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A band from the South Street sidewalk puts live instruments at the center of hip hop, a Philly office runs three No. 1 albums, and a handful of rooms turn the city into a songwriting town.
Philly Hip Hop History1990 to 1999
Now playingThe Live Element
Philadelphia entered the 1990s in crisis, and came out of them with a sound of its own.
The city recorded its worst year for homicides in 1990, at the height of the crack era. Factory jobs had been leaving for decades.
The decade's quiet engine was a public school. At the High School for the Creative and Performing Arts, Boyz II Men formed in 1985 and Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson met Tariq "Black Thought" Trotter in 1987. The band they started on the sidewalk gave the city a nickname that stuck: Illadelph.
Radio, mixtapes and a few small rooms carried the rest: Power 99's Radioactive, tapes sold hand to hand, and the open mics and jam sessions where Jill Scott, Musiq Soulchild and Bilal came up.
The Fresh Prince goes to TV, "Summertime" owns the radio, and Power 99 launches Radioactive.
Television
NBC · September 10, 1990
The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air premieres, with Will Smith as a West Philadelphia teenager sent to live in Bel-Air and Jeff Townes as his friend Jazz. For six seasons a Philly rapper is one of the most visible Black performers on American TV.
Record
Homebase · July 1991
The single reaches No. 4 on the Hot 100 and wins the duo their second Grammy. It is still the sound of a Philly summer.
Listen to Summertime on Spotify (opens in a new tab)Studio
DJ Jazzy Jeff's production company · 1990
Jeff starts his own production company and studio. It becomes the base for a generation of Philly producers, among them James Poyser, Andre Harris, Vidal Davis and Carvin Haggins, and for artists including Jill Scott and Musiq Soulchild.
Radio
WUSL Power 99 FM · 1991–98
Two years after Lady B's Street Beat ended, Power 99 launches a hip hop show hosted by Colby Colb, who started as an intern, with DJ Ran, DJ Cosmic Kev and Robert "Laid Back" Black.
Boyz II Men set a record, Ruffhouse jumps to No. 1, and Puremovement is born.
Charts
Boyz II Men
The quartet that formed at CAPA in 1985, discovered by Michael Bivins at a Philadelphia Civic Center concert, spends 13 weeks at No. 1 on the Hot 100, a record at the time. Their hip hop beats under harmony singing open a door the decade will walk through.
Dance
Rennie Harris
North Philadelphia dancer Rennie Harris, a Scanner Boy in the 1980s, founds Rennie Harris Puremovement, described as the first touring hip hop dance company. Philly's popping and b-boy styles go onto concert stages.
A name
South Street
The band drops "Square" from its name because a local folk group had a claim to it.
Joe "The Butcher" Nicolo and Chris Schwartz founded Ruffhouse Records in Philadelphia in 1989 as a joint venture with Columbia. It was not a Philly-sounding label. Its biggest acts came from Atlanta, Los Angeles and New Jersey, and their records were mostly made outside the city.
The Philadelphia part was the office, the deal-making, and Nicolo's Studio 4 at Fourth and Callowhill, where Cypress Hill's 1990s albums were mixed. From there Ruffhouse ran three No. 1 albums of the decade, then folded in 1999.
The Roots press Organix themselves, and Ursula Rucker reads in public for the first time.
Album
May 19, 1993
Recorded in 1992 and 1993, Organix is self-released to sell at shows on a European trip. The buzz brings label offers, and the band signs to DGC/Geffen: one of the few hip hop acts on a major built around a live band.
Listen to Organix on Spotify (opens in a new tab)Poetry
Zanzibar Blue · 1994
The Temple journalism graduate gives her first reading at the Zanzibar Blue jazz club. King Britt and Josh Wink's new Ovum Recordings put out her first spoken-word record, "Supernatural," the same year. Her pieces go on to close three Roots albums.
Underground
1993
High school friends Vinnie Paz and Stoupe the Enemy of Mankind start the group that will carry Philly's underground through the next two decades.
Writers
1994
Philadelphia-born writer Stephen "ESPO" Powers moves his graffiti and hip hop magazine to New York to grow it. Back home, the Mural Arts Program keeps offering writers a legal wall.
The Roots started on the sidewalk, busking with a bucket-drum kit at South Street and East Passyunk Avenue. In 2020 the city named the 600 block of East Passyunk "Avenue of The Roots."
They proved a live band could make hip hop albums that stood beside sample-based records, and they built a family around it.
The Roots' major-label debut puts a band and a beatboxer at the center of hip hop.
Album
January 17, 1995
The Roots' first major-label album reaches No. 22 on the R&B and hip hop chart. Beatboxer Rahzel and keyboardist Scott Storch join during the sessions, Ursula Rucker closes it with "The Unlocking," and the band plays the Montreux Jazz Festival.
