded of his home state.

Another fun fact is that roughly half the run time of “OK City” is spent naming different towns in Oklahoma. It’s an exhaustive list, one that you have to believe gets to any settlement of note in the Sooner State.

You’d be wrong if you thought that, though. The production company of this video promised earlier this month that a remix is coming out “featuring even MORE CITIES in OKLAHOMA.”

All of which is to say that Okie Boy Goons is trying his best to bring his inclusive style of rap to even more Okies.

Oregon

Artist – Illmaculate

Years Active – 2010s

Notable Track – “New Chain”

Sample Rhyme:

“My surrounding’s a warzone

The trees watching, police choppers, concrete cracks beneath my feet walking

Dream big, I’m asleep but I sing conscious

She feed me grapes while she draped like a Greek goddess

Christ-like, walked water and seemed flawless”

—

Interpret this how you will, but Illmaculate is … really good. Not that any of the other rappers you’ve never heard of on this list aren’t good. Plenty of them are just fine! A few of them might even be worth listening to again, particularly if you intend to visit the state they’re rapping about.

Illmaculate is like getting hooked up to an oxygen mask after wading through the states of the Midwest and New England. His flow is smooth and maybe his rhymes aren’t incredible, but this is still some seriously impressive stuff from a rapper who, by all appearances, still makes the rounds at rap battle competitions.

He’s not rapping about how beautiful Oregon’s pine forests are, or even how great the donuts are in Portland (really great). Being a Native American — like a real one, not just the 1/15 Cherokee we all think we are — he’s got a unique perspective and the skill to flesh it out for us.

Illmaculate’s so good that it’s almost discouraging. Why don’t we know more about this guy? Why isn’t he getting guest verses instead of, say, Big Sean?

Pennsylvania

Artist – Mac Miller

Years Active – 2007-Present

Notable Album – GO:OD AM, 2015

Sample Rhyme (from the track “Weekend”):

“I been having trouble sleeping

Battling these demons

Wondering what’s the thing that

keeps me breathing

Is it money, fame or neither?

I been thinking about the places

that I frequent

All the people that I see

I’m just out here livin’ decent

What do it mean to be a G

And all the time we fall behind, bitch’s in the concubine, I call her mine, crazy”

—

Precociousness is a quality that’s usually reserved more for pop stars than rappers, but there’s something to be said about a young kid trying to scrape a career together even as he’s still working his way through high school.

Pennsylvania’s Mac Miller began rapping at age 14, quickly catching the attention of some influential figures. Miller would release his first mixtapes at age 17 and join Wiz Khalifa as one of the biggest names on local label Rostrum Records by the time he graduated high school.

Since then he’s stayed busy, touring and releasing albums — including last year’s critically acclaimed GO:OD AM.

Rhode Island

Artist – araabMUZIK

Years Active – 2005-Present

Notable Album – Dream World (2016)

Sample Rhyme:

*drum machine*

—

Alright, another slight bit of cheating. AraabMUZIK isn’t a rapper. Rather, he’s a producer. He’s worked with countless rappers, including Cam’ron, 50 Cent, ASAP Rocky and Azealia Banks.

His mixture of quick beats, drum machine high hats and background strings puts him firmly at the center of trap music — essentially a cross-pollination between rap and EDM.

The original meaning of the term was used to describe the moody content of the verses as the tracks they were rapped over. AraabMUZIK’s Abraham Orellana — actually of Dominican and Guatemalan ancestry, despite his chosen DJ name — produces raps in the style and also his unique instrumental take on the subgenre of trap.

His only official album Dream World sees AraabMUZIK laying down tracks for a variety of guest artists to sing or rap over, but his earlier mixtapes skewed strongly toward the EDM scene. For Professional Use Only stands out as an excellent example of what trap can be when it’s just music alone.

Tragically, Orellana was shot in the head on a botched robbery attempt in New York in February of this year, right before Dream World was released. According to the most recently available reports, his recovery is going well.

South Carolina

Artist – Jeezy

Years Active – 1998-Present

Notable Album – Seen It All: The Autobiography

Sample Rhyme (from the track “Me OK”):

“Had you cashing out, paying for, you can’t pronounce the name

Had that Murcielago, it was green like margaritas

I sold yayo, I sold albums, might as well sell some tequila

Dropped so many Lambos, thought I was a Lambassador

Snow, it’s been a while, yeah, you know them streets missed you

I don’t eat, sleep or shit without my motherfuckin’ pistol”

—

Jeezy — then Young Jeezy — didn’t start out in rap expecting to rap. He was a suit, a label representative, a promoter. He worked for Cash Money Records around the turn of the century.

Being around the game — particularly that of his adopted hometown of Atalanta — inspired Jeezy to eventually start releasing his own material. When his material found traction in the rap scene, he quit the business end entirely and focused on becoming a rapper in his own right.

The last years of the 21st century’s first decade were Jeezy’s pinnacle. He released four albums and mix tapes from 2005 to 2008, capped by his ominously titled album Recession.

A diagnosis of bells palsy delayed any further production, but when he did come back he came back hard. Seen It All: The Autobiography came out in 2014 and might be his best material to date.

South Dakota

Artist – Various

Years Active – 2012?

Notable Track – “WTF!?? South Dakota Rappers (cypher)”

Sample Rhyme (from Frank Villon):

“I’m Charles Bronson bitch, with blood soaked pajamas on

You get in the tranq while I’m getting my cannon on

To many Mickeys all night and you think you can pick a fight

Y’all watching me till I’m outside of your window like, ‘Hello'”

—

Underground rap communities are a fairly unique thing in music. The infrastructure and logistics to, say, start a garage band aren’t always practical. Even the world’s many aspiring DJs need to be able to afford a semi-decent laptop.

Rap, in contrast, doesn’t need all that much to begin to sprout. A community center, an open mike night, a closed-for-the-day bookstore … these are all venues where communities can gather and experiment or dazzle or just practice.

South Dakota — and so many other states in the union — seems particularly ripe for this kind of development. It’s not as if there’s a market in Sioux Falls for rappers to regularly perform on stage. So instead they gather in loose groups and battle, record and support each other. It’s a comforting and encouraging thing to see rap emerge out of even the most sparsely populated places.

Tennessee

Artist – Three 6 Mafia

Years Active – 1991-Present

Notable Album – Most Known Unknown

Sample Rhyme:

“Now when it comes to getting bread I got the keys to the bakery

A lot of dudes wear they play, man they some fackery

Let me catch a girl up out some work in my site

And I believe I’m gon be atcha in the daylight with a flashlight

I’m trying to get paid however money is made”

—

Three 6 Mafia have lived more lives than perhaps any other entity in rap. They originated in Memphis in 1991 as a sort of horror-themed group, in the same way that Wu Tang Clan is kung fu themed. DJ Paul and Juicy J were two of the founding members, and the two members who stuck with the group the longest as others came and went.

Over the next 25 years, the Three 6 Mafia would have its ups and downs. For the most part they could never escape the “underground” label they started with, and their releases were never embraced the same way other acts were.

They did, however, win an Academy Award for their song “It’s Hard Out Here for Pimp,” used on the soundtrack for the movie Hustle & Flow. 

They would never reach such heights again. In-fighting and delays hurt their momentum, and to date they have not been able to work their way back into the limelight.

Texas

Artist – Scarface

Years Active – 1980s-Present

Notable Album – Mr. Scareface is Back

Sample Rhyme:

“Our lifestyles be close captained

Addicted to fatal attractions

Pictures of actions be played back

In the midst of mashin’

No fairy tales for this young black male

Some see me stranded in this land of hell, jail and crack sales.”

—

In the waning years of the 80s and start of the 90s, Houston’s Geto Boys and later Scarface carved out their own piece of the rap pie between the East Coast and West Coast rivalry. Scarface was among the first representatives of southern rap, and as such played a tremendous part in the development of the subgenre in the decades to come.

More than any song he recorded, Scarface’s legacy will be his leadership in those early years in Houston and his ability to bridge the divide between East and West. He would earn national notoriety and, eventually, become the lead in Def Jam’s southern division. Acting in that capacity, he signed Ludacris in 1999.

Unlike other rappers who reached his level, Scarface never strayed far from his Houston roots, releasing music irregularly and occasionally teaming up with the Insane Clown Posse for their Gathering of the Juggalos.

Utah

Artist – Jamesthemormon

Years Active – 2016?

Notable Track – “Motivation”

Sample Rhyme:

“Trying to buy my great grandkid a house

So I can say I got ’em even when I’m out

That’s the only thing that matters to me now

I pay no mind to the haters cause they’re only talking shop

Put a drive on those and don’t stop until I say so

Gotta turn these tracks into pesos”

—

It doesn’t seem like the holy land of the Church of Latter Day Saints would ever inspire anyone to rap. Maybe pick up a guitar. Maybe write a few lines to a poem. But definitely not rap.

That’s admittedly a pretty narrow view. While Mormonism has a reputation for being very conservative, there’s still plenty of room in 2016 within conservatism for something like rap.

That’s particularly true when the church is aggressively trying to inspire a new generation to follow in their parents’ footsteps. Not to be too cynical, but rap in the right hands is an excellent marketing tool.

To Jamesthemormon’s credit, he’s not half bad at what he’s setting out to do. He and his posse have the aesthetics of rap down to a T, so much so that you might not even notice that he’s rapping about wanting to have a family and settle down instead of about inner city life, sex or violence.

Vermont

Artist – X10

Years Active – 2007?

Notable Track – “802”

Sample Rhyme:

“Up and Vermont, this is how we do

We got one area code and it’s 802

Green mountain state where we roll on skis

Don’t mess with our cows or we’re break your knees”

—

One last parody rap video, and this time it’s actually somewhat notable.

X10 — the name of a couple of bratty looking dudes who probably rue the day they decided to foray into rap — released their “hit” song “802” in 2007, making it perhaps the very first example of white people making a funny by rapping about inane things.

For being such an early example of the “artform,” the song isn’t all bad. It’s got some depreciating humor and a bunch of punchlines that even those of us who are from outside Vermont might get. It’s got some nice landmarks that were only marred by the terrible quality of the production equipment.

And it’s got a couple white dudes. This was all well past Vanilla Ice and Eminem, but still the idea that a couple white dudes would rap was just funny enough to a significant segment of the population to rack up what, at the time, must have been a huge number of views.

Virginia

Artist – Pusha T

Years Active – 1992-Present

Notable Album – My Name if My Name

Sample Rhyme (from the track “King Push”):

“Vultures to my culture

Exploit the struggle, insult ya

They name dropping about caine copping

But never been a foot soldier

Let’s have another look, just get a little closer

Rage against the machine, black Zack de la Rocha

In a cranberry Rossta, inside track

on the G rap poster

Best d-boy all I’m missing is a dash

Difference between me and Hova”

—

Virginia originally went to Missy Eliott. She gets a big honorable mention — an absolute legend in rap.

Pusha T, though. It’s impossible not to include the President of G.O.O.D. Music on this list. If only he was, however improbably, born in Idaho or Wyoming, this would be so much easier.

But he wasn’t. He was actually born in the Bronx, New York City, and relocated to Norfolk, Virginia as a child.

Hampton Roads in the 80s and 90s was a shockingly fertile ground for rappers. Not only is it responsible for the development of Pusha and Missy, but Timbaland and Pharrell both also came up in the suburbs of Norfolk and Virginia Beach.

Being in such close proximity, it’s no wonder they would team up. Pharrell produced for Pusha and his brother (No Malice) when they worked together as Clipse, including on their hit single “Grindin'”.

Pusha would move onto his own solo career, launched in part by his friendship with Kanye West. The Chicago rapper would go on to produce a good chunk of Pusha’s solo debut commercial release, My Name is My Name. It was that album that put Pusha on the map as a master lyricist.

Washington

Artist – Macklemore

Years Active – 2000-Present

Notable Album – The Heist

Sample Rhyme:

“One man’s trash, that’s another man’s come up

Thank your granddad for donating that plaid button-up

shirt, cause right now I’m up in here stunting

I’m at the Goodwill, you can find me in the bins”

—

As we approach the end of the this list, it feels about the right time to address a prevalent theme: a lot of these rappers are white guys. That is far from intentional, but it is a reflection of the changing-but-still-majority status of white people in the United States.

Currently, as Eminem’s star begins to fade, Macklemore is perhaps the most well known white rapper in the country.

The Seattle native came onto the scene as an uneasy mixture of Social Conscious Rapper and Joke Rapper. Such a pairing is basically cat nip for your average white person, and consequently when Macklemore finally found traction in the early ’10s his career skyrocketed.

His YouTube hits are tremendous — nearly a billion alone for the above video for “Thrift Shop” — and he swept the Best Rap Album, Best New Artist, Best Rap Performance and Best Rap Song Grammy Awards in the same year that Kendrick Lamar released his masterpiece, Good Kid, M.A.A.D. City. That latter fact might be the saddest on this list.

West Virginia

Artist – Mini Thin

Years Active – 2009?

Notable Track – Hillbilly Murda

Sample Rhyme:

See I gotta be real

Can’t come fake on this track

When you see Mini Thin the whole state’s on his back

I got love for you cats whether you white or you black

And I’ll murder whoever don’t put my state on the map

—

There’s something to be said for embracing the labels others apply to you and rolling with them. In some ways, that is a core concept of rap culture. True to the culture he’s adopted, Mini Thin does just that.

West Virginia’s stuck in a strange place both geographically and culturally. Crammed between historic north and south, and so dependent on the coal it mines that it has at times in its history resembled a feudal state.

Straddling the Appalachians as it does, many residents of West Virginia have (unfairly) been labeled as hillbillies, when in fact that pejorative could just as easily be applied to residents of Virginia, Ohio, Maryland or Kentucky.

Mini Thin revels in the hillbilly label, using it as a jumping off point to defend his state and prove just how hard he’s repping it. He can be forgiven if he veers a bit too hard toward rap stereotypes that might not entirely apply to life in his home state.

Wisconsin

Artist – Brother Ali

Years Active – 1990s-Present

Notable Album – Shadows on the Sun

Sample Rhyme (from the track “Uncle Sam Goddamn”):

“Smoke and mirrors, stripes and stars

Stolen for the cross in the name of God

Bloodshed, genocide, rape and fraud

Writ into the pages of the law good lord

The Cold Continent latch key child

Ran away one day and starting acting foul

King of where the wild things are daddy’s proud

Because the Roman Empire done passed it down”

—

This contains another pretty persistent theme: those rappers who are “other” — either racially or politically or economically or otherwise — usually end up producing the most compelling stuff. Beginning well behind the starting line only compels these rappers to work harder and make something more exceptional.

Brother Ali understands this well, being both albino and Muslim. His album Shadows on the Sun is an under-appreciated gem of ’00s rap. His lyricism alone would put him near the top if this list were ranked.

Like his Rhymesayers label-mate P.O.S., Brother Ali focuses a keen eye on social and political issues, and has spent a good chunk of his career lambasting Bush-era America. It’s not surprising that such subject matter might not sell an insane amount of records — hence why you probably have never heard of Brother Ali — which only makes the Wisconsin native’s career all the more impressive.

Wyoming

Artist – Y-O

Years Active – 2012?

