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Music

Someone Has Made 38 Hours of Playlists That Trace the Evolution of Hip-Hop

And you can listen to it for free.

Sick of golden era heads telling you that you can’t enjoy the new Rich Gang track without understanding how The Chronic popularised G-funk? Well, some dude on internet radio site 8tracks.com—who goes under the sad and ambitious name of MCAforPresident—has spent a serious amount of time tracing his personal journey through the genre for public enjoyment, all the way from 1988 to the year 2000.

The result is 38 beat-laden hours of rap split into smaller, manageable playlists. This series journeys from when hip-hop first properly blew up in the late 80s, into the heart of gangsta rap’s commercial explosion, past the dawn of the golden age and the dominance of old school—and then beyond; into the state of hip-hop as it approached the millenium. So basically: NWA, A Tribe Called Quest, Three Times Dope, Beastie Boys, Slick Rick, Biggie, Mos Def, Jay Z, Q-Tip, Big L, Eminem, Outkast, east coast, west coast, underground, and everything over, under and in between.

Whether you’re a total head looking to reminisce or a young basic looking to educate; this could well be worth a few afternoons. Props to MCAforPresident, and you can listen below.