Sympathy for the Rebel: Exploring the Intersection of Hip Hop and Punk Rock

Featuring Disashi from Gym Class Heroes, Upgrade, and Jayway

Disashi Lumumba-Kasongo of Gym Class Heroes, New York rapper Upgrade, and Bayway frontman Jayway

Hip hop and punk—rebels of the music industry—were products of frustration and crisis, finding their footing in basements, back alleys, and city streets. Born from urban America, these two movements have a profound intersection. Seemingly worlds apart in sound and style, the collision between hip hop and punk was inevitable given they share fundamental DNA: defiance of authority, celebration of the outsider, and the unrelenting drive to create something raw, real, and revolutionary.

In a quiet moment, a young Disashi Lumumba-Kasongo picked up a guitar and pieced together Nirvana’s ‘Come As You Are’—his first riff, a punk-rock revelation that opened the floodgates to a world of sound. Disashi’s future band Gym Class Heroes would go on to mash Supertramp samples with punk riffs and hip hop beats, creating a hybrid that defied categorization. “We have had a large variety of approaches when it came to writing our music,” Disashi said, citing a few specific examples: “‘Cupid’s Chokehold’ started with a Supertramp sample and we all added our own flair to it. ‘On My Own Time’ came from a bunch of soulful guitar chords I had arranged together and Travis hummed the perfect vocal melodies on top of them. ‘The Queen And I’ began with a beat that Patrick (of Fall Out Boy) concocted and he made sure to leave a lot of space to decorate the track with musical and melodic ideas.”

From the gritty streets of the Bronx where hip hop emerged in the 1970s to the basements of London and Manhattan where punk flared into existence around the same time, both have for decades been voices of the disenfranchised, the restless, and the rebellious. Today, that legacy thrives in the hands of artists like Disashi of Gym Class Heroes, New York rapper Upgrade, and Bayway frontman Jayway, who uncompromisingly live hip hop and punk in their stories and sounds every day.

This intersection isn’t new. It’s a thread woven through decades of cultural evolution. Think Run-DMC alongside Aerosmith in “Walk This Way,” or the Beastie Boys’ journey from hardcore punk to rap. It’s in Rage Against the Machine’s fusion of Zack de la Rocha’s fiery rhymes and Tom Morello’s jagged riffs, and in the late ’90s rap-metal spearheaded by Limp Bizkit and Korn. What began as sporadic collisions has evolved into a dynamic, organic musical movement, one that artists like Disashi, Upgrade, and Jayway are pushing forward with fresh perspectives and creativity.

At its heart, this convergence is about more than sound. It’s about ethos, attitude, and a shared cultural lineage that transcends bpm or distortion pedals. Hip hop and punk rock are two rebellions against a world that often seeks to silence the marginalized, whether through systemic neglect, economic disparity, or cultural gatekeeping. Both genres lived through DIY channels. Both turned frustration into anthems, giving voice to communities that mainstream society overlooked. And both, in their purest forms, prize authenticity, vulnerability, and community. To explore this intersection is to uncover a sound that’s as much about breaking boundaries as it is about building bridges.

The Artists

To understand this phenomenon today, we turn to three distinct but interconnected voices: Disashi, Upgrade, and Jayway. Each comes from a corner of the American Northeast—Upgrade and Disashi from upstate New York, Jayway from New Jersey—and each brings a personal lens to the hip hop-punk nexus. Their stories reveal how these genres intertwine and shed some light on why they resonate so deeply with fans across subcultures.

Disashi Lumumba-Kasongo: The Hybrid Architect

From left to right: Matt McGinley, Travie McCoy, Disashi Lumumba-Kasongo

“Growing up, my parents played a lot of Congolese, Ivorian, and Afro-Cuban music around our home and on car trips, along with Bob Marley and other reggae music,” Disashi Lumumba-Kasongo recalled of his Ithaca, New York childhood. “So before I even began my personal music journey, those were the biggest influences that made their way into my musical mind.” From that vibrant foundation, the guitarist for Gym Class Heroes offers a unique take on the hip hop-punk intersection. His roots grew even more eclectic with Technotronic’s “Pump Up the Jam” on cassette—“Side A was ‘Pump Up The Jam’ and Side B was ‘Pump Up The Jam,’ which was awesome”—and it was The Beatles’ A Hard Day’s Night and Green Day’s Dookie that sparked his love for rock. “That was another major musical turning point for me,” he said of Green Day, whose punk energy inspired him to pick up a guitar. “In fact, one year in middle school three different people got me Dookie on cassette for my birthday!”