Notable Track – “Hometown”

Sample Rhyme (from the track “Hometown”:

“I wasn’t raised around that killing shit

But I grew up killing shit

When I lay my lyrics down it’s on me if you don’t give a shit

Understand that my hometown made me keep it real as shit”

—

God forbid that one day some alien civilization uses this list to get an idea of what this rap music thing is all about.

They would get a fairly comprehensive list of some — though by no means all — of the best rappers working today. They’d also get a taste of indie and underground rap, performed by individuals who put down roots in places well outside of any of rap’s hubs and yet still find refuge and inspiration in the art form.

By the time they reached the end of the list, however, they would have to be forgiven for thinking that rap music is mostly about enumerating the various virtues, beauties and cities of the state a given rapper is from.

Y-O’s tribute to his home state of Wyoming punctuates this list, and perhaps that’s appropriate. Rap began as a local phenomenon, something performed at parties or at clubs. It was not intended to be consumed by a diverse, nationwide audience. Rather, it was the people’s music, dealing with themes and struggles and jokes that that specific audience would understand.

Even at rap’s highest levels — where wealth and excess are the most common themes — rappers are never too far away from rapping about their origins and how they came up.

Jay-Z’s “Empire State of Mind,” Wiz Khalifa’s “Black and Yellow,” basically everything that Kendrick Lamar produces and so many others go out of their way to evoke a sense of place — and specifically home. That’s not for lack of ideas or some cynical plow to boost album sales. It’s because rap, more than most art forms, is as much about where the rapper’s from as it is anything else.

Page 5

Artist – SL Jones

Years Active – 2010s

Notable Track– “Big Bank (No Ones)” (2013)

Sample Rhyme:

“Granddaddy was a hustler

Yeah I’m sticking to tradition”

—

Little Rock — from which young rapper SL Jones hails — is about halfway between Atlanta and Houston. The style was always going to be southern, but the question remained under which sphere of influence a rapper like SL Jones would fall.

Early on, his inspirations were decidedly mixed. His first solo mixtape, C.O.L.O.R.S: Bangin’ on Wax featured names from all corners of southern rap’s territory, from Virginia’s Clipse to Houston’s Chamillionaire to Atlanta’s Killer Mike.

With arguably his biggest track to date, SL Jones’ true loyalty became more clear. Featuring production by Metro Boomin — Future’s trusty sidekick — “Big Banks” sounds very Atlanta, while still retaining a unique enough flavor to make it SL Jones’ own.

As a sort of aside, isn’t it impressive when a young rapper like SL Jones can just nail the look on the first try? Mastering that mix of confidence, pseudo-dancing and style really pays off for music videos like the one made for “Big Banks.” Now if he could only come out with a follow up record …

The average rappers might not define themselves in terms of East or West anymore, but there’s still a healthy sense of location in the music.

The DIY spirit of rap — perhaps the strongest of any form of music — means that virtually anyone, anywhere can pick up a mic, acquire even the most basic understanding of drum machines or mixing software and become, almost overnight, a rapper.

The results are well documented. New York, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston  — all have nurtured wildly fertile rap cultures, ones that over time found themselves spreading to the nation at large. Each city has its own unique take, its own sound, its own attitude. The intermingling of all of these subgenres into a single, nationwide conversation raises the artform as a whole, and we’re all better off for it.

Now, a word of caution: just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should do something. The low entry cost for rap combines poorly with the tendency toward overconfidence in budding rappers, and the consequences can be dire. The United States’ smaller markets — far from the metropolises that spawned rap’s greats — often find themselves mired in rap mediocrity.

Perhaps that’s unfair, though. There might be plenty good reasons that the Oklahoma rap scene hasn’t exactly exploded, but it’s hard to make that generalization everywhere. Some states and regions are stuck, for better or for worse, in the pull of the nearest of rap’s many poles.

It would be hard, for instance, for a kid in Connecticut or New Jersey, coming up in the shadow of New York City, to not to show a lot of deference to Biggie and Jay Z. Similarly, few aspiring rappers in the South can admit to owing nothing to Outkast.

Outside of those poles, rap can be wonderfully idiosyncratic and even weird. It can also be square and traditionalist, gritty and dangerous or just plain boring. All are reflections of their location, the rapper’s origin and countless other factors.

The variety makes exploring the United States’ many iterations kind of exciting. For simplicity’s sake, here are the stories of the top rappers from all 50 states in the Union, presented to you in alphabetical order.

Alabama

Artist – Yelawolf

Years Active – 2005-Present

Notable Album – Trunk Muzik 0-60 (2010)

Sample Rhyme:

“Act like you don’t wanna see how much of this Jack

Daniels you can handle

You wanna drink and get cut like Rambo?

And let me drive your Daddy’s Lambo”

—

The magic of the alphabet delivers to us right at the top of the list perhaps the best possible example of the type of eccentric regionalism rap has to offer.

Yelawolf’s career took a weird turn when he began releasing actual albums, but his early mixtape Trunk Muzik 0-60 finds a rapper unafraid to be himself.

Being from Alabama, Yela was never going to find it ease to hide his accent or unique southern cadence. Instead, he leaned into it. His raps at times sound like slightly sped up — and significantly more filthy — country. It shouldn’t be surprising that this would be crazy fun, but it absolutely is.

The crossover appeal of rap among the typically conservative country music set wasn’t exactly enough to make a viable career, however. Yela continues to show a lot of the same spirit as he did on that early mixtape, but it all seems confined to the requisite marketability of being on a label.

Alaska

Artist – Bay Dilla

Years Active – 2000s

Notable Track – They Know 

Sample Rhyme:

“Up north, A-town

Anchorage

Can you feel me? Can you feel me?”

—

Somehow, someway, Alaska’s (miniscule) rap scene managed to produce one of the most insane stories on this list.

The above video is for an artist named Bay Dilla. He was reasonably popular in Alaska, in that way that anyone offering what almost literally no one else was offering is popular.

Simple reason tells us that a rapper rapping about experiences in and around the Arctic Circle won’t have national appeal, and indeed Bay Dilla does not defy this expectation.

Yet for a brief time he appeared to. The only rapper from Alaska to ever film a professional music video (disclaimer: this is an assumption that is probably correct) was absolutely swimming in money.

But how? Oh, it’s because his entire rap empire was a front for importing drugs from the Lower 48. The Feds caught him and prosecuted him for importing between 50 and 150 kilograms of cocaine into Alaska between 2009 and 2012.

Assuming he ever gets released from prison, perhaps Bay Dilla will have a rich mine of material to continue his rap career, in Alaska or elsewhere.

Arizona

Artist – Judge Da Boss

Years Active – 2010s

Notable Track – Hell Yeah

Sample Rhyme:

“When I get around y’all broke hoes I act bougie hell yeah

I rock Gucci, hell yeah

Louis, hell yeah

Truey, hell yeah

Versace, hell yeah”

—

America’s Southwest is majestic, beautiful and entirely worth your time if you ever have the chance to visit.

That said, there’s not a tremendous amount of music from that region that makes its way out to America at large.

Cities like Phoenix, for instance, exist only because of the marvels of the modern world. There’s no iconic industry, at least not one that would produce the kinds of conditions rap would thrive in.

A lack of deep roots doesn’t mean it’s incapable of producing talent, however. Judge Da Boss is a good example.

After winning a competition against local rappers, Judge — nee Robert Louis Carr II — caught the attention of Amar’e Stoudemire, who convinced the Phoenix native to put pen to paper for the NBA star’s label, Hypocalypto Records.

Progress has been slow, however. Though he released a mixtape called The Chosen One shortly after signing, an official album has yet to surface. A deal with with Sony Records in 2014 is encouraging news.

Arkansas

Artist – SL Jones

Years Active – 2010s

Notable Track– “Big Bank (No Ones)” (2013)

Sample Rhyme:

“Granddaddy was a hustler

Yeah I’m sticking to tradition”

—

Little Rock — from which young rapper SL Jones hails — is about halfway between Atlanta and Houston. The style was always going to be southern, but the question remained under which sphere of influence a rapper like SL Jones would fall.

Early on, his inspirations were decidedly mixed. His first solo mixtape, C.O.L.O.R.S: Bangin’ on Wax featured names from all corners of southern rap’s territory, from Virginia’s Clipse to Houston’s Chamillionaire to Atlanta’s Killer Mike.

With arguably his biggest track to date, SL Jones’ true loyalty became more clear. Featuring production by Metro Boomin — Future’s trusty sidekick — “Big Banks” sounds very Atlanta, while still retaining a unique enough flavor to make it SL Jones’ own.

As a sort of aside, isn’t it impressive when a young rapper like SL Jones can just nail the look on the first try? Mastering that mix of confidence, pseudo-dancing and style really pays off for music videos like the one made for “Big Banks.” Now if he could only come out with a follow up record …

California

Artist – Kendrick Lamar

Years Active – 2003-Present

Notable Album – Good Kid, M.A.A.D City

Sample Rhyme (from a guest verse on Push-T’s track “Nosetalgia”) :

“I said, ‘Daddy, one day Imma get you right with 36 zips

One thousand grams of cocaine, then your name will be rich

Now you can rock it up or sell it soft as leather interior

Drop some ice cubes in it, Deebo on perimeter’

He said ‘Son, how come you think you be my connect?’

I said ‘Pops, your ass is washed up, with all due respect’

He said “Well n*gga, then show me how it all makes sense’

Go figure, motherfucker, every verse is a brick

Your son dope n*gga”

—

It speaks to just how deep California’s stable of rappers is that picking Kendrick Lamar here was maybe the most difficult decision on this entire list.

By fairly broad consensus, Kendrick is the best rapper working today. No, he might not top the charts as much as Drake, and maybe he doesn’t generate Kanye’s headlines. He might not even be many people’s favorite rapper.

But in terms of pure artistry, no one can match him. He molds albums that are as much cultural dissertations as they are music. He doesn’t write party songs, or club bangers, or even introspective digressions about lost loves. He composes political and social thinkpieces, posing questions that many of us struggle to answer. He’s the rapper America needs in 2016.

None of which would have been possible without the man Kendrick credits as being a primary influence: Tupac Shakur. Many would protest, fairly, that Tupac should represent California on this list, as he embodies a huge part of rap’s growing pains in the 90s.

While his career was tragically cut short, Kendrick is only just heating up. He might not ever surpass 2Pac’s legend, but Kendrick’s fighting as hard as anyone to keep it alive.

Colorado

Artist – Mr. J. Medeiros

Years Active – 1998-Present

Notable Album – Of Gods and Girls

Sample Rhyme (from single “Pale Blue Dot”):

“Wrapped around a block of C-4 pow your minced meat

And now you’ve blown it

Using physics your god is distant and don’t condone it

Using mystics to bomb your critics and your opponents

You a bigot, misogynistic and homophobic.”

—

Kendrick, of course, isn’t the only one out there who turns to rap to address social ills. Rap’s poetic nature makes it easier to tell a story or frame a case than, say, your average rock ballad or pop song.

Rap’s long history outside the mainstream of American culture also makes it the ideal medium to bear the weight of what might be considered subversive or controversial opinions. It might be used more often these days to sing about cars, women and drugs, but at its core it’s protest music.

Mr. J. Medeiros captures this spirit well. It’s telling that he got his start in Colorado, a state almost literally in the country’s middle, one that’s waxed and waned so much politically over the decades that it is the definition of a “purple” state come election year.

Connecticut

Artist – Chris Webby

Years Active – 2008-Present

Notable Album – Chemically Imbalanced

Sample Rhyme (from “Ohh No”):

“So many bars you would think I’m living on Death Row

Webby just a motherfucking dog, where’s Petco?

Follow a plate of kibbles n bits with an egg roll

Genius in the laboratory cooking blue meth, yo

Call me Heisenberg, cause when I rhyme with words

These motherfuckers are behind the curve”

—

For every rapper like Kendrick or Mr. J. Medeiros, there are 10 (20? 30?) rappers like Chris Webby.

Hailing from Connecticut, Webby’s raps are kinetic, steeped in cultural references and, perhaps most of all, unfocused. He has, by his own admission, suffered from Attention Deficit Disorder all his life, a condition that seeps through to his raps.

Which isn’t a criticism. If anything, Webby’s style is part of the trend, one that owes a lot to freestyling and rap battling — two avenues on which many budding rappers first find traction. It’s a style that is far more concerned about getting out witty one liners than telling a story or advocating for a cause.

Webby rolls with it, creating rhymes that, combined with his rapid pace, make the listener feel like they’re caught in a verbal tornado.

Delaware

Artist – Wok (nee Chan)

Years Active – 2010s

Notable Track – “20 Missed Calls”

Sample Rhyme:

“Purple that I’m smoking you can smell it down the block

All I do is stunt

Onion in the blunt

Better have my money if I’m giving you the front”

—

Look, Delaware was never going to be an easy state to write about. With no major metropolitan area, it’s got a smaller population than the smallest state in the Union, Rhode Island, despite being almost twice as large in area.

Thankfully, the excellent folks over at Complex had us covered. Back in 2014, they posted a brief article featuring a brief clip of a Delaware rapper, then named Chan and now named Wok.

To them — and to us — the song “20 Missed Calls” is as much novelty as it is quality music. It’s rap from Delaware. What in the Blue Hen State could be worth rapping about?

Turns out, a lot of the same stuff as you’d find in any other state. Chan raps over some notably well-made beats about women and drugs and it’s not half bad.

Unfortunately this is just about all we from Wok. “20 Missed Calls” came out in 2013 and, to date, seems to be the artist’s high point.

Florida

Artist – Rick Ross

Years Active – 2001-Present

Notable Album – Teflon Don, 2010

Sample Rhyme (from track “I’m Not a Star”):

“I’m not a star, somebody lied

I got a pistol in the car, a 45

If I’d die today, remember me like John Lennon

Buried in Louie, I’m talking all brown linen”

—

In a strange way, Rick Ross’ ascent up rap’s hierarchy is the embodiment of the American Dream.

His raps are full of references to drug dealing, to violence, to a life lived outside the law. It’s all standard rap fodder, the kind of experiences that have built careers since rap’s beginnings.

Only it might not be true. Rick Ross — real name William Leonard Roberts II — was raised in Florida and went to college in Georgia on a football scholarship. After graduating, he worked for roughly 18 months as a correctional officer.

He would eventually move on to making music and, as his doubters argue, he found that designing a fake persona around drug dealing made for a better look. He would adopt the name “Rick Ross” from a famous cocaine kingpin in 1980s Los Angeles.

The truth, though, is that Rick Ross is a good rapper, perhaps even very good. He made himself into a character to add weight to what he rapped about, and it worked. No famous rap artist out there can claim to have done any different.

Georgia

Artist – Outkast

Years Active – 1992-Present

Notable Album – Stankonia (2000)

Sample Rhyme (from the track “Ms. Jackson”):

“Me and your daughter got a special thing going on

You say it’s puppy love, we say it’s full-grown

Hope that we feel this, feel this way forever

You can plan a pretty picnic

But you can’t predict the weather, Ms. Jackson”

—

We’ll take the opposite approach with Georgia than we did with California. Instead of naming an artist more popular today, we’re going down to the foundations of modern rap, not just in Georgia but across the genre.

Outkast — a duo consisting of André 3000 and Big Boi — released their first album in 1994, and over the next decade would change rap’s DNA.

