Pop rap

This genre gained mainstream popularity during the 1990s, though the influences and roots of pop rap can trace back to late-1980s hip-hop artists such as Run-DMC, LL Cool J, and Beastie Boys.

Or worse, it's someone who never had any artistic principles to begin with, who's guilty of bastardizing rap's social and political traditions just to make money."

yeah that’s the ticket.” Compare that with these vivid lines from Biggie: “So we can steam on the way to the telly, go fill my belly / A T-bone steak, cheese eggs and Welch’s grape.” "Big Poppa" may have a poppy melody and beat, but it is still the work of a masterful lyricist and storyteller.

Paramount-owned music video channel MTV has described LL Cool J's 1987 single "I Need Love" as "one of the first pop rap crossover hits".

[5] Later, rap artists such as Tone Loc, Young MC, and Fresh Prince then made party tunes and used their storytelling abilities as they became popular.

[10] Popular hip-hop rapper LL Cool J did not embrace the idea of labeling him as the "forefather of pop rap" and tweeted about it in April 2021.

It features a fusion of melodious arrangements, urban colloquial language, Pidgin, singing, indigenous and Western rap.

Key figures in the street pop genre include Olamide, Slimcase, Mr Real, Idowest, Naira Marley, Zinoleesky, Mohbad, Balloranking, Reminisce, Rexxie, Zlatan Ibile, Sarz, 9ice, Lil Kesh, T.I Blaze, Asake, Portable, Bella Shmurda, Seyi Vibez and DJ Kaywise.