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✶✶ Welcome to the Chicago Hip-Hop History Project ✶✶

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Project Overview

Launched in 2024 with support from The 2024 UIC Awards for Creative Activity and in collaboration with the Chicago Hip-Hop Heritage Museum, the Chicago Hip-Hop History Project aims to provide context and connections for all elements of Chicago hip-hop history through our digital projects which include:

• timelines of the elements of hip-hop in Chicago
• maps of significant locations
• a blog about our research and events related to Chicago hip-hop
• a digital encyclopedia (this site) designed to provide a comprehensive and organized overview of Chicago hip-hop history.
• a project to update a variety of Wikipedia pages related to Chicago hip-hop

We aim to serve the demand for quality information on topics not on Wikipedia due to notoriety constraints. 180 of the pages in this encyclopedia also have a corresponding article on Wikipedia, while 417 do not.

Currently this encyclopedia includes 1700 unique pages on emcees, DJs, producers, street dancers, graffiti artists and many others members of the Chicago hip-hop community. Each page of this site presents concise, factual information on an entity or concept related to Chicago hip-hop history and is intended to be a starting point for further research.

Please see our editors and inclusion criteria pages for more information. You may browse the site using the search tool or the links in the table of contents below:

The Elements

✶ Graffiti Writing

• Graffiti Artists (42 members)

✶ DJing

• Disc Jockeys (DJs) / Turntablists (96 members)
• Radio Personalities
• Producers (104 members)

✶ Street Dancing

• Street Dancers (19 members)
  • Lockers
  • Poppers
  • Breakers
• Street Dance Groups

✶ Beatboxing

✶ MCing

• EmCees (MCs) (682 members)
• Hip-Hop Groups (111 members)

✶ Knowledge

• Philosophies
• Writers

More Elements

Click here for a full list of categories including:

• Entrepreneurs (4 members)

• Fashion Designers (1 members)
• Recording Studios
• Record Labels
• and many others...

Genres

The following hip-hop genres are associated with Chicago and have an article on Wikipedia:

  * Chicago hip-hop
  * Drill music
  * Midwestern hip-hop
  * Chopper (rap)
  * Comedy hip-hop
  * Freestyle rap
  * Hipster hop
  * Mumble rap
  * Political hip-hop
  * Progressive rap

EchoNest (Spotify) includes Chicago artists in each of the following genre maps:

  * Hip-Hop
  * Rap
  * Gangster Rap
  * Melodic Rap
  * Golden Age Hip-hop
  * Hip-house  
  * Chicago Bop
  * Chicago Rap
  * Chicago Drill

Recently Updated Pages

• Radio Stations (Modification date"Modification date" is a predefined property that corresponds to the date of the last modification of a subject and is provided by Semantic MediaWiki.: 15 April 2026 19:15:22)
• Doc Illa (Modification date"Modification date" is a predefined property that corresponds to the date of the last modification of a subject and is provided by Semantic MediaWiki.: 15 April 2026 18:03:30)
• Shawn Boyd (Modification date"Modification date" is a predefined property that corresponds to the date of the last modification of a subject and is provided by Semantic MediaWiki.: 15 April 2026 18:00:49)
• Black High-Priestess (Modification date"Modification date" is a predefined property that corresponds to the date of the last modification of a subject and is provided by Semantic MediaWiki.: 15 April 2026 17:59:04)
• DJ 331/3 (Modification date"Modification date" is a predefined property that corresponds to the date of the last modification of a subject and is provided by Semantic MediaWiki.: 15 April 2026 17:56:08)
• Save One (Modification date"Modification date" is a predefined property that corresponds to the date of the last modification of a subject and is provided by Semantic MediaWiki.: 15 April 2026 17:54:10)
• Super Business Women Show (Modification date"Modification date" is a predefined property that corresponds to the date of the last modification of a subject and is provided by Semantic MediaWiki.: 15 April 2026 17:52:22)
• Cheryl Burton (Modification date"Modification date" is a predefined property that corresponds to the date of the last modification of a subject and is provided by Semantic MediaWiki.: 15 April 2026 17:51:05)
• 704 (Modification date"Modification date" is a predefined property that corresponds to the date of the last modification of a subject and is provided by Semantic MediaWiki.: 15 April 2026 17:49:39)
• David McKinley Trotter (Modification date"Modification date" is a predefined property that corresponds to the date of the last modification of a subject and is provided by Semantic MediaWiki.: 15 April 2026 17:46:47)

... further results

For Researchers

This digital encyclopedia is a Semantic MediaWiki project. Semantic properties are used to add structured, machine-readable data to pages within this project. This allows for enhanced search capabilities, data extraction, and the creation of specialized views based on semantic information.

About Us

This site is administered by the CHHHP team and attempts to adhere to the five pillars of Wiki-editing.