Conscious Hip Hop
Conscious hip hop is rap whose lyrics focus on social issues such as racism, poverty, politics and self-knowledge.
The beats are often soulful or jazzy, but the genre is defined by its words, not its sound. It traces back to The Message by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five in 1982 and to Public Enemy later that decade. It is usually set against gangsta rap and party rap, although the term is loose and is often used interchangeably with political hip hop.
Artists it is known for: Public Enemy, Common, Mos Def, Talib Kweli.
- Family
- Hip-Hop & Rap
- On Spotify
- No longer returned by Spotify’s API
- What it is
- A genre
- From
- United States, 1980s
- Also called
- conscious rap, socially conscious hip hop
- Trackify listeners who play it
- 21%
About 18,000 of 83,000 Trackify listeners with public profiles have conscious hip hop among their top artists of the last four weeks. Rounded; updated 13 November 2026.
Conscious Hip Hop artists
Kendrick Lamar
J. Cole
Nas
Joey Bada$$
Rage Against The Machine
Ice Cube
A Tribe Called Quest
Lupe Fiasco
Ms. Lauryn Hill
DONDA
The conscious hip hop artists most Trackify listeners have in their top fifty. Each opens on Spotify.
Sources
The definition is written for this site from open sources, and was checked against them on 13 November 2026.