Their style embodied Atlanta, the city from which they hailed. It was psychedelic, playful and unique. Their music was conscientious and smart, paying respect to community, women and themselves in equal measure, and they still had fun with it. Songs like “B.O.B” and “Ms. Jackson” could appear on the air for the first time in 2016 and still be tremendous hits.

The duo’s success also turned Atlanta into a dominant force in the rap ecosystem and elevated southern rap across the board. Outkast might not make new music together anymore, but they remain living legends.

Hawaii

Artist – Tassho Pearce

Years Active – 2010s

Notable Album– G.O.O.D. Company

Sample Rhyme (from the track “Satelites”):

“These are moments you could wait your whole life for

Standin’ next to Bob Barker trying to pick the right door

More Henny, more Swishers, more kush,

The more I drink the more better she look”

—

It’s a wonder that any solo rap venture starting in the middle of the Pacific Ocean could find traction in the mainland United States, and yet Tassho Pearce proved it was possible.

Half-Japanese and half-white, Tassho grew up in Hawaii’s nascent rap scene. His career didn’t really start until he hooked up with Kanye West when the famous Chicago rapper came to the islands to record My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy in 2010.

Tassho bonded with Kanye and his clique, and eventually impressed them enough to enlist the support of a few heavies to get his rap career off the ground. He first worked with Kanye’s mentor No I.D. to produce the aforementioned “Satelites,” featuring both him and Kid Cudi.

Then he made a whole album, released just this year, called G.O.O.D. Company — a tribute to Kanye’s G.O.O.D. record label. It’s a record that stays loyal to Hawaii, with Tassho bringing in a couple other local rappers to feature on tracks.

According to Pigeon and Planes’ interview with him, Tassho now mostly resides on the West Coast of the mainland, working on music as well as setting up his own burgeoning rap empire.

Idaho

Artist – Bret Johnson (?)

Years Active – 2013?

Notable Track – “The 208”

Sample Rhyme:

“I’m from Idaho, sound the alarms

Get in your cars

We’s about to party at the local Walmart”

—

Any discussion about rap in America would not be complete without acknowledging the rise of parody rap.

The genre’s low entry level cost — turning on your laptop’s microphone, searching Google for free mixing software — means that any (white) person with a vaguely funny joke can turn it into a career.

Sometimes the results border on great. The Lonely Island produces some well made and hilarious stuff.

Most times, though, parody rap inspires more eye rolls than laughs. Take the song above. It’s a rap about Idaho’s telephone area code, 208. It is among the first hits when you type “Idaho rappers” into Google, just above a link for a service that allows your to “hire rappers,” whatever that means.

“The 208” jabs at a lot of stuff many in rural America might recognize, and throws in some more specific Idaho stuff for good measure. It is a carbon copy of just about every other rap on YouTube that is about a specific place, made exclusively for people in that specific place. And, somehow, it’s the only example of homegrown rap in Idaho.

Illinois

Artist – Kanye West

Years Active – 2003-Present

Notable Album – My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

Sample Rhyme (from the track “N*ggas in Paris”):

“What’s Gucci, my n*gga? What’s Louis, my killa?

What’s drugs, my dealer? What’s that jacket, Margiela?

Doctors say I’m the illest, cause I’m suffering from realness

Got my n*ggas in Paris and they going gorillas, huh”

—

Chicago’s produced some great talent lately. It was tempting here to skip on Kanye — the city, Illinois and perhaps rap itself’s most recognizable name at the moment — and bestow this “honor” to someone like Chance the Rapper.

But there’s no denying Kanye’s immense role in rap over the last decade. He’s produced some of the most innovative, provocative and revolutionary music in any genre over that time period, becoming an icon in the process.

That he finds himself in the tabloids as often as the music charts is another matter entirely — we’re hear to focus on the rap itself. Though critics might argue that Kanye’s grasp of wordplay and flow aren’t always the greatest, his desire, and ability, to expand rap’s boundaries make him a legend.

He wanted to honor and repurpose the hits of the past, and he mixed them into his songs when he made College Dropout and Late Registration.

He wanted an arena feel to rap, and he made Graduation. He wanted to sing, and he made 808s & Heartbreaks. He wanted artistry, and he made My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. He wanted anger and he made Yeezus. He wanted attention and he made Life of Pablo.

His ability to change gears and elevate new styles and techniques might make him the single most influential rapper alive today. It’s difficult to name an artist working today, from Drake to Nicki Minaj to Chance, and not be able to clearly see Kanye’s hand.

Indiana

Artist – Freddie Gibbs

Years Active – 2003-Present

Notable Album– Shadow of a Doubt

Sample Rhyme: 

“Celly stead ringing for Freddie but where the things at?

Drove a half a ton, dropped it off and I took a plane back

Gangsta shit in my DNA, I just can’t explain that

Even if I die tell my enemies I remain that”

—

With the notable exception of Michael Jackson, Gary, Indiana does not produce a tremendous amount of American culture, despite virtually being a suburb of Chicago.

Freddie Gibbs nonetheless found his way up through rap’s ranks, thanks entirely to his unique delivery. His voice strains and reaches as he rhymes, an effect that adds an emotional or angry tinge to a lot of his best work.

It helps that Gibbs’ rhymes are also inspired on their own. He’s got a great ear for his own work, and with the help of some talented producers has created a sound that’s unique within rap. His 2015 album Shadow of a Doubt is darkly ambitious, recounting Gibbs’ roots in Gary and what was done in the name of success.

Gibbs might not be able to top Shadow of a Doubt, however. Last month, he was accused of raping a woman in Austria during his European tour. He was released on 50,000 Euros bail and awaits trial. He emphatically denies the charges.

Iowa

Artist – Json

Years Active – 2005-Present

Notable Album – Braille

Sample Rhyme:

“Tryna get people to trust in The King (My God)

The One they call Yahweh

Stand firm and affirm till they call my name

One thing I have blood bettin’ on my days

Unaware of a snake see I’m on that grace

I feel the pressure huh”

—

As rap’s popularity continues to grow, it can accommodate more and more multitudes. It can be fun, celebratory, angry, political, sad, horny and, evidently, also faithful.

Iowa-based rapper Json embodies that last surprising bit. He produces well made, exceptionally produced raps that are about and for God. That in and of itself isn’t unique — Chicago rappers Kanye West and Chance the Rapper both released albums this year that have been referred to as “gospel rap,” after all.

What makes Json stand out, in Iowa and elsewhere, is his wholesale commitment to being an evangelical rapper. His youth was split between St. Louis, Los Angeles and drugs, the latter of which seemed set to ruin his life.

He and his wife were able to get clean thanks in part to their faith in Jesus Christ. He would focus his life on Christianity, and use rap to preach the same message that saved his life.

Json’s career arc is almost entirely unique within rap. It’s a genre of music that tends to be crude and occasionally cruel, so the fact he could turn it into something unmistakably positive is something special.

Kansas

Artist – Mac Lethal

Years Active – 2001-Present

Notable Track – “Look at Me Now”

Sample Rhyme:

“There’s nothing beautiful about this world

I’m gonna pucker up my lips to barf

Gonna choke a fucking rapper with his hipster scarf

I’m never gonna put another piece of music out

deliberately if it isn’t genuine and grips the heart

Winter’s hard, so have some pancakes”

—

It’s the plight of the up-and-coming rapper that sometimes the most notable thing you can do is rap whilst making pancakes.

Kansas’ own Mac Lethal is clearly talented. He’s got flow that rivals Twista in terms of pace and cleverness, and he’s got a loyal following. He continues to tour around the US. He’s made a career that most aspiring rappers will never make for themselves.

Yet he’s still the guy who makes funny YouTube videos (he also posts hilarious text conversations with his maybe-made-up cousin Bennett on Tumblr, and later wrote a whole book about it).

Rap, for all its ease of access, is still a market, and not everyone’s shtick is going to have mass appeal. Some rappers are legendary hitmakers, others are one hit wonders, but most find themselves somewhere in between.

Maybe one day Mac Lethal gets the credit he deserves, but only time will tell.

Kentucky

Artist – CunningLynguists

Years Active – 2000-Present

Notable Track – Linguistics

Sample Rhyme:

“If you know you’re gonna die why step?

Show no mercy when bruising crews

You get hit with more bricks than New Jerus

Riddles confusing fools like Confucian rules

Cause most cats are most squared than Rubik’s Cubes”

—

Rap isn’t always about who you know, nor is it always a matter of the-more-you-give-the-more-you-get. Some artists come up with a great pedigree, plenty of experience and money, and still don’t make it.

CunningLynguists hail from Kentucky and through various incarnations have been working toward something like stardom for all of the 21st century. They’ve worked with other artists on this list and collaborated and toured with many more.

Still, like Kansas’ Mac Lethal, it’s never that easy. CunningLynguists fall into a vague middle ground in rap. Their sound is reminiscent of southern rap (indeed, some of the founding members were from Atlanta) but with an indie twist. This isn’t rap music being played to the back row of stadiums. It’s smaller, denser and gets better the more you listen to it.

Unfortunately, again like Lethal, they’ve yet to find a toehold in the national rap conversation. Perhaps a name change would do them good.

Louisiana

Artist – Lil Wayne

Years Active – 1996-Present

Notable Album – The Carter III

Sample Rhyme (from the track “6 Foot 7 Foot”):

“Life is the bitch, and death is her sister

Sleep is the cousin what a fuckin family picture

You know Father Time, and we all know Mother Nature

It’s all in the family but I am of no relation

No matter who’s buyin, I’m a celebration

Black and white diamonds, fuck segregation

Fuck that shit, my money up, you n*ggaz just Honey Nut

Young Money runnin shit and you n*ggaz just runner-ups

I don’t feel I done enough so I’ma keep on doin this shit

Lil Tunechi or Young Tunafish”

—

Is it fair to call Lil Wayne, arguably one of the two or three best rappers of his generation, a tragic figure?

Yes, he’s released multiple gold and platinum albums, has had 120 songs appear in Billboard’s Top 100 (more than any other individual artist) and can even release a disastrous rock album without losing an ounce of credibility.

He also struggled through childhood — shooting himself accidentally at age 12 and dropping out of a gifted high school program two years later — and frequently found himself in either a hospital room or jail cell in adulthood.

The perseverance it has taken for Lil Wayne to move on and continue to either release his own material or, as he does frequently, collaborate with other artists is unimaginable. By all rights, he should take a cue from Jay Z and enjoy the considerable success he’s earned. Instead he’s still promising to release The Carter V at some point in the near future.

To his credit, Wayne has promised that it will be his last album. He plans on retiring before his 35th birthday in order to have the time to spend with his four kids.

Maine

Artist – Spose

Years Active – 2004-Present

Notable Track – “The King of Maine”

Sample Rhyme:

“I’m from the 420 minus 213

I’m on the throne if you’re looking for who to unseat

I got moose blood in my goblet, lobsters in my optics

I’m live on the map where the dudes don’t rap”

—

For those readers who have not experienced the pleasures of Maine: Spose is the kind of rapper you might expect from the Lower 48’s northernmost state.

The Wells native essentially provides us with a turbo-powered, slightly more sincere version of Idaho’s official state rap (see above). He’s a professional though, and goes about making a case for his home state with some skill.

Again, though, it falls into the same category of music as Idaho’s song. It’s a joke, told specifically for the people of Maine to understand and for the rest of us to kind of shrug off confusedly.

Based on the YouTube comments though, Spose seems to nail what makes Maine Maine, and even to us outsiders it’s clear that he’s got the skill to succeed, even coming from as small a market as the Pine Tree State.

Spose’s fourth album Why Am I So Happy?  came out in 2015, so clearly he’s doing something right.

Maryland

Artist – Oddisee

Years Active – 1999-Present

Notable Album – People Hear What They See

Sample Rhyme (from the track “That’s Love”):

“And here we are again, just confronting fears

Whether pain, or gain, it’s a bunch of tears

Blood, sweat, and peers, probably disappear

When smoke starts to clear, their persistence near

Pay attention to the folks who’re fanning the glames

They’re the ones who matter most in the gravity game

When stakes weigh you down and they stay around

And pick up pieces and you off the ground

That’s love.”

—

This is the first — but not the last — time where we might be accused of cheating on this list.

Oddisee — real name Amir Elkhalifa — was born and raised in Maryland, but he really came to prominence as a leading light in Washington, DC’s music scene. He represents Maryland while honoring a lot of the funk and Go-Go traditions of the city he’s adopted.

Growing up in a wealthy suburb of the nation’s capital, Oddisee didn’t know a lot of hardship. While he was a rap fan all his life, he related more to the likes of A Tribe Called Quest and Eric B. & Rakim, rappers whose music didn’t orbit around violence or drugs.

As a result, Oddisee’s raps cover a whole rainbow of issues, ranging from familial love to poverty.

His rhymes are refreshing and unique and made better by his unique take on production. Indeed, Oddisee will release instrumental albums almost as often as he does pure rap albums, a reflection of his myriad abilities within the art form.

Massachusetts

Artist – Guru

Years Active – 1986-2010

Notable Album – Daily Operation (as one half of Gang Starr)

Sample Rhyme:

“You know I used to be a player, fly girl layer and a

heartbreaker

Lovemaker, backbreaker but then I made a

Mistake yes I fell in love with this ill chick

Sweating me for money, my name and the dilsnick”

—

Though he made a name for himself on his own, MC Guru was originally one half of the legendary hip hop duo Gang Starr, along with DJ Premier.

Gang Starr were an influential force in rap on the East Coast when they were at their heights in the early 1990s, a story made all the more exceptional due to the fact Guru originally hailed from Boston — not exactly the United States’ most well known rap city.

Guru formed Gang Starr in 1986 with several other producers and rappers, but barely three years later he was the sole remaining member. He would recruit PJ Premier to be the other half of the rejuvenated group just before signing with Chrysalis Records.

The UK-based label encouraged Gang Starr’s underground roots and went on to help release several albums, each of which forms another foundation block in 90s era rap.

While Gang Starr faded, Guru stayed in the game and released music under his own name right up until he tragically died of a heart attack in 2010.

Michigan

Artist – Danny Brown

Years Active – 2003-Present

Notable Album – Old (2013)

Sample Rhyme:

“While she listen to the oldie soap operas smoking bogies

On the phone gossiping telling homegirls stories

Girlfriend worries cause her son’s in a hurry

To see the state pen or a cemetery buried

Ma replied do her best but it’s still rough”

—

Alright, the elephant in the room, so to speak: Michigan’s best rapper isn’t Eminem, at least not on this list. Danny Brown needed to be represented. For those Shady loyalists, don’t worry: he’ll somehow appear later in this list.

Now, Danny Brown. Maybe you’ve heard of him? You should have heard from him. He’s great.

Rap’s appeal has broadened a lot over the last decade or two, but it doesn’t usually work so well as a crossover platform. Rap is rap. Maybe it co-mingles with R&B, but really it’s its own animal.

Danny Brown is the exception. He and his producers have a healthy appreciation for club culture, and it’s easy to hear the influence of EDM on his music.

This makes sense for a Detroit-based rapper. The city is responsible for creating the American middle class as well as some of the earliest examples of electronic music in the country.

Detroit is as present in Brown’s raps as anything else. Though his EDM roots make him surprisingly danceable, his songs are often sober reflections on life in a struggling city.

Minnesota

Artist – P.O.S.