Nirvana, Metallica, and Rage Against the Machine followed, alongside hip hop giants like DMX, Busta Rhymes, and Wu-Tang Clan. “By the time I hit college age, I had a very diverse collection of musical influences,” he reflected, a foundation that would define Gym Class Heroes’ sound.

Formed in the late ’90s, Gym Class Heroes emerged from upstate New York’s vibrant scene, blending hip hop, rock, and pop-punk into a genre-defying stew. Disashi joined after a serendipitous encounter at a Syracuse venue in 2004, bringing his guitar chops to a band already firmly in the hip hop camp. “We all connected instantly,” he said of their dynamic. Tracks like “Cupid’s Chokehold”—built on a Supertramp sample—showcase his ability to layer soulful riffs over Travis McCoy’s rhymes, creating a sound that’s both radio-friendly and innovative. “The Queen and I” and “Shoot Down the Stars” highlight how they employed punk-inspired guitar parts and hip hop’s driving swagger to incredible effect.

Disashi credits Ithaca’s punk scene for igniting his band-forming dreams. “The underground rock scene in Central NY was very diverse and energetic,” he recalled, citing local venues like The Haunt and teen-center shows where he met peers like Midtown and The Movie Life. This DIY spirit carried into Gym Class Heroes, whose early days on Fueled By Ramen embodied punk’s indie-label ethos and hip hop’s grassroots hustle. “We create music for everyone,” he says, a mission evident in their ability to unite emo kids and hip hop heads at shows—a cultural bridge built on shared energy and excitement.

Upgrade Hiphop: The Wizard of Loneliness

Upgrade from the cover of the album Chemical Imbalance

Upgrade’s journey begins in the small towns of upstate New York—places like Middletown, Pine Bush, and Spring Glen—where he was shaped by his older brother’s love for hip hop. These are tight-knit communities tucked among rolling hills of the Hudson Valley, where Main Streets are busy with locals and the air carries a mix of rural calm and urban restlessness. Far from the neon pulse of New York City, yet close enough to feel its gravitational pull, they offered a scrappy proving ground for a young artist hungry to break beyond their borders.

“I grew up influenced by whatever my older brother was into, and he happened to be really into hip hop,” he recalled. From playing engineer on “Cool Edit” for his brother’s raps to discovering Snoop Dogg’s “Gin and Juice” and Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, Upgrade submerged himself in the genre’s rhythms and rhymes. His musical palette also extends beyond rap. “I listen to all genres,” he said. Influences like My Chemical Romance, Radiohead, and even the Phantom of the Opera soundtrack are part of his genre-agnostic curiosity.

His latest album, Wizard of Loneliness, encapsulates this fluidity. The title, inspired by a quirky sample from Nathan for You, reflects a deeply personal theme: acceptance. “I wanted to really drive that theme here,” he explained. “Whether it’s letting things go or just straight up pointing out the bullshit and not being afraid to say ‘it is what it is.’” Tracks tackle anxiety, depression, and the weight of an uncontrollable world with a vulnerability that mirrors punk’s emo offshoots and hip hop’s confessional storytelling. “I could have a lot of friends and family but still feel lonely and out of place,” he admitted, a sentiment that resonates with anyone who’s ever felt like an outsider, and a core tenet of both genres.