Listen (explicit lyrics) to Do You Want More?!!!??! on Spotify (opens in a new tab)Record
From DJ to MC
Antonia Reed started as a DJ. Her independent Funk Vibes EP reaches Gang Starr's Guru and leads to a deal with Chrysalis, and the DJ Premier-produced "Uknowhowwedu" follows.
Listen (explicit lyrics) to Uknowhowwedu on Spotify (opens in a new tab)Illadelph Halflife, Kollage, Iverson and Mural Arts' independence: the decade's busiest year.
Album
September 24, 1996
The Roots' first Top 40 album reaches No. 21, with Bahamadia, Ursula Rucker, Q-Tip, Common and Dice Raw among the guests. "What They Do" reaches No. 34 on the Hot 100.
Listen to Illadelph Halflife on Spotify (opens in a new tab)Album
Spring 1996
Bahamadia's debut, produced by Guru, DJ Premier, Da Beatminerz and the Roots, gives Philadelphia one of the decade's most distinctive voices in rap.
Style
Drafted No. 1 · June 26, 1996
The 76ers draft Allen Iverson. His cornrows, tattoos and baggy clothes put Philly's hip hop style on national TV every night, and the NBA's 2005 dress code was widely read as a response.
Writers
1996
The Anti-Graffiti Network is folded into the Recreation Department, and Jane Golden's Mural Arts Program spins off on its own, still offering writers a legal outlet. Larry Gold opens The Studio downtown the same year.
In the second half of the decade a set of rooms and nights turned Philadelphia into a songwriting city, and the music that came out of them got a name: neo-soul.
King Britt and Dozia Blakey's Back2Basics nights at Silk City. Questlove's jam sessions at home, 1997 to 2001, with Erykah Badu, Jill Scott, Bilal and Musiq. Larry Gold's The Studio. And Black Lily, the women's series the Jazzyfatnastees started in 1999 and moved to the Five Spot in Old City.
CAPA moves to Broad Street, a new station signs on, and Beanie Sigel gets a verse with Jay-Z.
A verse
September 29, 1998
South Philly's Beanie Sigel, named for Sigel Street, appears on Jay-Z's Vol. 2... Hard Knock Life. It leads to a Roc-A-Fella deal, and to the State Property generation behind him.
School
901 S. Broad Street · October 31, 1997
The school where Boyz II Men formed and the Roots met moves into the restored Ridgway Library on the new Avenue of the Arts. Bilal graduates the next year.
Radio
WPHI · February 1997
Radio One relaunches a former rock station as an urban station to take on Power 99.
Online
West Philadelphia · 1998
Questlove and Angela Nissel build the Roots' website and message board in West Philadelphia bedrooms. It becomes one of the first online homes for hip hop fans.
Label
August 1998
The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill debuts at No. 1 on Ruffhouse/Columbia and wins five Grammys. Its Philadelphia ties are the label, executive Chris Schwartz and keyboardist James Poyser; it was recorded in New York, New Jersey, London and Jamaica.
Things Fall Apart, Okayplayer, Black Lily and Eve's No. 1 debut close the decade.
Album
February 23, 1999
Recorded in New York with J Dilla, James Poyser and Scott Storch, it reaches No. 4 and goes gold by April. "You Got Me," co-written by Jill Scott, who sang the first version, wins the Grammy for Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group. Okayplayer launches the same day.
Listen to Things Fall Apart on Spotify (opens in a new tab)Album
September 14, 1999
Eve, who grew up in West Philadelphia and Germantown, debuts at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, the third album by a woman rapper to top it.
Listen to Let There Be Eve on Spotify (opens in a new tab)Rooms
5 South Bank Street
A small club named for its address. It starts the decade as a swing-revival dance spot and ends it as a lab for the city's new soul: The Roots, Erykah Badu, India.Arie and Jill Scott on its stage, and poetry nights that fill it on weeknights. A fire later closes it for good.
Women in music
Wetlands, New York, then the Five Spot, Old City
Tracey Moore and Mercedes Martinez of the Jazzyfatnastees start a women's music series in New York and bring it home to the Five Spot. Jaguar Wright joins after meeting the organizers at the Things Fall Apart release party.
Mixtapes
Erie Avenue, North Philly · November 1999
After a year of local tapes drawing label interest, Major Figgas self-release Figgas 4 Life and sign with Chris Schwartz's new RuffNation. Ruffhouse closes the same year.
More of the artists who carried the city through the decade. From the founder's own list of Philly names. Know someone we missed? Tell us.
The decade ends with Beanie Sigel on Roc-A-Fella and Eve at No. 1. In the 2000s the street sound takes the city: State Property, the Black Lily years and the battle circuit.
Next2000s · State PropertyOut now
Compiled from published histories, press, discographies and interviews, listed below. History told by the culture is argued about by the culture: if you remember it differently, or you have the flyer, the tape or the photo, tell us or add it to the archive.
Photo credits for this chapter are on the credits page.