Years Active – 2001-Present

Notable Album – Audition

Sample Rhyme (from “Stand Up (Let’s Get Murdered)”):

“See, you can’t fight a feeling. I feel terrified

There’s a war against me, my friends, my fam, my pride

My life, my job, my likes and like-minded

Folks are like, “Psh” like they just don’t mind it

So I’m cool, right?

They wag the dog. We catch the lipstick

What kind of city plumber thought that he could make these old and rusty pipes fit?

Well, they don’t. I’m catching the drip

I’ll practice holdin’ my breath, then sink with the ship”

—

Long before Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton were running for president, Minneapolis’ P.O.S. (short for Pissed Off Steph) was railing against the establishment. He spent the bulk of the 00s releasing tracks like “Stand Up (Let’s Get Murdered),” a sharp-tongued critique of the (then) Bush administration and a system that seemed like it was rigged against the average American citizen.

Were his complaints overblown? Maybe a little, but you have to remember this was at the height of the post 9/11/Iraq War/Great Recession era and to those paying attention it was hard not to think that someone somewhere was getting screwed over.

The important part for our purposes is that P.O.S. made some excellent rap. It was violent and angry yet thoughtful, a worthy tribute to the 90s Rage Against the Machine and a precursor (though likely not a direct influence of) the likes of conspiratorially-minded rappers like El-P and Killer Mike.

Mississippi

Artist – Rae Sremmurd

Years Active – 2005-Present

Notable Album – SremmLife (2015)

Sample Rhyme:

“Chop the top off the Porsche, that’s a headless horse

Extendo long as an extension cord

Bitch, I ball like Jordan and I play full court

And if you not my type then you know I gotta keep this shit short

What you know about a checK? What you got up in your pocket?

What you spending when you shopping, dawg?

Why you wanna go flex? Like you all in the mix

Like you got some shit poppin’ off

I got some models that you see up in the movies

And they want to make a flick for the camera

Wanna be Kim Kardashian, heard I was livin’ like a bachelor”

—

Those old enough to remember the mid-90s might be tempted to compare the youthful rap duo Rae Sremmurd with Kriss Kross. That wouldn’t be entirely fair however, as the latter were sort of gimmicky and wore their pants backwards for some reason.

Rae Sremmurd, in contrast, simply built off their older peers, creating some fun rap that can be enjoyed by both young and old.

Their story’s not half bad either. Given that Tupelo, Mississippi is something of a rap hinterland, the pair (then a trio) had to work exceptionally hard to get noticed. They played parties and bars, saving money to make trips to various competitions and venues before they finally came into contact with a record label willing to sign them.

A year later their effort paid off when Sremmlife was released in January 2015. The debut album was an near-immediate hit, reaching number one on Billboard’s rap and hip hop charts.

Missouri

Artist – Eminem

Years Active – 1992-Present

Notable Album – The Marshall Mathers LP (2000)

Sample Rhyme:

“The soul’s escaping through this hole that is gaping

This world’s mine for the taking, make me king

As we move toward a New World Order

A normal life is boring; but superstardom’s

Close to post-mortem, it only grows harder

Home grows hotter, he blows it’s all over

These hoes is all on him, coast to coast shows

He’s known as the Globetrotter, lonely roads

God only knows, he’s grown farther from home, he’s no father

He goes home and barely knows his own daughter”

—

As we mentioned in the Michigan slide, Eminem’s location on this list is a bit of a cheat. While the rapper came up and very much raps about a life in Detroit, he was originally born in St. Joseph, Missouri. He would split his time between his home state and Michigan for much of his childhood.

Eminem’s appearance here does a small disservice to some rappers who came up in Missouri. Tech N9ne in Kansas City, Nelly and Chiny from St Louis and a few others are being left out to make space for Mr. Mathers.

But Eminem’s too popular and marks too big a milestone in the genre to simply skip. His star might have faded somewhat from the heights of The Slim Shady LP and The Marshall Mathers LP, but he’s still a force within rap.

Beyond his considerable talent, Eminem stood out in those early years for being white. While far from the only white rapper out there at the time, he was the first to really break through with a mass appeal. For many — particularly in the whiter parts of America — his obnoxious and crude witticisms and bratty behavior made him more accessible than rappers who focused on drugs and violence and unjust treatment by the police.

Now, there’s something to be said about the fact it took Eminem for white America to appreciate the rap genre instead of, say, the dozens of black rappers who came before him who were as good and likely better. But that’s perhaps a discussion for a different slideshow.

Montana

Artist – French Montana

Years Active – 2007-Present

Notable Track – “Pop That”

Sample Rhyme:

“What you twerkin’ with?”

—

Here are some pertinent facts about the state of Montana:

-Montana is the fourth biggest state in the United States in terms of area

-Montana has the 44th largest population in the U.S.

-Montana ranks 48th in population density among U.S. states

-Montana doesn’t have any rappers

Three of those four facts are easy to come by, census data type stuff. One of them is a less concrete fact, but rather one that we can only assume after spending almost an hour Googling for an answer. Guess which is which!

In any case, we’re going to have to cheat really hard here. Elsewhere on this list we’ve taken rappers known to have come up in a particularly state or city and cast them instead in the state they were born in. Here, we’re going to be forced to make the most specious of connections in order to get this slide filled out.

French Montana is not from Montana. He wasn’t even born in the United States. He hails from Morocco.

Even his stage name isn’t an allusion to the state, but rather an attempt to link himself with Scarface anti-hero Tony Montana.

For all his lack of actual Montana-ness, French Montana is still a notable member of the circa-2016 rap pantheon. He’s a master collaborator with connections across rap’s geographical reach.

That he’s accomplished all this despite the fact that he and his family didn’t move to the U.S. until he was 14 years old makes French Montana’s story in the rap scene resemble the American Dream. Anyone can come to these shores and get the chance to party with Rick Ross, Lil Wayne and Drake deserves a place on this list. Even if we had to cheat to get him here.

Nebraska

Artist – Mars Black

Years Active – 2008-Present

Notable Track – “Scotch on the Rocks”

Sample Rhyme:

“Black label president, I’m also a member

Hope to get thick baby, word to my gender

Making it hot in the middle of December

Oh you forgot? Don’t you remember?

We were rockin’ jams, me and my man

Mike and Ham

Over beatbox or a live band”

—

Omaha, Nebraska is a strangely fertile little island of music in the dead center of the United States’ Midwest.

Saddle Creek Records directly or indirectly fostered the development of a crazy amount of indie music darlings. Bright Eyes, the Faint, Jenny Lewis, Cursive and many others found their start with the Omaha-based label.

To those readers in the know, none of those aforementioned acts are even remotely “rap.” They’re all either folk or punk or rock or a combination of the three. No rap.

That doesn’t mean that some rap culture hasn’t grown up alongside Saddle Creek and the like. Indeed, a small group of artists came up through Omaha and the environs through the 1970s and 80s that ended up presiding over a small but significant underground scene.

The legacy of that early Omaha rap scene is Mars Black. The Brooklyn-born rapper has earned some notoriety in recent years, thanks in some small part to his association with Conor Oberst.

The latter is the lead singer of Bright Eyes and Omaha’s beloved son, arguably the city’s most well-known musician. His label, Team Love, signed Mars Black as its only rapper back in the early 00s. Thus Omaha’s music scene continues to evolve.

Nevada

Artist – Feeki

Years Active – 2010?-Present

Notable Track – “You Know You Like It”

Sample Rhyme:

“Really fuck the fame I really just wanna motivate

Hard work motherfucker now you know my game

I see this generation fucking filled with all entitlement

These lazy motherfuckers get me heated like a solar pane”

—

Of all places in Nevada, you would think that its most (read: only) notable rapper would come from Las Vegas. It’s a city of excess, vulgarity and seemingly endless prosperity. Those sounds like ingredients to making a wonderful rapper.

Of course, those that live in or near Vegas aren’t exactly living the glamorous lives that the tourists might when they come through the desert oasis. Indeed, not too far out of Vegas city limits the realities (sometimes grim) of the rest of the country become readily apparent.

Feeki comes out of Reno, Vegas’ under-respected little brother. Appropriately enough, Feeki isn’t the kind of rapper to front. He’s earnest and positive and can rock a mullet that doesn’t come off as all that ironic. He raps about life and ambition and not getting discouraged.

Like so many other rappers on this list, particularly rappers from those states that might not be anxiously awaiting The Next Big Things, Feeki’s gotta work to get his name out there, and he works hard. It’s nearly impossible not to root for him.

New Hampshire

Artist – Roots of Creation

Years Active – 2014?

Notable Track – “Summer in the 603”

Sample Rhyme:

“When the sun is blazing and the summer gets hot

We don’t take it for granite that our home state rocks

You got the drive-in in Milford

Meadowbrook up in Gilford

Damn I miss Benton’s animal farm, that place was the illest”

—

This humble writer admits to not having much pride in his home state. Yes, it’s quite beautiful, and the wineries and hiking trails and, increasingly, breweries are all wonderful, but nothing about Virginia has ever really compelled me to want to break into song.

If the rap scene serves as any sort of barometer, then it can be said with some confidence that — contrary to this writer’s attitude — state pride is at its highest levels since the Civil War.

While your more mainstream rappers — your Lil Waynes and your Kendricks and your Outkasts — are more global, many rappers from smaller markets don’t have the luxury of speaking to a wider audience. They have to rap about what they know to people who also know what they know. Hence the preponderance of rappers on this list who have a lot to say about the virtues of their home state.

New Hampshire’s Roots of Creation really get into the minutiae of what makes the Granite State so wonderful to them, and to outsiders it all comes off as something close to gibberish. Hopefully making songs like this gets them the local press they need to eventually be able to rap about wider, more universal themes.

New Jersey

Artist – Lauryn Hill

Years Active – 1993-Present

Notable Album – The Miseducation of Lauryn  Hill

Sample Rhyme:

“It’s been three weeks since you were looking for your friend

The one you let hit it and never called you again

Member when he told you he was bout the Benjamins?

You act like you ain’t hear him, then give him a little trim”

—

The primary emotion many people have these days in regard to Lauryn Hill is some combination of regret and nostalgia.

She got her start in East Orange, New Jersey. While still in high school she joined a group that would eventually become known as the Fugees. The band would go on to become one of the standout names of mid-90s R&B and hip hop.

Riding on the wave of fame Fugees offered her, Hill broke off to record a solo record in 1997. The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill was released the following year and became an instant classic.

Her style owed itself to many early 90s female MCs like Salt-n-Pepa as well as male rappers like Ice Cube, and her ability to seamlessly transition between singing and rapping made her music stand out all the more.

Songs like “Doo-Wop (That Thing)” are now iconic 90s songs, and by all rights should have been followed by further songs that helped define the era they came out in. But Miseducation was the last true album Hill ever produced, barring a poorly received MTV Unplugged album in 2001.

New Mexico

Artist – Wake Self

Years Active – 2014?

Notable Track – “New Mexico”

Sample Rhyme:

“We got the best chile

That’s the truth really

I’m from Albuquerque, por que Duke City?

It’s more than a show about cooking meth

that you know from television”

—

The nearly 69,000 views Wake Self has on his video for the single “New Mexico” might represent the entire population of the state for all we know. Who else but overly ambitious writers would be searching for this video and then actually watching it?

Wake Self delivers yet another song for this list that seems like it could have been written by the state government’s in-house travel agency.

To his credit, the production levels are actually good here, and the photography really sells the state’s beauty.

A particular line in the song actually cuts to the heart of what raps like this are all about. To paraphrase: New Mexico doesn’t have any professional sports teams. Those of us who grew up in or near even a modest metropolis will find this an entirely alien concept. What does it mean to grow up in a place where thousands of your neighbors and fellow citizens don’t weekly — or even daily — convene in an arena and all shout for the same cause?

Wake Self and so many others on this list don’t have that type of community to feed off of. It’s no wonder they turn to rap, and in particular rap songs about their states.

New York

Artist – The Notorious B.I.G.

Years Active – 1992-1997

Notable Album – Ready to Die, 1994

Sample Rhyme:

“Poppa been smooth since the days of Underroos

Never lose, never choose to, bruise crews who

Do something to us, talk go through us

Girls walk to us, wanna do us, screw us”

—

Christopher George Latore Wallace was born in New York City in 1972 to Jamaican parents. He would come up in Brooklyn, excelling at school (particularly in English) while simultaneously dealing drugs. He eventually dropped out in favor of the latter pursuit, a decision that later resulted in nine months spent in jail for dealing crack cocaine.

He came into rap before he was out of his teens, and released his first (and only) album Ready to Die when he was 22 years old. It was an instant hit, big enough to re-calibrate the poles of rap music back toward the East Coast.

That success would be relatively short lived. Biggie was murdered in 1997 while visiting Los Angeles, just six months after his West Coast rival Tupac Shakur suffered the same fate in Las Vegas.

Given how short his career was, Biggie Smalls was wildly influential. He set the standard for how large (no pun intended) a rapper could be, both in reputation and in lifestyle and ability. His rhymes remain gospel to virtually any aspiring rapper coming up today, regardless if they hail from the East Coast or not.

Contrast Biggie’s accomplishments and his legacy formed in half a decade with the two decades Jay-Z — the man who would be listed here were it not for Biggie — had, and he becomes even more remarkable. With just a single solo album released in his lifetime, he set trends and styles that will last for decades to come.

North Carolina

Artist – J. Cole

Years Active – 2007-Present

Notable Album – Cole World: The Inside Story

Sample Rhyme:

“I like to write alone, be in my zone

Think back to Forest Hills, no perfect home

But the only thing like home I’ve ever known

Until they snatched it from my mama and foreclosed her on the loan

I’m so sorry that I left you there to deal with that alone”

—

Born in West Germany, J. Cole and his mother eventually made his way to Fayettesville, North Carolina, where he would spend the rest of his childhood.

Like Biggie, Cole was an exceptional student, eventually graduating and attending college in New York City. His interest in rap coincided with his education, and shortly after he returned home to North Carolina his future was laid out before him.

A mixtape released in 2009 caught the ear of Jay-Z, who included Cole on a track for Blueprint 3 and signed him to Roc Nation.

Since then Cole’s career has been nothing but ascendant. He’s the true modern rapper in a lot of ways. He got his start with Jay-Z, but being from North Carolina he’s also worked with southern rap icons like B.o.B. For good measure, he produced a track for Kendrick Lamar’s 2011 album Section.80 (and is working on a long-delayed joint album with the L.A. native) as well as touring with R&B luminary Rihanna.

More than virtually any other active rapper on this list, Cole’s got his fingers in virtually all of rap’s pies.

North Dakota

Artist – Wiz Khalifa

Years Active – 2005-Present

Notable Album – Rolling Papers

Sample Rhyme:

“Damn, who knew

All the planes we flew

Good things we been through

That I’d be standing right here talking to you

‘Bout another path

I know we loved to hit the road and laugh

But something told me that it wouldn’t last”

—

Another bit of cheating on our part here. Wiz Khalifa is much more closely associated with Pittsburgh, Pennslyvania, about which he wrote his hit song “Black and Yellow.” He was born in Minot, North Dakota, however, while his father was stationed there as part of his army service. He would live overseas for much of his childhood before eventually settling in Pittsburgh.

Still, we gotta fill North Dakota somehow. Midwestern rappers tend to cluster, understandably, around the region’s bigger metropolises, and sadly neither of the Dakotas are known for their city life.