Upgrade’s DIY approach is equally telling. Recording vocals in less-than-ideal spaces, like a noisy house or his dog-sitting gig (“which I love!” he adds). “I usually get a lot of the production and mixing done here,” he said of his current setup, laughing about faint barks that might sneak into the background of his tracks. This scrappy independence echoes hip hop’s early days of bedroom beats and punk’s basement grit, allowing him to experiment freely. “With my music, I love experimenting and just finding new ways to create and step out of my comfort zone,” he said, a philosophy that fuels his genre-blending live shows, where he’s shared stages with acts like sci-fi infused emo-prog rockers Coheed and Cambria, the heavy hip hop and hardcore power chords of Codefendants, and Get Dead’s Bouncing Souls-inspired breakneck pace (among others).

Jayway: The Hardcore MC

If Bayway has the Recipe, Jayway is the Chef

Bayway frontman and producer Jayway, hailing from New Jersey’s hardcore scene, brings a heavier edge to the table. His first brush with the hip hop-punk crossover came via Run-DMC’s “Walk This Way” and Tone Loc’s guitar-laced “Wild Thing,” courtesy of his Aerosmith-loving parents. But it wasn’t until his teens that he embraced hardcore, thanks to his sister’s records: Downset, E-Town Concrete’s Time 2 Shine, and Hatebreed’s Satisfaction is the Death of Desire. “Without these three records, I don’t know if I would have ever even listened to hardcore at all,” he admitted. Hip hop, though, was his first love—Nas’s Illmatic, Biggie’s stage presence, and DMX’s intensity on stage at his Woodstock performance all shaped his approach as a musician, performer, and producer.

New Jersey’s scene in the late ’90s and early 2000s was a melting pot of genre-blending bands (e.g. E-Town Concrete, Fury of Five, NJ Bloodline) where rap verses went hand in hand with screaming breakdowns. E-Town Concrete, led by Anthony Martini’s snarling rhymes and David “Dingo” Mondragon’s chugging riffs, fused hip hop’s flow with hardcore’s gut-punch heaviness, tracks like “Mandibles” rumbling out of Elizabeth like a freight train through the industrial sprawl. Fury of Five, with James “Stikman” Murray’s gravel-throated roars and Jay Boi’s relentless guitar stabs, hammered out a chaotic fusion of rap-metal and pit-stirring breakdowns, born from Asbury Park’s boardwalk. NJ Bloodline, fronted by Enrique “Wreak Havoc” Maseda’s fierce rap-screams and Frank Gallo’s jagged guitar work, churned out a raw, groove-driven sound from Elizabeth’s backstreets, their songs like “Be Afraid” voicing the defiance of a state caught between urban decay and suburban angst.

“There was a ton of crossover and genre blending,” Jayway said, a reflection of the tri-state area’s cultural mix. His music in Bayway fuses hip hop’s bass-heavy production and high-pitched snares with hardcore’s aggression. “Vocally I don't approach my vocals from the perspective of a screamer,” he explained, “I sing over everything too, similar to hip hop. They use their voice as an almost percussive instrument.” To Jay, hip hop (especially in the 90s) was about a call and response, making it a natural model for hardcore music. “That's what I try to bring to every song because so much of hardcore is crowd participation,” he said, adding “that's what I always loved to see and pulled me in as a kid.”

For Jayway, authenticity is non-negotiable. “You can hear the difference,” he says, dismissing technical debates in favor of raw intent that bleeds from the heart rather than bends to convention. Those debates, often swirling among musicians and fans, might fixate on precision—like the virtuosic shredding of a guitarist’s arpeggios or the metronomic perfection of a drummer’s double-kick blastbeats, the kind of studio-slick skills that can dominate hardcore or hip hop forums. Jayway sidesteps all that, waving off the obsession with technique—like whether a snare’s tuning hits the exact frequency or a riff’s complexity earns conservatory cred—for something messier, truer: the unfiltered drive to scream, to narrate, to connect. “Authenticity will always be my answer here,” he insists, a stance that shrugs at the gearheads and purists who’d rather dissect bpm than feel the pulse.

The Historical Threads: How Hip Hop and Punk Collided

DJ Kool Herc shot by Steven Ferdman for Rolling Stone

To grasp the significance of these artists, it’s worth tracing the historical threads that brought hip hop and punk together. Hip hop emerged in the Bronx in the early 1970s, a DIY revolution sparked by DJ Kool Herc’s breakbeats and Grandmaster Flash’s turntable wizardry. It was a party culture turned protest art, with MCs like Melle Mel spitting rhymes about poverty and resilience over funk loops. Around the same time, punk erupted in New York and London—bands like the Ramones and the Sex Pistols channeling working-class rage into three-minute blasts of distortion. Both scenes were raw, unpolished, and fiercely independent, thriving outside the corporate music machine.

Enter Fred Brathwaite. While there are many individuals who contributed to hip hop and punk coming together, Fred, better known as Fab Five Freddy, deserves a shout out. A Brooklyn-born son of a jazz-loving accountant who would grow up tagging subway cars with the Fabulous 5 crew in the late ’70s, Freddy was a connector, a hustler with an art-school brain who saw the threads linking the uptown Bronx rap scene with the downtown No Wave and punk worlds. By the early 1980s, he’d become a linchpin in New York’s cultural underbelly, famously name-checked in Blondie’s 1981 hit “Rapture” (“Fab 5 Freddy told me everybody’s fly”), a track that brought hip hop’s cadence to MTV and punk’s CBGB crowd. His real coup, though, came through the spaces he curated—most notably at the Mudd Club, a grimy Tribeca haunt where punk rockers, new wavers, and graffiti kids rubbed shoulders with art-world oddballs.

In April 1981, Freddy co-curated the “Beyond Words” show at the Mudd Club with Futura 2000, packing the narrow, smoke-hazed basement with works from graffiti legends like Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, and Rammellzee alongside punk-inspired artists like Alan Vega of Suicide. It was a chaotic, electric coming together moment—Bronx breakers and MCs like Afrika Bambaataa crashed the downtown scene for the first time, their boomboxes thumping against the Mudd’s concrete walls while punk kids with mohawks gawked or joined in.

Poster from the Beyond Words gallery from Gallery 98

Freddy didn’t stop at galleries. One pivotal night in 1982 at the Roxy, organized with promoter Ruza “Kool Lady” Blue, saw a screening of Malcolm McLaren’s punk flick The Great Rock’n’Roll Swindle segue into a flood of Bronx hip-hoppers mingling with downtown’s tastemakers and new wave freaks. The clash was raw: punk’s spiky-haired rebellion met hip hop’s baggy-jeaned bravado. These parties were a proving ground where hip hop’s rhythmic rebellion and punk’s sonic snarl found common cause, fueled by Freddy’s relentless push to unify graffiti, rap, and punk as a single, defiant art form.

This wasn’t a fluke—Freddy’s roots ran deep. He’d painted Warhol-inspired Campbell’s Soup cans on a subway train in 1980, starred in Downtown 81 with Basquiat, and by 1983 co-produced Wild Style, the first film to capture hip hop’s sprawling essence, all while gigging with punk icons like The Clash’s Joe Strummer. His Mudd Club shows and Roxy nights became the physical crossroads of a movement, where the tri-state’s cultural mix—Bronx beats, Jersey hardcore, Manhattan art—boiled over into something new.

The first major crossover came in 1986 with Run-DMC and Aerosmith’s “Walk This Way,” a track that smashed rap and rock into the mainstream. The Beastie Boys, who started as a punk band before pivoting to hip hop with Licensed to Ill, cemented this bridge, their snotty attitude and skate-park energy a perfect fusion of both worlds. By the ’90s, Public Enemy’s Chuck D was sampling punk riffs, while Bad Brains (a Black hardcore band from D.C.) blended reggae and rap into their already frenetic sound. Cypress Hill’s dark, bass-heavy beats nodded to punk’s aggression, and Rage Against the Machine married hip hop’s vocal delivery with punk’s sonic profile.