Khalifa came up through the same rap graduating class, so to speak, as J. Cole, first appearing on the scene in the waning years of the first decade of the 21st century.

Though Khalifa remains a presence within rap, his two peaks have come in unique ways relative to many others on this list.

The first came with the aforementioned song “Black and Yellow,” which was released right at the beginning of a NFL season that would see the Pittsburgh Steelers reach the Super Bowl come February. Khalifa’s tribute to his adopted hometown understandably became ubiquitous, especially in and around the city itself.

The second came with 2015’s release of the movie Furious 7. Franchise star Paul Walker died in an unrelated car accident in the middle of filming, and the filmmakers saw fit to honor the actor with an appropriately touching ending, soundtracked by the song “See You Again,” written and performed by Khalifa featuring Charlie Puth.

By the end of the year the song was the best selling single worldwide, and Khalifa’s mark was again made not by a landmark album or statement verse, but by the co-mingling of rap and another cultural medium.

Ohio

Artist – Why?

Years Active – 2004-Present

Notable Album – Alopecia, 2008

Sample Rhyme (from “The Fall of Mr. Fifths”):

“Just another Sunday paddle boat ride

On a man made lake with another lady stranger

If I remain lost and die on a cross

Well at least I wasn’t born in a manger

I can sense somewhere right now

I’m being prayed for

Seems like I always arrive on the same shore

From where my sails set maybe

with one less lady than my vessel left with

Is that a threat?”

—

Nope, you’ve not heard of Why?, and that’s okay. Yoni Wolf’s rap “band” — based in Oakland, California, but originally out of Ohio — is still very indie despite having released four albums since 2005.

Listening to the song above, it might immediately become clear why you haven’t heard of Why? He’s not your typical rapper, put lightly. His delivery can be monotone, his subject matter esoteric at best. He raps about boredom, about infatuation, about depression, about his battles with Crohn’s disease. Taken together as an album, it might derogatorily be referred to as dense or, worse, arty.

And it is. There’s a slight bit of pretension to Why?’s whole shtick. It’s meant to be a little alienating to someone who is only casually listening. But further listens are rewarding. Stories unfurl, the rhymes and allusions become sharper and more devastating.

In sum, it’s well worth the effort to love Why?

Oklahoma

Artist – Okie Boy Goons

Years Active – 2012?

Notable Track – “OK City”

Sample Rhyme:

“Yeah y’all know me, the Okie boy from the East side

I stay higher than that tree holding that bee hive

There ain’t nothing like OKC, like nothing like where I’m from

There ain’t nothing like OKC, like nothing like where I’m from

There ain’t nothing like OKC, like nothing like where I’m from”

—

This man has a tattoo of Oklahoma on his face, as in: without expensive surgery there’s no way that Okie Boy Goons looks into the mirror ever again without being reminded of his home state.

Another fun fact is that roughly half the run time of “OK City” is spent naming different towns in Oklahoma. It’s an exhaustive list, one that you have to believe gets to any settlement of note in the Sooner State.

You’d be wrong if you thought that, though. The production company of this video promised earlier this month that a remix is coming out “featuring even MORE CITIES in OKLAHOMA.”

All of which is to say that Okie Boy Goons is trying his best to bring his inclusive style of rap to even more Okies.

Oregon

Artist – Illmaculate

Years Active – 2010s

Notable Track – “New Chain”

Sample Rhyme:

“My surrounding’s a warzone

The trees watching, police choppers, concrete cracks beneath my feet walking

Dream big, I’m asleep but I sing conscious

She feed me grapes while she draped like a Greek goddess

Christ-like, walked water and seemed flawless”

—

Interpret this how you will, but Illmaculate is … really good. Not that any of the other rappers you’ve never heard of on this list aren’t good. Plenty of them are just fine! A few of them might even be worth listening to again, particularly if you intend to visit the state they’re rapping about.

Illmaculate is like getting hooked up to an oxygen mask after wading through the states of the Midwest and New England. His flow is smooth and maybe his rhymes aren’t incredible, but this is still some seriously impressive stuff from a rapper who, by all appearances, still makes the rounds at rap battle competitions.

He’s not rapping about how beautiful Oregon’s pine forests are, or even how great the donuts are in Portland (really great). Being a Native American — like a real one, not just the 1/15 Cherokee we all think we are — he’s got a unique perspective and the skill to flesh it out for us.

Illmaculate’s so good that it’s almost discouraging. Why don’t we know more about this guy? Why isn’t he getting guest verses instead of, say, Big Sean?

Pennsylvania

Artist – Mac Miller

Years Active – 2007-Present

Notable Album – GO:OD AM, 2015

Sample Rhyme (from the track “Weekend”):

“I been having trouble sleeping

Battling these demons

Wondering what’s the thing that

keeps me breathing

Is it money, fame or neither?

I been thinking about the places

that I frequent

All the people that I see

I’m just out here livin’ decent

What do it mean to be a G

And all the time we fall behind, bitch’s in the concubine, I call her mine, crazy”

—

Precociousness is a quality that’s usually reserved more for pop stars than rappers, but there’s something to be said about a young kid trying to scrape a career together even as he’s still working his way through high school.

Pennsylvania’s Mac Miller began rapping at age 14, quickly catching the attention of some influential figures. Miller would release his first mixtapes at age 17 and join Wiz Khalifa as one of the biggest names on local label Rostrum Records by the time he graduated high school.

Since then he’s stayed busy, touring and releasing albums — including last year’s critically acclaimed GO:OD AM.

Rhode Island

Artist – araabMUZIK

Years Active – 2005-Present

Notable Album – Dream World (2016)

Sample Rhyme:

*drum machine*

—

Alright, another slight bit of cheating. AraabMUZIK isn’t a rapper. Rather, he’s a producer. He’s worked with countless rappers, including Cam’ron, 50 Cent, ASAP Rocky and Azealia Banks.

His mixture of quick beats, drum machine high hats and background strings puts him firmly at the center of trap music — essentially a cross-pollination between rap and EDM.

The original meaning of the term was used to describe the moody content of the verses as the tracks they were rapped over. AraabMUZIK’s Abraham Orellana — actually of Dominican and Guatemalan ancestry, despite his chosen DJ name — produces raps in the style and also his unique instrumental take on the subgenre of trap.

His only official album Dream World sees AraabMUZIK laying down tracks for a variety of guest artists to sing or rap over, but his earlier mixtapes skewed strongly toward the EDM scene. For Professional Use Only stands out as an excellent example of what trap can be when it’s just music alone.

Tragically, Orellana was shot in the head on a botched robbery attempt in New York in February of this year, right before Dream World was released. According to the most recently available reports, his recovery is going well.

South Carolina

Artist – Jeezy

Years Active – 1998-Present

Notable Album – Seen It All: The Autobiography

Sample Rhyme (from the track “Me OK”):

“Had you cashing out, paying for, you can’t pronounce the name

Had that Murcielago, it was green like margaritas

I sold yayo, I sold albums, might as well sell some tequila

Dropped so many Lambos, thought I was a Lambassador

Snow, it’s been a while, yeah, you know them streets missed you

I don’t eat, sleep or shit without my motherfuckin’ pistol”

—

Jeezy — then Young Jeezy — didn’t start out in rap expecting to rap. He was a suit, a label representative, a promoter. He worked for Cash Money Records around the turn of the century.

Being around the game — particularly that of his adopted hometown of Atalanta — inspired Jeezy to eventually start releasing his own material. When his material found traction in the rap scene, he quit the business end entirely and focused on becoming a rapper in his own right.

The last years of the 21st century’s first decade were Jeezy’s pinnacle. He released four albums and mix tapes from 2005 to 2008, capped by his ominously titled album Recession.

A diagnosis of bells palsy delayed any further production, but when he did come back he came back hard. Seen It All: The Autobiography came out in 2014 and might be his best material to date.

South Dakota

Artist – Various

Years Active – 2012?

Notable Track – “WTF!?? South Dakota Rappers (cypher)”

Sample Rhyme (from Frank Villon):

“I’m Charles Bronson bitch, with blood soaked pajamas on

You get in the tranq while I’m getting my cannon on

To many Mickeys all night and you think you can pick a fight

Y’all watching me till I’m outside of your window like, ‘Hello'”

—

Underground rap communities are a fairly unique thing in music. The infrastructure and logistics to, say, start a garage band aren’t always practical. Even the world’s many aspiring DJs need to be able to afford a semi-decent laptop.

Rap, in contrast, doesn’t need all that much to begin to sprout. A community center, an open mike night, a closed-for-the-day bookstore … these are all venues where communities can gather and experiment or dazzle or just practice.

South Dakota — and so many other states in the union — seems particularly ripe for this kind of development. It’s not as if there’s a market in Sioux Falls for rappers to regularly perform on stage. So instead they gather in loose groups and battle, record and support each other. It’s a comforting and encouraging thing to see rap emerge out of even the most sparsely populated places.

Tennessee

Artist – Three 6 Mafia

Years Active – 1991-Present

Notable Album – Most Known Unknown

Sample Rhyme:

“Now when it comes to getting bread I got the keys to the bakery

A lot of dudes wear they play, man they some fackery

Let me catch a girl up out some work in my site

And I believe I’m gon be atcha in the daylight with a flashlight

I’m trying to get paid however money is made”

—

Three 6 Mafia have lived more lives than perhaps any other entity in rap. They originated in Memphis in 1991 as a sort of horror-themed group, in the same way that Wu Tang Clan is kung fu themed. DJ Paul and Juicy J were two of the founding members, and the two members who stuck with the group the longest as others came and went.

Over the next 25 years, the Three 6 Mafia would have its ups and downs. For the most part they could never escape the “underground” label they started with, and their releases were never embraced the same way other acts were.

They did, however, win an Academy Award for their song “It’s Hard Out Here for Pimp,” used on the soundtrack for the movie Hustle & Flow. 

They would never reach such heights again. In-fighting and delays hurt their momentum, and to date they have not been able to work their way back into the limelight.

Texas

Artist – Scarface

Years Active – 1980s-Present

Notable Album – Mr. Scareface is Back

Sample Rhyme:

“Our lifestyles be close captained

Addicted to fatal attractions

Pictures of actions be played back

In the midst of mashin’

No fairy tales for this young black male

Some see me stranded in this land of hell, jail and crack sales.”

—

In the waning years of the 80s and start of the 90s, Houston’s Geto Boys and later Scarface carved out their own piece of the rap pie between the East Coast and West Coast rivalry. Scarface was among the first representatives of southern rap, and as such played a tremendous part in the development of the subgenre in the decades to come.

More than any song he recorded, Scarface’s legacy will be his leadership in those early years in Houston and his ability to bridge the divide between East and West. He would earn national notoriety and, eventually, become the lead in Def Jam’s southern division. Acting in that capacity, he signed Ludacris in 1999.

Unlike other rappers who reached his level, Scarface never strayed far from his Houston roots, releasing music irregularly and occasionally teaming up with the Insane Clown Posse for their Gathering of the Juggalos.

Utah

Artist – Jamesthemormon

Years Active – 2016?

Notable Track – “Motivation”

Sample Rhyme:

“Trying to buy my great grandkid a house

So I can say I got ’em even when I’m out

That’s the only thing that matters to me now

I pay no mind to the haters cause they’re only talking shop

Put a drive on those and don’t stop until I say so

Gotta turn these tracks into pesos”

—

It doesn’t seem like the holy land of the Church of Latter Day Saints would ever inspire anyone to rap. Maybe pick up a guitar. Maybe write a few lines to a poem. But definitely not rap.

That’s admittedly a pretty narrow view. While Mormonism has a reputation for being very conservative, there’s still plenty of room in 2016 within conservatism for something like rap.

That’s particularly true when the church is aggressively trying to inspire a new generation to follow in their parents’ footsteps. Not to be too cynical, but rap in the right hands is an excellent marketing tool.

To Jamesthemormon’s credit, he’s not half bad at what he’s setting out to do. He and his posse have the aesthetics of rap down to a T, so much so that you might not even notice that he’s rapping about wanting to have a family and settle down instead of about inner city life, sex or violence.

Vermont

Artist – X10

Years Active – 2007?

Notable Track – “802”

Sample Rhyme:

“Up and Vermont, this is how we do

We got one area code and it’s 802

Green mountain state where we roll on skis

Don’t mess with our cows or we’re break your knees”

—

One last parody rap video, and this time it’s actually somewhat notable.

X10 — the name of a couple of bratty looking dudes who probably rue the day they decided to foray into rap — released their “hit” song “802” in 2007, making it perhaps the very first example of white people making a funny by rapping about inane things.

For being such an early example of the “artform,” the song isn’t all bad. It’s got some depreciating humor and a bunch of punchlines that even those of us who are from outside Vermont might get. It’s got some nice landmarks that were only marred by the terrible quality of the production equipment.

And it’s got a couple white dudes. This was all well past Vanilla Ice and Eminem, but still the idea that a couple white dudes would rap was just funny enough to a significant segment of the population to rack up what, at the time, must have been a huge number of views.

Virginia

Artist – Pusha T

Years Active – 1992-Present

Notable Album – My Name if My Name

Sample Rhyme (from the track “King Push”):

“Vultures to my culture

Exploit the struggle, insult ya

They name dropping about caine copping

But never been a foot soldier

Let’s have another look, just get a little closer

Rage against the machine, black Zack de la Rocha

In a cranberry Rossta, inside track

on the G rap poster

Best d-boy all I’m missing is a dash

Difference between me and Hova”

—

Virginia originally went to Missy Eliott. She gets a big honorable mention — an absolute legend in rap.

Pusha T, though. It’s impossible not to include the President of G.O.O.D. Music on this list. If only he was, however improbably, born in Idaho or Wyoming, this would be so much easier.

But he wasn’t. He was actually born in the Bronx, New York City, and relocated to Norfolk, Virginia as a child.

Hampton Roads in the 80s and 90s was a shockingly fertile ground for rappers. Not only is it responsible for the development of Pusha and Missy, but Timbaland and Pharrell both also came up in the suburbs of Norfolk and Virginia Beach.

Being in such close proximity, it’s no wonder they would team up. Pharrell produced for Pusha and his brother (No Malice) when they worked together as Clipse, including on their hit single “Grindin'”.

Pusha would move onto his own solo career, launched in part by his friendship with Kanye West. The Chicago rapper would go on to produce a good chunk of Pusha’s solo debut commercial release, My Name is My Name. It was that album that put Pusha on the map as a master lyricist.

Washington

Artist – Macklemore

Years Active – 2000-Present

Notable Album – The Heist

Sample Rhyme:

“One man’s trash, that’s another man’s come up

Thank your granddad for donating that plaid button-up

shirt, cause right now I’m up in here stunting

I’m at the Goodwill, you can find me in the bins”

—

As we approach the end of the this list, it feels about the right time to address a prevalent theme: a lot of these rappers are white guys. That is far from intentional, but it is a reflection of the changing-but-still-majority status of white people in the United States.

Currently, as Eminem’s star begins to fade, Macklemore is perhaps the most well known white rapper in the country.

The Seattle native came onto the scene as an uneasy mixture of Social Conscious Rapper and Joke Rapper. Such a pairing is basically cat nip for your average white person, and consequently when Macklemore finally found traction in the early ’10s his career skyrocketed.