The late ’90s and early 2000s saw this intersection explode. Rap-metal acts like Limp Bizkit and Linkin Park dominated MTV, while underground scenes birthed hybrids like E-Town Concrete and Biohazard, who fused hardcore’s brutality with hip hop’s flow. Gym Class Heroes, emerging in this era, brought a pop-punk twist to the mix, their Fueled By Ramen pedigree aligning them with the emo and alternative crowds while their hip hop roots kept them grounded in rap circles.

Today, the crossover has evolved into a mature, multi-faceted pool of genres and artists. JPEGMAFIA’s glitchy, punk-style beats, Death Grips’ industrial-rap tracks, and Rico Nasty’s scream-laden rhymes are all part of a new wave where genre lines dissolve entirely. Disashi, Upgrade, and Jayway sit within this lineage drawing from the past while pushing the sound forward in their own unique ways.

No Rules, All Soul: What Unites Hip Hop and Punk

The conversations with Disashi, Upgrade, and Jayway revealed significant overlap in their histories that led to them embracing hip hop and punk rock in their own musical endeavors. From that, we can extrapolate five recurring themes that define this intersection, each a pillar of its enduring appeal.

1. DIY Ethos and Independence

The DIY spirit is the beating heart of both genres, and these artists embody it fully. Upgrade’s makeshift recording setups—dog barks and all—mirror punk’s basement gigs and hip hop’s early tape-trading days. “I’ve done shows with Coheed and Cambria, Hail the Sun, Kaonashi, Get Dead, and I never felt out of place,” he said, a testament to the freedom independence affords. Disashi celebrates how technology has shifted power to artists, noting, “Bands and artists can find creative and powerful ways to get their music out to the world.” Jayway’s hands-on production, tweaking snares and bass for a ’90s vibe, reflects the same ethos. This self-reliance rejects corporate polish in favor of a lo-fi rawness that fans respond to.

Historically, this ethos traces back to punk’s indie labels like Dischord and hip hop’s street-level mixtape culture. Both scenes thrived on making something from nothing, like the Clash taping shows for bootlegs or DJs like Afrika Bambaataa spinning records at neighborhood parties. Today, platforms like Bandcamp and SoundCloud continue this tradition, letting artists like Upgrade bypass gatekeepers and connect directly with listeners.

2. Genre Fluidity and Cross-Pollination

The willingness to blur lines is a hallmark of this intersection. Upgrade’s influences—Michael Jackson, Paramore, MF Doom—span genres, informing a sound that’s “not afraid to be myself.” For Disashi, that fluidity thrives in Gym Class Heroes’ creative sprawl, rooted in a kaleidoscope of influences from Green Day’s distortion to Wu-Tang Clan’s wit. “There has always been a lot of room for creativity in our writing process,” he reflected. “Especially being that we all come from such diverse musical backgrounds, when we get together we create music for everyone, in my opinion.” Tracks like “Solo Discotheque,” born from a spontaneous riff he strummed while Matt jammed along, or “Shoot Down the Stars,” sparked by vibe-heavy acoustic parts, showcase how his guitar bends punk’s edge into hip hop’s flow.

Jayway fuses Nas-inspired storytelling with hardcore’s aggression, using “bass tricks and that high-pitched snare” to bridge the gap. This fluidity echoes hip hop’s history of sampling (think Public Enemy chopping Black Sabbath riffs) and punk’s experimental streak, from the Minutemen’s jazz moments to Bad Brains’ reggae roots. It’s an innovative rejection of purity, also seen in modern acts like Run the Jewels, whose bombastic beats nod to punk’s intensity, or Turnstile, blending hardcore R&B-style hooks.

3. Vulnerability and Authenticity

Emotional honesty binds hip hop and punk,, and these genre-blending artists wear their hearts on their sleeves. Upgrade’s Wizard of Loneliness dives into mental health with unflinching detail: “When my anxiety builds up and I start getting panic attacks... it’s so easy to fall into a state of depression.” Disashi’s contributions to Gym Class Heroes channel personal struggles into universal anthems. Jayway’s MC approach, narrating “the world around him,” mirrors punk’s confessional lyrics, offering a rawness that resonates.