His YouTube hits are tremendous — nearly a billion alone for the above video for “Thrift Shop” — and he swept the Best Rap Album, Best New Artist, Best Rap Performance and Best Rap Song Grammy Awards in the same year that Kendrick Lamar released his masterpiece, Good Kid, M.A.A.D. City. That latter fact might be the saddest on this list.

West Virginia

Artist – Mini Thin

Years Active – 2009?

Notable Track – Hillbilly Murda

Sample Rhyme:

See I gotta be real

Can’t come fake on this track

When you see Mini Thin the whole state’s on his back

I got love for you cats whether you white or you black

And I’ll murder whoever don’t put my state on the map

—

There’s something to be said for embracing the labels others apply to you and rolling with them. In some ways, that is a core concept of rap culture. True to the culture he’s adopted, Mini Thin does just that.

West Virginia’s stuck in a strange place both geographically and culturally. Crammed between historic north and south, and so dependent on the coal it mines that it has at times in its history resembled a feudal state.

Straddling the Appalachians as it does, many residents of West Virginia have (unfairly) been labeled as hillbillies, when in fact that pejorative could just as easily be applied to residents of Virginia, Ohio, Maryland or Kentucky.

Mini Thin revels in the hillbilly label, using it as a jumping off point to defend his state and prove just how hard he’s repping it. He can be forgiven if he veers a bit too hard toward rap stereotypes that might not entirely apply to life in his home state.

Wisconsin

Artist – Brother Ali

Years Active – 1990s-Present

Notable Album – Shadows on the Sun

Sample Rhyme (from the track “Uncle Sam Goddamn”):

“Smoke and mirrors, stripes and stars

Stolen for the cross in the name of God

Bloodshed, genocide, rape and fraud

Writ into the pages of the law good lord

The Cold Continent latch key child

Ran away one day and starting acting foul

King of where the wild things are daddy’s proud

Because the Roman Empire done passed it down”

—

This contains another pretty persistent theme: those rappers who are “other” — either racially or politically or economically or otherwise — usually end up producing the most compelling stuff. Beginning well behind the starting line only compels these rappers to work harder and make something more exceptional.

Brother Ali understands this well, being both albino and Muslim. His album Shadows on the Sun is an under-appreciated gem of ’00s rap. His lyricism alone would put him near the top if this list were ranked.

Like his Rhymesayers label-mate P.O.S., Brother Ali focuses a keen eye on social and political issues, and has spent a good chunk of his career lambasting Bush-era America. It’s not surprising that such subject matter might not sell an insane amount of records — hence why you probably have never heard of Brother Ali — which only makes the Wisconsin native’s career all the more impressive.

Wyoming

Artist – Y-O

Years Active – 2012?

Notable Track – “Hometown”

Sample Rhyme (from the track “Hometown”:

“I wasn’t raised around that killing shit

But I grew up killing shit

When I lay my lyrics down it’s on me if you don’t give a shit

Understand that my hometown made me keep it real as shit”

—

God forbid that one day some alien civilization uses this list to get an idea of what this rap music thing is all about.

They would get a fairly comprehensive list of some — though by no means all — of the best rappers working today. They’d also get a taste of indie and underground rap, performed by individuals who put down roots in places well outside of any of rap’s hubs and yet still find refuge and inspiration in the art form.

By the time they reached the end of the list, however, they would have to be forgiven for thinking that rap music is mostly about enumerating the various virtues, beauties and cities of the state a given rapper is from.

Y-O’s tribute to his home state of Wyoming punctuates this list, and perhaps that’s appropriate. Rap began as a local phenomenon, something performed at parties or at clubs. It was not intended to be consumed by a diverse, nationwide audience. Rather, it was the people’s music, dealing with themes and struggles and jokes that that specific audience would understand.

Even at rap’s highest levels — where wealth and excess are the most common themes — rappers are never too far away from rapping about their origins and how they came up.

Jay-Z’s “Empire State of Mind,” Wiz Khalifa’s “Black and Yellow,” basically everything that Kendrick Lamar produces and so many others go out of their way to evoke a sense of place — and specifically home. That’s not for lack of ideas or some cynical plow to boost album sales. It’s because rap, more than most art forms, is as much about where the rapper’s from as it is anything else.

Page 6

Artist – Kendrick Lamar

Years Active – 2003-Present

Notable Album – Good Kid, M.A.A.D City

Sample Rhyme (from a guest verse on Push-T’s track “Nosetalgia”) :

“I said, ‘Daddy, one day Imma get you right with 36 zips

One thousand grams of cocaine, then your name will be rich

Now you can rock it up or sell it soft as leather interior

Drop some ice cubes in it, Deebo on perimeter’

He said ‘Son, how come you think you be my connect?’

I said ‘Pops, your ass is washed up, with all due respect’

He said “Well n*gga, then show me how it all makes sense’

Go figure, motherfucker, every verse is a brick

Your son dope n*gga”

—

It speaks to just how deep California’s stable of rappers is that picking Kendrick Lamar here was maybe the most difficult decision on this entire list.

By fairly broad consensus, Kendrick is the best rapper working today. No, he might not top the charts as much as Drake, and maybe he doesn’t generate Kanye’s headlines. He might not even be many people’s favorite rapper.

But in terms of pure artistry, no one can match him. He molds albums that are as much cultural dissertations as they are music. He doesn’t write party songs, or club bangers, or even introspective digressions about lost loves. He composes political and social thinkpieces, posing questions that many of us struggle to answer. He’s the rapper America needs in 2016.

None of which would have been possible without the man Kendrick credits as being a primary influence: Tupac Shakur. Many would protest, fairly, that Tupac should represent California on this list, as he embodies a huge part of rap’s growing pains in the 90s.

While his career was tragically cut short, Kendrick is only just heating up. He might not ever surpass 2Pac’s legend, but Kendrick’s fighting as hard as anyone to keep it alive.

The average rappers might not define themselves in terms of East or West anymore, but there’s still a healthy sense of location in the music.

The DIY spirit of rap — perhaps the strongest of any form of music — means that virtually anyone, anywhere can pick up a mic, acquire even the most basic understanding of drum machines or mixing software and become, almost overnight, a rapper.

The results are well documented. New York, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston  — all have nurtured wildly fertile rap cultures, ones that over time found themselves spreading to the nation at large. Each city has its own unique take, its own sound, its own attitude. The intermingling of all of these subgenres into a single, nationwide conversation raises the artform as a whole, and we’re all better off for it.

Now, a word of caution: just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should do something. The low entry cost for rap combines poorly with the tendency toward overconfidence in budding rappers, and the consequences can be dire. The United States’ smaller markets — far from the metropolises that spawned rap’s greats — often find themselves mired in rap mediocrity.

Perhaps that’s unfair, though. There might be plenty good reasons that the Oklahoma rap scene hasn’t exactly exploded, but it’s hard to make that generalization everywhere. Some states and regions are stuck, for better or for worse, in the pull of the nearest of rap’s many poles.

It would be hard, for instance, for a kid in Connecticut or New Jersey, coming up in the shadow of New York City, to not to show a lot of deference to Biggie and Jay Z. Similarly, few aspiring rappers in the South can admit to owing nothing to Outkast.

Outside of those poles, rap can be wonderfully idiosyncratic and even weird. It can also be square and traditionalist, gritty and dangerous or just plain boring. All are reflections of their location, the rapper’s origin and countless other factors.

The variety makes exploring the United States’ many iterations kind of exciting. For simplicity’s sake, here are the stories of the top rappers from all 50 states in the Union, presented to you in alphabetical order.

Alabama

Artist – Yelawolf

Years Active – 2005-Present

Notable Album – Trunk Muzik 0-60 (2010)

Sample Rhyme:

“Act like you don’t wanna see how much of this Jack

Daniels you can handle

You wanna drink and get cut like Rambo?

And let me drive your Daddy’s Lambo”

—

The magic of the alphabet delivers to us right at the top of the list perhaps the best possible example of the type of eccentric regionalism rap has to offer.

Yelawolf’s career took a weird turn when he began releasing actual albums, but his early mixtape Trunk Muzik 0-60 finds a rapper unafraid to be himself.

Being from Alabama, Yela was never going to find it ease to hide his accent or unique southern cadence. Instead, he leaned into it. His raps at times sound like slightly sped up — and significantly more filthy — country. It shouldn’t be surprising that this would be crazy fun, but it absolutely is.

The crossover appeal of rap among the typically conservative country music set wasn’t exactly enough to make a viable career, however. Yela continues to show a lot of the same spirit as he did on that early mixtape, but it all seems confined to the requisite marketability of being on a label.

Alaska

Artist – Bay Dilla

Years Active – 2000s

Notable Track – They Know 

Sample Rhyme:

“Up north, A-town

Anchorage

Can you feel me? Can you feel me?”

—

Somehow, someway, Alaska’s (miniscule) rap scene managed to produce one of the most insane stories on this list.

The above video is for an artist named Bay Dilla. He was reasonably popular in Alaska, in that way that anyone offering what almost literally no one else was offering is popular.

Simple reason tells us that a rapper rapping about experiences in and around the Arctic Circle won’t have national appeal, and indeed Bay Dilla does not defy this expectation.

Yet for a brief time he appeared to. The only rapper from Alaska to ever film a professional music video (disclaimer: this is an assumption that is probably correct) was absolutely swimming in money.

But how? Oh, it’s because his entire rap empire was a front for importing drugs from the Lower 48. The Feds caught him and prosecuted him for importing between 50 and 150 kilograms of cocaine into Alaska between 2009 and 2012.

Assuming he ever gets released from prison, perhaps Bay Dilla will have a rich mine of material to continue his rap career, in Alaska or elsewhere.

Arizona

Artist – Judge Da Boss

Years Active – 2010s

Notable Track – Hell Yeah

Sample Rhyme:

“When I get around y’all broke hoes I act bougie hell yeah

I rock Gucci, hell yeah

Louis, hell yeah

Truey, hell yeah

Versace, hell yeah”

—

America’s Southwest is majestic, beautiful and entirely worth your time if you ever have the chance to visit.

That said, there’s not a tremendous amount of music from that region that makes its way out to America at large.

Cities like Phoenix, for instance, exist only because of the marvels of the modern world. There’s no iconic industry, at least not one that would produce the kinds of conditions rap would thrive in.

A lack of deep roots doesn’t mean it’s incapable of producing talent, however. Judge Da Boss is a good example.

After winning a competition against local rappers, Judge — nee Robert Louis Carr II — caught the attention of Amar’e Stoudemire, who convinced the Phoenix native to put pen to paper for the NBA star’s label, Hypocalypto Records.

Progress has been slow, however. Though he released a mixtape called The Chosen One shortly after signing, an official album has yet to surface. A deal with with Sony Records in 2014 is encouraging news.

Arkansas

Artist – SL Jones

Years Active – 2010s

Notable Track– “Big Bank (No Ones)” (2013)

Sample Rhyme:

“Granddaddy was a hustler

Yeah I’m sticking to tradition”

—

Little Rock — from which young rapper SL Jones hails — is about halfway between Atlanta and Houston. The style was always going to be southern, but the question remained under which sphere of influence a rapper like SL Jones would fall.

Early on, his inspirations were decidedly mixed. His first solo mixtape, C.O.L.O.R.S: Bangin’ on Wax featured names from all corners of southern rap’s territory, from Virginia’s Clipse to Houston’s Chamillionaire to Atlanta’s Killer Mike.

With arguably his biggest track to date, SL Jones’ true loyalty became more clear. Featuring production by Metro Boomin — Future’s trusty sidekick — “Big Banks” sounds very Atlanta, while still retaining a unique enough flavor to make it SL Jones’ own.

As a sort of aside, isn’t it impressive when a young rapper like SL Jones can just nail the look on the first try? Mastering that mix of confidence, pseudo-dancing and style really pays off for music videos like the one made for “Big Banks.” Now if he could only come out with a follow up record …

California

Artist – Kendrick Lamar

Years Active – 2003-Present

Notable Album – Good Kid, M.A.A.D City

Sample Rhyme (from a guest verse on Push-T’s track “Nosetalgia”) :

“I said, ‘Daddy, one day Imma get you right with 36 zips

One thousand grams of cocaine, then your name will be rich

Now you can rock it up or sell it soft as leather interior

Drop some ice cubes in it, Deebo on perimeter’

He said ‘Son, how come you think you be my connect?’

I said ‘Pops, your ass is washed up, with all due respect’

He said “Well n*gga, then show me how it all makes sense’

Go figure, motherfucker, every verse is a brick

Your son dope n*gga”

—

It speaks to just how deep California’s stable of rappers is that picking Kendrick Lamar here was maybe the most difficult decision on this entire list.

By fairly broad consensus, Kendrick is the best rapper working today. No, he might not top the charts as much as Drake, and maybe he doesn’t generate Kanye’s headlines. He might not even be many people’s favorite rapper.

But in terms of pure artistry, no one can match him. He molds albums that are as much cultural dissertations as they are music. He doesn’t write party songs, or club bangers, or even introspective digressions about lost loves. He composes political and social thinkpieces, posing questions that many of us struggle to answer. He’s the rapper America needs in 2016.

None of which would have been possible without the man Kendrick credits as being a primary influence: Tupac Shakur. Many would protest, fairly, that Tupac should represent California on this list, as he embodies a huge part of rap’s growing pains in the 90s.

While his career was tragically cut short, Kendrick is only just heating up. He might not ever surpass 2Pac’s legend, but Kendrick’s fighting as hard as anyone to keep it alive.

Colorado

Artist – Mr. J. Medeiros

Years Active – 1998-Present

Notable Album – Of Gods and Girls

Sample Rhyme (from single “Pale Blue Dot”):

“Wrapped around a block of C-4 pow your minced meat

And now you’ve blown it

Using physics your god is distant and don’t condone it

Using mystics to bomb your critics and your opponents

You a bigot, misogynistic and homophobic.”

—

Kendrick, of course, isn’t the only one out there who turns to rap to address social ills. Rap’s poetic nature makes it easier to tell a story or frame a case than, say, your average rock ballad or pop song.

Rap’s long history outside the mainstream of American culture also makes it the ideal medium to bear the weight of what might be considered subversive or controversial opinions. It might be used more often these days to sing about cars, women and drugs, but at its core it’s protest music.

Mr. J. Medeiros captures this spirit well. It’s telling that he got his start in Colorado, a state almost literally in the country’s middle, one that’s waxed and waned so much politically over the decades that it is the definition of a “purple” state come election year.

Connecticut

Artist – Chris Webby

Years Active – 2008-Present

Notable Album – Chemically Imbalanced

Sample Rhyme (from “Ohh No”):

“So many bars you would think I’m living on Death Row

Webby just a motherfucking dog, where’s Petco?

Follow a plate of kibbles n bits with an egg roll

Genius in the laboratory cooking blue meth, yo

Call me Heisenberg, cause when I rhyme with words

These motherfuckers are behind the curve”

—

For every rapper like Kendrick or Mr. J. Medeiros, there are 10 (20? 30?) rappers like Chris Webby.

Hailing from Connecticut, Webby’s raps are kinetic, steeped in cultural references and, perhaps most of all, unfocused. He has, by his own admission, suffered from Attention Deficit Disorder all his life, a condition that seeps through to his raps.