Punk’s emo wave (e.g Rites of Spring) and hip hop’s introspective turn (from Tupac and Lauryn Hill to Kendrick Lamar) paved the way for this vulnerability. It’s why Upgrade hears from fans who say his music saved their lives, why Disashi sees fans from every scene at shows, and why Jayway will always push artists, new and veteran, to make the music they want to make without compromise. Both genres offer an outlet to transform pain into power.

4. Community and Connection

Picture Upgrade after a sweaty set in some upstate dive, surrounded by fans as the PA buzzes faintly in the background—he’s not rushing offstage but lingering, grinning: “I love doing a show and meeting everyone and really talking to people.” Across the coast, Disashi Lumumba-Kasongo peers out from a Gym Class Heroes stage, marveling at the crowd—“emo haircuts rocking out right next to backpack hip hoppers,” he recalls, a mix of spiky dye jobs and Kangol caps swaying as one, a sight he deems “a beautiful thing.” In New Jersey, Jayway feels the pulse of the pit and nods to the diehards clutching rare vinyl, seeing echoes of his own obsession: “The similarities are everywhere—the obsessive collectors, the rare vinyl, the street vibe,” he says, linking the zine-hoarding punk kids to the mixtape-trading hip hop heads.

These moments stitch a thread of belonging that stretches beyond the artists, weaving hip hop and punk into a shared tapestry of community. Upgrade’s post-show chats fuel a cult following that mirrors the tight-knit tribes of punk’s squat gigs, where sweaty strangers became family under flickering lights. Disashi’s vision of united crowds parallels the block parties of the Bronx, where Kool Herc’s breaks brought neighbors together. Jayway’s call-and-response roars—born from hardcore’s mosh-pit chants and hip hop’s ’90s crowd hype—carry the torch of scenes where music was a lifeline for outsiders forging bonds in real time. It’s a reminder that these genres transcend sound; they’re about the people who scream along.

5. Regional Influence and Identity

The tri-state area looms large in these stories. Jayway, a son of Jersey’s hardcore scene, nails it: “The roots are certainly strong in the tri-state area in terms of hip hop's influence on hardcore. The fashion, the terminology, and the culture are very similar. You look at the graffiti that is so heavily associated with NYHC and the us against them mentality. Hip hop was born in New York so it would basically be impossible for the influence to not be the strongest there.” He’s right—stand on a Newark corner in the ’90s, and you’d see it: kids in baggy jeans and spray-painted hoodies trading mixtapes, their slang echoing the “fuck you” snarl of NYHC flyers plastered on lampposts.

This crucible melted hip hop and punk together, evident from the long list of artists hailing from the region. NYC’s urban chaos, Jersey’s industrial grit, and upstate’s restless town life all fed a feedback loop: hip hop’s street pulse seeped into punk’s fury, and punk’s raw howl sharpened hip hop’s edge.

The Evolution: Past, Present, and Future

The hip hop-punk intersection has evolved from a niche to a cornerstone of modern music. Early collisions—like Blondie’s “Rapture” or the Judgment Night soundtrack—were experimental, often clunky. The ’90s and 2000s refined it, with acts like Linkin Park and 311 mainstreaming the blend, while underground scenes kept it raw. Today, it’s a fluid ecosystem, with artists like Lil Peep merging emo rap with punk melancholy, or Ho99o9 thrashing hip hop into hardcore chaos.

Disashi, Upgrade, and Jayway sit at this crossroads. Upgrade’s JPEGMAFIA nod—“His energy, his production style, everything is really polished”—points to a future where mainstream sounds embrace punk’s edge. Disashi plans to release his first new music in 2025. “Even though the song was written some time ago,” he said, “strangely, it expresses my sentiments about life and about the world better now than when I wrote it.” The upcoming Electric Love Music promises to blend his GCH roots with fresh soul. Jayway’s hardcore-hip hop fusion keeps the tri-state legacy alive: Shattered Realm recently released a single and band Bayway signed to Trustkill Records and have a new album due out in June.

The Legacy

Artists like Disashi, Upgrade, and Jayway harness the intersection of hip hop and punk, proving its power to break molds and forge new paths. Rooted in rebellion, fueled by vulnerability, and built on community, their music reaps the rewards of this multi-genre alchemy: a boundless creative sandbox, a deeper emotional grip, and a defiant voice that cuts through the noise of a homogenized industry. Against the backdrop of algorithms and autotune, they stand as proof that authenticity—raw, unscripted, and fiercely their own—drives the truest art, whether it’s Upgrade tweaking beats amid barking dogs in a makeshift studio, Disashi layering punk riffs over a Supertramp sample, or Jayway slamming hip hop bass lines into hardcore breakdowns.

This is the rebel’s symphony: loud, messy, and unapologetic. It’s the sound of outsiders finding community, of genres transcending into something greater. As Disashi puts it, “Music is love.” Upgrade adds, “Dope music is dope music.” And as Jayway proves, authenticity is everything. Together, they carry forward a legacy that’s been building for decades—one that’s as potent now as it was when Run DMC and Aerosmith first dropped “Walk This Way” on the world. Nate G., an avid listener of punk and hip hop, summed it up well: “I think of course that as a general rule, both genres are fighting against oppression in one form or another,” he said, “but I realized earlier hip hop and punk rock aren’t exclusively about art or establishment shit. They’re also about taking care of each other and taking care of ourselves.”

Further Listening

If you’re interested in this intersection, be sure to check out Gym Class Heroes, Bayway, and Upgrade, plus the artists mentioned in the article. And as a bonus, Jay provided a perfect primer on hip hop and hardcore that anyone can follow:

“If you are a hip hop kid and you are interested in getting into hardcore I would most likely play E-town Concrete’s The Renaissance because it's easily palatable and on the heavier side and won't immediately be too harsh for the ears of the listener. On the reverse side of this if you love hardcore and have never heard hip hop (which to me is a crazy concept) I would probably play Onyx; the rugged yelling aspect of their music would probably be the most appealing.”

Hardcore for hip hop kids:

Newer Bands:
Missing Link
Big Boy
Outta Pocket
Bayway (Obviously)

Older Bands:
E-Town Concrete
Biohazard
Downset
Madball

Hip hop for hardcore kids:

Newer artists:
Suicide Boys
City Morgue
Shakewell
Older artists:
Big L
Nas
Onyx

A Special Message from Disashi

“P.S., as an aside... I was once so distracted after a show in Florida, worrying about my baby and his mom being stuck outside, that THE Shaquille O’Neal tried to talk to me and I ran right past him (I swear I wasn’t blowing him off, as I am a fan of his). But I didn’t see him, and I know that’s hard to believe when it’s him. But it’s true and I would have never known except that Bluejay saw the whole thing and told me! So Shaq, if you see this, you’re the man!”

A huge shout out to Disashi Lumumba-Kasongo, Upgrade, and Jayway for spending so much time answering questions for me for this essay—not only are you all gifted artists, but you’re kind, patient human beings. Another special thank you to David Z. Morris, author of the phenomenal Dark Markets newsletter, who contributed clutch editing and helped with the much-needed final revision including the tip to research Fab Five Freddy—thank you for the help, David!

Sources:

1. How Jamaica’s 1950s DJs Gave Rise to Their Counterparts on the Disco and Hip-Hop Scenes - Vanity Fair

2. Can't Stop Won't Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation - Jeff Chang / DJ Kool Herc, 2005

3. Making the Scene in the Garden State, Dwar MacLeod, 2012

4. From the Basement, Taylor Markarian, 2019

5. Afrika Bambaataa Bio, Blackpast.org

6. Yo! Fab Five Freddy Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop, Mark Rozzo, Vanity Fair

7. Living Large, The world of Fab Five Freddy. Susan Orlean, The New Yorker

8. Group Exhibition, Beyond Words, with Samo, Haring, Fred Brathwaite, Futura, Mudd Club, Poster, 1981

9. Fab 5 Freddy made it fresh and fly, DJ History.com