Which isn’t a criticism. If anything, Webby’s style is part of the trend, one that owes a lot to freestyling and rap battling — two avenues on which many budding rappers first find traction. It’s a style that is far more concerned about getting out witty one liners than telling a story or advocating for a cause.

Webby rolls with it, creating rhymes that, combined with his rapid pace, make the listener feel like they’re caught in a verbal tornado.

Delaware

Artist – Wok (nee Chan)

Years Active – 2010s

Notable Track – “20 Missed Calls”

Sample Rhyme:

“Purple that I’m smoking you can smell it down the block

All I do is stunt

Onion in the blunt

Better have my money if I’m giving you the front”

—

Look, Delaware was never going to be an easy state to write about. With no major metropolitan area, it’s got a smaller population than the smallest state in the Union, Rhode Island, despite being almost twice as large in area.

Thankfully, the excellent folks over at Complex had us covered. Back in 2014, they posted a brief article featuring a brief clip of a Delaware rapper, then named Chan and now named Wok.

To them — and to us — the song “20 Missed Calls” is as much novelty as it is quality music. It’s rap from Delaware. What in the Blue Hen State could be worth rapping about?

Turns out, a lot of the same stuff as you’d find in any other state. Chan raps over some notably well-made beats about women and drugs and it’s not half bad.

Unfortunately this is just about all we from Wok. “20 Missed Calls” came out in 2013 and, to date, seems to be the artist’s high point.

Florida

Artist – Rick Ross

Years Active – 2001-Present

Notable Album – Teflon Don, 2010

Sample Rhyme (from track “I’m Not a Star”):

“I’m not a star, somebody lied

I got a pistol in the car, a 45

If I’d die today, remember me like John Lennon

Buried in Louie, I’m talking all brown linen”

—

In a strange way, Rick Ross’ ascent up rap’s hierarchy is the embodiment of the American Dream.

His raps are full of references to drug dealing, to violence, to a life lived outside the law. It’s all standard rap fodder, the kind of experiences that have built careers since rap’s beginnings.

Only it might not be true. Rick Ross — real name William Leonard Roberts II — was raised in Florida and went to college in Georgia on a football scholarship. After graduating, he worked for roughly 18 months as a correctional officer.

He would eventually move on to making music and, as his doubters argue, he found that designing a fake persona around drug dealing made for a better look. He would adopt the name “Rick Ross” from a famous cocaine kingpin in 1980s Los Angeles.

The truth, though, is that Rick Ross is a good rapper, perhaps even very good. He made himself into a character to add weight to what he rapped about, and it worked. No famous rap artist out there can claim to have done any different.

Georgia

Artist – Outkast

Years Active – 1992-Present

Notable Album – Stankonia (2000)

Sample Rhyme (from the track “Ms. Jackson”):

“Me and your daughter got a special thing going on

You say it’s puppy love, we say it’s full-grown

Hope that we feel this, feel this way forever

You can plan a pretty picnic

But you can’t predict the weather, Ms. Jackson”

—

We’ll take the opposite approach with Georgia than we did with California. Instead of naming an artist more popular today, we’re going down to the foundations of modern rap, not just in Georgia but across the genre.

Outkast — a duo consisting of André 3000 and Big Boi — released their first album in 1994, and over the next decade would change rap’s DNA.

Their style embodied Atlanta, the city from which they hailed. It was psychedelic, playful and unique. Their music was conscientious and smart, paying respect to community, women and themselves in equal measure, and they still had fun with it. Songs like “B.O.B” and “Ms. Jackson” could appear on the air for the first time in 2016 and still be tremendous hits.

The duo’s success also turned Atlanta into a dominant force in the rap ecosystem and elevated southern rap across the board. Outkast might not make new music together anymore, but they remain living legends.

Hawaii

Artist – Tassho Pearce

Years Active – 2010s

Notable Album– G.O.O.D. Company

Sample Rhyme (from the track “Satelites”):

“These are moments you could wait your whole life for

Standin’ next to Bob Barker trying to pick the right door

More Henny, more Swishers, more kush,

The more I drink the more better she look”

—

It’s a wonder that any solo rap venture starting in the middle of the Pacific Ocean could find traction in the mainland United States, and yet Tassho Pearce proved it was possible.

Half-Japanese and half-white, Tassho grew up in Hawaii’s nascent rap scene. His career didn’t really start until he hooked up with Kanye West when the famous Chicago rapper came to the islands to record My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy in 2010.

Tassho bonded with Kanye and his clique, and eventually impressed them enough to enlist the support of a few heavies to get his rap career off the ground. He first worked with Kanye’s mentor No I.D. to produce the aforementioned “Satelites,” featuring both him and Kid Cudi.

Then he made a whole album, released just this year, called G.O.O.D. Company — a tribute to Kanye’s G.O.O.D. record label. It’s a record that stays loyal to Hawaii, with Tassho bringing in a couple other local rappers to feature on tracks.

According to Pigeon and Planes’ interview with him, Tassho now mostly resides on the West Coast of the mainland, working on music as well as setting up his own burgeoning rap empire.

Idaho

Artist – Bret Johnson (?)

Years Active – 2013?

Notable Track – “The 208”

Sample Rhyme:

“I’m from Idaho, sound the alarms

Get in your cars

We’s about to party at the local Walmart”

—

Any discussion about rap in America would not be complete without acknowledging the rise of parody rap.

The genre’s low entry level cost — turning on your laptop’s microphone, searching Google for free mixing software — means that any (white) person with a vaguely funny joke can turn it into a career.

Sometimes the results border on great. The Lonely Island produces some well made and hilarious stuff.

Most times, though, parody rap inspires more eye rolls than laughs. Take the song above. It’s a rap about Idaho’s telephone area code, 208. It is among the first hits when you type “Idaho rappers” into Google, just above a link for a service that allows your to “hire rappers,” whatever that means.

“The 208” jabs at a lot of stuff many in rural America might recognize, and throws in some more specific Idaho stuff for good measure. It is a carbon copy of just about every other rap on YouTube that is about a specific place, made exclusively for people in that specific place. And, somehow, it’s the only example of homegrown rap in Idaho.

Illinois

Artist – Kanye West

Years Active – 2003-Present

Notable Album – My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

Sample Rhyme (from the track “N*ggas in Paris”):

“What’s Gucci, my n*gga? What’s Louis, my killa?

What’s drugs, my dealer? What’s that jacket, Margiela?

Doctors say I’m the illest, cause I’m suffering from realness

Got my n*ggas in Paris and they going gorillas, huh”

—

Chicago’s produced some great talent lately. It was tempting here to skip on Kanye — the city, Illinois and perhaps rap itself’s most recognizable name at the moment — and bestow this “honor” to someone like Chance the Rapper.

But there’s no denying Kanye’s immense role in rap over the last decade. He’s produced some of the most innovative, provocative and revolutionary music in any genre over that time period, becoming an icon in the process.

That he finds himself in the tabloids as often as the music charts is another matter entirely — we’re hear to focus on the rap itself. Though critics might argue that Kanye’s grasp of wordplay and flow aren’t always the greatest, his desire, and ability, to expand rap’s boundaries make him a legend.

He wanted to honor and repurpose the hits of the past, and he mixed them into his songs when he made College Dropout and Late Registration.

He wanted an arena feel to rap, and he made Graduation. He wanted to sing, and he made 808s & Heartbreaks. He wanted artistry, and he made My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. He wanted anger and he made Yeezus. He wanted attention and he made Life of Pablo.

His ability to change gears and elevate new styles and techniques might make him the single most influential rapper alive today. It’s difficult to name an artist working today, from Drake to Nicki Minaj to Chance, and not be able to clearly see Kanye’s hand.

Indiana

Artist – Freddie Gibbs

Years Active – 2003-Present

Notable Album– Shadow of a Doubt

Sample Rhyme: 

“Celly stead ringing for Freddie but where the things at?

Drove a half a ton, dropped it off and I took a plane back

Gangsta shit in my DNA, I just can’t explain that

Even if I die tell my enemies I remain that”

—

With the notable exception of Michael Jackson, Gary, Indiana does not produce a tremendous amount of American culture, despite virtually being a suburb of Chicago.

Freddie Gibbs nonetheless found his way up through rap’s ranks, thanks entirely to his unique delivery. His voice strains and reaches as he rhymes, an effect that adds an emotional or angry tinge to a lot of his best work.

It helps that Gibbs’ rhymes are also inspired on their own. He’s got a great ear for his own work, and with the help of some talented producers has created a sound that’s unique within rap. His 2015 album Shadow of a Doubt is darkly ambitious, recounting Gibbs’ roots in Gary and what was done in the name of success.

Gibbs might not be able to top Shadow of a Doubt, however. Last month, he was accused of raping a woman in Austria during his European tour. He was released on 50,000 Euros bail and awaits trial. He emphatically denies the charges.

Iowa

Artist – Json

Years Active – 2005-Present

Notable Album – Braille

Sample Rhyme:

“Tryna get people to trust in The King (My God)

The One they call Yahweh

Stand firm and affirm till they call my name

One thing I have blood bettin’ on my days

Unaware of a snake see I’m on that grace

I feel the pressure huh”

—

As rap’s popularity continues to grow, it can accommodate more and more multitudes. It can be fun, celebratory, angry, political, sad, horny and, evidently, also faithful.

Iowa-based rapper Json embodies that last surprising bit. He produces well made, exceptionally produced raps that are about and for God. That in and of itself isn’t unique — Chicago rappers Kanye West and Chance the Rapper both released albums this year that have been referred to as “gospel rap,” after all.

What makes Json stand out, in Iowa and elsewhere, is his wholesale commitment to being an evangelical rapper. His youth was split between St. Louis, Los Angeles and drugs, the latter of which seemed set to ruin his life.

He and his wife were able to get clean thanks in part to their faith in Jesus Christ. He would focus his life on Christianity, and use rap to preach the same message that saved his life.

Json’s career arc is almost entirely unique within rap. It’s a genre of music that tends to be crude and occasionally cruel, so the fact he could turn it into something unmistakably positive is something special.

Kansas

Artist – Mac Lethal

Years Active – 2001-Present

Notable Track – “Look at Me Now”

Sample Rhyme:

“There’s nothing beautiful about this world

I’m gonna pucker up my lips to barf

Gonna choke a fucking rapper with his hipster scarf

I’m never gonna put another piece of music out

deliberately if it isn’t genuine and grips the heart

Winter’s hard, so have some pancakes”

—

It’s the plight of the up-and-coming rapper that sometimes the most notable thing you can do is rap whilst making pancakes.

Kansas’ own Mac Lethal is clearly talented. He’s got flow that rivals Twista in terms of pace and cleverness, and he’s got a loyal following. He continues to tour around the US. He’s made a career that most aspiring rappers will never make for themselves.

Yet he’s still the guy who makes funny YouTube videos (he also posts hilarious text conversations with his maybe-made-up cousin Bennett on Tumblr, and later wrote a whole book about it).

Rap, for all its ease of access, is still a market, and not everyone’s shtick is going to have mass appeal. Some rappers are legendary hitmakers, others are one hit wonders, but most find themselves somewhere in between.

Maybe one day Mac Lethal gets the credit he deserves, but only time will tell.

Kentucky

Artist – CunningLynguists

Years Active – 2000-Present

Notable Track – Linguistics

Sample Rhyme:

“If you know you’re gonna die why step?

Show no mercy when bruising crews

You get hit with more bricks than New Jerus

Riddles confusing fools like Confucian rules

Cause most cats are most squared than Rubik’s Cubes”

—

Rap isn’t always about who you know, nor is it always a matter of the-more-you-give-the-more-you-get. Some artists come up with a great pedigree, plenty of experience and money, and still don’t make it.

CunningLynguists hail from Kentucky and through various incarnations have been working toward something like stardom for all of the 21st century. They’ve worked with other artists on this list and collaborated and toured with many more.

Still, like Kansas’ Mac Lethal, it’s never that easy. CunningLynguists fall into a vague middle ground in rap. Their sound is reminiscent of southern rap (indeed, some of the founding members were from Atlanta) but with an indie twist. This isn’t rap music being played to the back row of stadiums. It’s smaller, denser and gets better the more you listen to it.

Unfortunately, again like Lethal, they’ve yet to find a toehold in the national rap conversation. Perhaps a name change would do them good.

Louisiana

Artist – Lil Wayne

Years Active – 1996-Present

Notable Album – The Carter III

Sample Rhyme (from the track “6 Foot 7 Foot”):

“Life is the bitch, and death is her sister

Sleep is the cousin what a fuckin family picture

You know Father Time, and we all know Mother Nature

It’s all in the family but I am of no relation

No matter who’s buyin, I’m a celebration

Black and white diamonds, fuck segregation

Fuck that shit, my money up, you n*ggaz just Honey Nut

Young Money runnin shit and you n*ggaz just runner-ups

I don’t feel I done enough so I’ma keep on doin this shit

Lil Tunechi or Young Tunafish”

—

Is it fair to call Lil Wayne, arguably one of the two or three best rappers of his generation, a tragic figure?

Yes, he’s released multiple gold and platinum albums, has had 120 songs appear in Billboard’s Top 100 (more than any other individual artist) and can even release a disastrous rock album without losing an ounce of credibility.

He also struggled through childhood — shooting himself accidentally at age 12 and dropping out of a gifted high school program two years later — and frequently found himself in either a hospital room or jail cell in adulthood.

The perseverance it has taken for Lil Wayne to move on and continue to either release his own material or, as he does frequently, collaborate with other artists is unimaginable. By all rights, he should take a cue from Jay Z and enjoy the considerable success he’s earned. Instead he’s still promising to release The Carter V at some point in the near future.

To his credit, Wayne has promised that it will be his last album. He plans on retiring before his 35th birthday in order to have the time to spend with his four kids.

Maine

Artist – Spose

Years Active – 2004-Present

Notable Track – “The King of Maine”

Sample Rhyme:

“I’m from the 420 minus 213

I’m on the throne if you’re looking for who to unseat

I got moose blood in my goblet, lobsters in my optics

I’m live on the map where the dudes don’t rap”

—

For those readers who have not experienced the pleasures of Maine: Spose is the kind of rapper you might expect from the Lower 48’s northernmost state.

The Wells native essentially provides us with a turbo-powered, slightly more sincere version of Idaho’s official state rap (see above). He’s a professional though, and goes about making a case for his home state with some skill.

Again, though, it falls into the same category of music as Idaho’s song. It’s a joke, told specifically for the people of Maine to understand and for the rest of us to kind of shrug off confusedly.

Based on the YouTube comments though, Spose seems to nail what makes Maine Maine, and even to us outsiders it’s clear that he’s got the skill to succeed, even coming from as small a market as the Pine Tree State.

Spose’s fourth album Why Am I So Happy?  came out in 2015, so clearly he’s doing something right.

Maryland

Artist – Oddisee

Years Active – 1999-Present

Notable Album – People Hear What They See

Sample Rhyme (from the track “That’s Love”):

“And here we are again, just confronting fears

Whether pain, or gain, it’s a bunch of tears

Blood, sweat, and peers, probably disappear

When smoke starts to clear, their persistence near

Pay attention to the folks who’re fanning the glames

They’re the ones who matter most in the gravity game

When stakes weigh you down and they stay around

And pick up pieces and you off the ground

That’s love.”

—

This is the first — but not the last — time where we might be accused of cheating on this list.

Oddisee — real name Amir Elkhalifa — was born and raised in Maryland, but he really came to prominence as a leading light in Washington, DC’s music scene. He represents Maryland while honoring a lot of the funk and Go-Go traditions of the city he’s adopted.

Growing up in a wealthy suburb of the nation’s capital, Oddisee didn’t know a lot of hardship. While he was a rap fan all his life, he related more to the likes of A Tribe Called Quest and Eric B. & Rakim, rappers whose music didn’t orbit around violence or drugs.

As a result, Oddisee’s raps cover a whole rainbow of issues, ranging from familial love to poverty.

His rhymes are refreshing and unique and made better by his unique take on production. Indeed, Oddisee will release instrumental albums almost as often as he does pure rap albums, a reflection of his myriad abilities within the art form.

Massachusetts

Artist – Guru

Years Active – 1986-2010

Notable Album – Daily Operation (as one half of Gang Starr)

Sample Rhyme:

“You know I used to be a player, fly girl layer and a

heartbreaker

Lovemaker, backbreaker but then I made a

Mistake yes I fell in love with this ill chick

Sweating me for money, my name and the dilsnick”

—

Though he made a name for himself on his own, MC Guru was originally one half of the legendary hip hop duo Gang Starr, along with DJ Premier.

Gang Starr were an influential force in rap on the East Coast when they were at their heights in the early 1990s, a story made all the more exceptional due to the fact Guru originally hailed from Boston — not exactly the United States’ most well known rap city.

Guru formed Gang Starr in 1986 with several other producers and rappers, but barely three years later he was the sole remaining member. He would recruit PJ Premier to be the other half of the rejuvenated group just before signing with Chrysalis Records.

The UK-based label encouraged Gang Starr’s underground roots and went on to help release several albums, each of which forms another foundation block in 90s era rap.

While Gang Starr faded, Guru stayed in the game and released music under his own name right up until he tragically died of a heart attack in 2010.

Michigan

Artist – Danny Brown

Years Active – 2003-Present

Notable Album – Old (2013)

Sample Rhyme:

“While she listen to the oldie soap operas smoking bogies

On the phone gossiping telling homegirls stories

Girlfriend worries cause her son’s in a hurry

To see the state pen or a cemetery buried

Ma replied do her best but it’s still rough”

—

Alright, the elephant in the room, so to speak: Michigan’s best rapper isn’t Eminem, at least not on this list. Danny Brown needed to be represented. For those Shady loyalists, don’t worry: he’ll somehow appear later in this list.

Now, Danny Brown. Maybe you’ve heard of him? You should have heard from him. He’s great.

Rap’s appeal has broadened a lot over the last decade or two, but it doesn’t usually work so well as a crossover platform. Rap is rap. Maybe it co-mingles with R&B, but really it’s its own animal.

Danny Brown is the exception. He and his producers have a healthy appreciation for club culture, and it’s easy to hear the influence of EDM on his music.

This makes sense for a Detroit-based rapper. The city is responsible for creating the American middle class as well as some of the earliest examples of electronic music in the country.

Detroit is as present in Brown’s raps as anything else. Though his EDM roots make him surprisingly danceable, his songs are often sober reflections on life in a struggling city.

Minnesota

Artist – P.O.S.

Years Active – 2001-Present

Notable Album – Audition

Sample Rhyme (from “Stand Up (Let’s Get Murdered)”):

“See, you can’t fight a feeling. I feel terrified

There’s a war against me, my friends, my fam, my pride

My life, my job, my likes and like-minded

Folks are like, “Psh” like they just don’t mind it

So I’m cool, right?

They wag the dog. We catch the lipstick

What kind of city plumber thought that he could make these old and rusty pipes fit?

Well, they don’t. I’m catching the drip

I’ll practice holdin’ my breath, then sink with the ship”

—

Long before Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton were running for president, Minneapolis’ P.O.S. (short for Pissed Off Steph) was railing against the establishment. He spent the bulk of the 00s releasing tracks like “Stand Up (Let’s Get Murdered),” a sharp-tongued critique of the (then) Bush administration and a system that seemed like it was rigged against the average American citizen.

Were his complaints overblown? Maybe a little, but you have to remember this was at the height of the post 9/11/Iraq War/Great Recession era and to those paying attention it was hard not to think that someone somewhere was getting screwed over.

The important part for our purposes is that P.O.S. made some excellent rap. It was violent and angry yet thoughtful, a worthy tribute to the 90s Rage Against the Machine and a precursor (though likely not a direct influence of) the likes of conspiratorially-minded rappers like El-P and Killer Mike.

Mississippi

Artist – Rae Sremmurd

Years Active – 2005-Present

Notable Album – SremmLife (2015)

Sample Rhyme:

“Chop the top off the Porsche, that’s a headless horse

Extendo long as an extension cord

Bitch, I ball like Jordan and I play full court

And if you not my type then you know I gotta keep this shit short

What you know about a checK? What you got up in your pocket?

What you spending when you shopping, dawg?

Why you wanna go flex? Like you all in the mix

Like you got some shit poppin’ off

I got some models that you see up in the movies

And they want to make a flick for the camera

Wanna be Kim Kardashian, heard I was livin’ like a bachelor”

—

Those old enough to remember the mid-90s might be tempted to compare the youthful rap duo Rae Sremmurd with Kriss Kross. That wouldn’t be entirely fair however, as the latter were sort of gimmicky and wore their pants backwards for some reason.

Rae Sremmurd, in contrast, simply built off their older peers, creating some fun rap that can be enjoyed by both young and old.

Their story’s not half bad either. Given that Tupelo, Mississippi is something of a rap hinterland, the pair (then a trio) had to work exceptionally hard to get noticed. They played parties and bars, saving money to make trips to various competitions and venues before they finally came into contact with a record label willing to sign them.

A year later their effort paid off when Sremmlife was released in January 2015. The debut album was an near-immediate hit, reaching number one on Billboard’s rap and hip hop charts.

Missouri

Artist – Eminem

Years Active – 1992-Present

Notable Album – The Marshall Mathers LP (2000)

Sample Rhyme:

“The soul’s escaping through this hole that is gaping

This world’s mine for the taking, make me king

As we move toward a New World Order

A normal life is boring; but superstardom’s

Close to post-mortem, it only grows harder

Home grows hotter, he blows it’s all over

These hoes is all on him, coast to coast shows

He’s known as the Globetrotter, lonely roads

God only knows, he’s grown farther from home, he’s no father

He goes home and barely knows his own daughter”

—

As we mentioned in the Michigan slide, Eminem’s location on this list is a bit of a cheat. While the rapper came up and very much raps about a life in Detroit, he was originally born in St. Joseph, Missouri. He would split his time between his home state and Michigan for much of his childhood.

Eminem’s appearance here does a small disservice to some rappers who came up in Missouri. Tech N9ne in Kansas City, Nelly and Chiny from St Louis and a few others are being left out to make space for Mr. Mathers.

But Eminem’s too popular and marks too big a milestone in the genre to simply skip. His star might have faded somewhat from the heights of The Slim Shady LP and The Marshall Mathers LP, but he’s still a force within rap.

Beyond his considerable talent, Eminem stood out in those early years for being white. While far from the only white rapper out there at the time, he was the first to really break through with a mass appeal. For many — particularly in the whiter parts of America — his obnoxious and crude witticisms and bratty behavior made him more accessible than rappers who focused on drugs and violence and unjust treatment by the police.

Now, there’s something to be said about the fact it took Eminem for white America to appreciate the rap genre instead of, say, the dozens of black rappers who came before him who were as good and likely better. But that’s perhaps a discussion for a different slideshow.

Montana

Artist – French Montana

Years Active – 2007-Present

Notable Track – “Pop That”

Sample Rhyme:

“What you twerkin’ with?”

—

Here are some pertinent facts about the state of Montana:

-Montana is the fourth biggest state in the United States in terms of area

-Montana has the 44th largest population in the U.S.

-Montana ranks 48th in population density among U.S. states

-Montana doesn’t have any rappers

Three of those four facts are easy to come by, census data type stuff. One of them is a less concrete fact, but rather one that we can only assume after spending almost an hour Googling for an answer. Guess which is which!

In any case, we’re going to have to cheat really hard here. Elsewhere on this list we’ve taken rappers known to have come up in a particularly state or city and cast them instead in the state they were born in. Here, we’re going to be forced to make the most specious of connections in order to get this slide filled out.

French Montana is not from Montana. He wasn’t even born in the United States. He hails from Morocco.

Even his stage name isn’t an allusion to the state, but rather an attempt to link himself with Scarface anti-hero Tony Montana.

For all his lack of actual Montana-ness, French Montana is still a notable member of the circa-2016 rap pantheon. He’s a master collaborator with connections across rap’s geographical reach.

That he’s accomplished all this despite the fact that he and his family didn’t move to the U.S. until he was 14 years old makes French Montana’s story in the rap scene resemble the American Dream. Anyone can come to these shores and get the chance to party with Rick Ross, Lil Wayne and Drake deserves a place on this list. Even if we had to cheat to get him here.

Nebraska

Artist – Mars Black

Years Active – 2008-Present

Notable Track – “Scotch on the Rocks”

Sample Rhyme:

“Black label president, I’m also a member

Hope to get thick baby, word to my gender

Making it hot in the middle of December

Oh you forgot? Don’t you remember?

We were rockin’ jams, me and my man

Mike and Ham

Over beatbox or a live band”

—

Omaha, Nebraska is a strangely fertile little island of music in the dead center of the United States’ Midwest.

Saddle Creek Records directly or indirectly fostered the development of a crazy amount of indie music darlings. Bright Eyes, the Faint, Jenny Lewis, Cursive and many others found their start with the Omaha-based label.

To those readers in the know, none of those aforementioned acts are even remotely “rap.” They’re all either folk or punk or rock or a combination of the three. No rap.

That doesn’t mean that some rap culture hasn’t grown up alongside Saddle Creek and the like. Indeed, a small group of artists came up through Omaha and the environs through the 1970s and 80s that ended up presiding over a small but significant underground scene.

The legacy of that early Omaha rap scene is Mars Black. The Brooklyn-born rapper has earned some notoriety in recent years, thanks in some small part to his association with Conor Oberst.

The latter is the lead singer of Bright Eyes and Omaha’s beloved son, arguably the city’s most well-known musician. His label, Team Love, signed Mars Black as its only rapper back in the early 00s. Thus Omaha’s music scene continues to evolve.

Nevada

Artist – Feeki

Years Active – 2010?-Present

Notable Track – “You Know You Like It”

Sample Rhyme:

“Really fuck the fame I really just wanna motivate

Hard work motherfucker now you know my game

I see this generation fucking filled with all entitlement

These lazy motherfuckers get me heated like a solar pane”

—

Of all places in Nevada, you would think that its most (read: only) notable rapper would come from Las Vegas. It’s a city of excess, vulgarity and seemingly endless prosperity. Those sounds like ingredients to making a wonderful rapper.

Of course, those that live in or near Vegas aren’t exactly living the glamorous lives that the tourists might when they come through the desert oasis. Indeed, not too far out of Vegas city limits the realities (sometimes grim) of the rest of the country become readily apparent.

Feeki comes out of Reno, Vegas’ under-respected little brother. Appropriately enough, Feeki isn’t the kind of rapper to front. He’s earnest and positive and can rock a mullet that doesn’t come off as all that ironic. He raps about life and ambition and not getting discouraged.

Like so many other rappers on this list, particularly rappers from those states that might not be anxiously awaiting The Next Big Things, Feeki’s gotta work to get his name out there, and he works hard. It’s nearly impossible not to root for him.

New Hampshire

Artist – Roots of Creation

Years Active – 2014?

Notable Track – “Summer in the 603”

Sample Rhyme:

“When the sun is blazing and the summer gets hot

We don’t take it for granite that our home state rocks

You got the drive-in in Milford

Meadowbrook up in Gilford

Damn I miss Benton’s animal farm, that place was the illest”

—

This humble writer admits to not having much pride in his home state. Yes, it’s quite beautiful, and the wineries and hiking trails and, increasingly, breweries are all wonderful, but nothing about Virginia has ever really compelled me to want to break into song.

If the rap scene serves as any sort of barometer, then it can be said with some confidence that — contrary to this writer’s attitude — state pride is at its highest levels since the Civil War.

While your more mainstream rappers — your Lil Waynes and your Kendricks and your Outkasts — are more global, many rappers from smaller markets don’t have the luxury of speaking to a wider audience. They have to rap about what they know to people who also know what they know. Hence the preponderance of rappers on this list who have a lot to say about the virtues of their home state.

New Hampshire’s Roots of Creation really get into the minutiae of what makes the Granite State so wonderful to them, and to outsiders it all comes off as something close to gibberish. Hopefully making songs like this gets them the local press they need to eventually be able to rap about wider, more universal themes.

New Jersey

Artist – Lauryn Hill

Years Active – 1993-Present

Notable Album – The Miseducation of Lauryn  Hill

Sample Rhyme:

“It’s been three weeks since you were looking for your friend

The one you let hit it and never called you again

Member when he told you he was bout the Benjamins?

You act like you ain’t hear him, then give him a little trim”

—

The primary emotion many people have these days in regard to Lauryn Hill is some combination of regret and nostalgia.

She got her start in East Orange, New Jersey. While still in high school she joined a group that would eventually become known as the Fugees. The band would go on to become one of the standout names of mid-90s R&B and hip hop.

Riding on the wave of fame Fugees offered her, Hill broke off to record a solo record in 1997. The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill was released the following year and became an instant classic.

Her style owed itself to many early 90s female MCs like Salt-n-Pepa as well as male rappers like Ice Cube, and her ability to seamlessly transition between singing and rapping made her music stand out all the more.

Songs like “Doo-Wop (That Thing)” are now iconic 90s songs, and by all rights should have been followed by further songs that helped define the era they came out in. But Miseducation was the last true album Hill ever produced, barring a poorly received MTV Unplugged album in 2001.

New Mexico

Artist – Wake Self

Years Active – 2014?

Notable Track – “New Mexico”

Sample Rhyme:

“We got the best chile

That’s the truth really

I’m from Albuquerque, por que Duke City?

It’s more than a show about cooking meth

that you know from television”

—

The nearly 69,000 views Wake Self has on his video for the single “New Mexico” might represent the entire population of the state for all we know. Who else but overly ambitious writers would be searching for this video and then actually watching it?

Wake Self delivers yet another song for this list that seems like it could have been written by the state government’s in-house travel agency.

To his credit, the production levels are actually good here, and the photography really sells the state’s beauty.

A particular line in the song actually cuts to the heart of what raps like this are all about. To paraphrase: New Mexico doesn’t have any professional sports teams. Those of us who grew up in or near even a modest metropolis will find this an entirely alien concept. What does it mean to grow up in a place where thousands of your neighbors and fellow citizens don’t weekly — or even daily — convene in an arena and all shout for the same cause?

Wake Self and so many others on this list don’t have that type of community to feed off of. It’s no wonder they turn to rap, and in particular rap songs about their states.

New York

Artist – The Notorious B.I.G.

Years Active – 1992-1997

Notable Album – Ready to Die, 1994

Sample Rhyme:

“Poppa been smooth since the days of Underroos

Never lose, never choose to, bruise crews who