Donate
Philly hip hop comes through a pandemic and a record wave of gun violence to top the charts, win an Oscar, honor its pioneers for hip hop's 50th, and start building its own archives.
Philly Hip Hop History2020 to 2026
Now playingThe New Wave
The decade opened with two shocks.
In March 2020 COVID-19 closed every stage in the city, and some never reopened. Then came the violence: Philadelphia recorded 562 homicides in 2021, the most in its history, and the rap world lost artists to it. By 2025 the number had fallen to 222, the lowest since 1966.
Through all of it, the city's sound kept spreading, and Philadelphia started honoring its own: a street named for Lady B, a mural for the four elements, a Walk of Fame plaque for Schoolly D, and new archives to hold the story, this library among them.
Uzi hits No. 1 as COVID shuts every stage, the Roots Picnic goes online, and the city marches.
Album
Francisville · March 6, 2020
A week before the shutdown, Lil Uzi Vert's long-delayed album debuts at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 with one of the biggest streaming debuts of its time.
Listen (explicit lyrics) to Baby Pluto on Spotify (opens in a new tab)Shutdown
March 2020
Clubs close. Boot & Saddle on South Broad closes for good so its owners can keep Union Transfer alive, and the Fire and World Cafe Live lobby for federal aid. DJ Jazzy Jeff, sick with pneumonia he believed was COVID, rebuilds his sets as a livestream from home, the "Magnificent House Party." In June the Roots Picnic streams online.
The city
May 30 – June 6, 2020
After the killing of George Floyd, thousands march in Center City and West Philadelphia. The protests frame the decade's arguments over policing and justice, arguments Philly artists had already been in.
Verzuz
May 9, 2020
The first all-women Verzuz draws more than 700,000 live viewers and puts North Philly's Jill Scott in front of a quarantined country.
A record year for gun deaths; Summer of Soul premieres and Jazmine Sullivan's Heaux Tales lands.
Album
January 8, 2021
The Strawberry Mansion singer's EP becomes one of the year's most praised R&B records, and wins the Grammy for Best R&B Album.
Listen to Pick Up Your Feelings on Spotify (opens in a new tab)Film
Sundance · January 28, 2021
Questlove's first film, built from unseen footage of the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival, wins Sundance's Grand Jury Prize and Audience Award.
Label
City Council
The city honors Gamble and Huff's label, whose catalog runs underneath decades of Philly hip hop. Meek Mill's Expensive Pain debuts at No. 3 in October.
The library
2021
The Hip Hop Library is founded as a nonprofit by Malika Love, a West Philly MC who is its owner and CEO, to collect, preserve and tell the city's hip hop story. Its book and film catalog goes online on Libib.
Questlove wins an Oscar, the Picnic returns, Lady B gets her street, and a Philly club record goes top ten.
Record
October 17, 2022
Lil Uzi Vert's Jersey-club single peaks at No. 10 on the Hot 100 and goes four times platinum. Uzi credits the dance to how kids from Philly and Jersey move, and North Philly's 2Rare is in the video.
Listen to Just Wanna Rock on Spotify (opens in a new tab)Film
March 27, 2022
Summer of Soul wins Best Documentary Feature, a first for a member of the Roots. A week later Jazmine Sullivan wins her first two Grammys.
Honor
5700 block of Wyndale Avenue, Overbrook · August 14, 2022
The block where she grew up is renamed for Philadelphia's first recorded woman MC and its first hip hop radio host.
Record
Summer 2022
The Philly rapper's single reaches No. 58 on the Hot 100, charts in several countries and leads to a Def Jam deal.
Listen to BILLIE EILISH. on Spotify (opens in a new tab)Community
August 2022
As a local drill scene grows in West and Southwest Philly, artists and community groups hold rap competitions that ban violent lyrics, among them the Blackwell Community Alliance's "How Dope Are You?" and the City of Dreams Coalition's "Block by Block."
Mural
9th Street and Cecil B. Moore Avenue · December 10, 2022
Mural Arts, TAME ARTZ and Bill Strobel dedicate a four-elements mural honoring DJ Jazzy Jeff, B-girl PepC, Reef the Lost Cauze, INFA, Queen Jo and Ladies of Hip-Hop founder Michele Byrd-McPhee.
The decade took artists the city loved, some to illness and too many to gun violence. They are part of this history.
Hip hop turns 50 and Philly throws a summer-long party; Meek Mill is pardoned and Pink Tape hits No. 1.
Justice
January 12, 2023
Governor Tom Wolf pardons his remaining 2008-case conviction, ending a 15-year legal fight. In December, Governor Josh Shapiro holds a ceremonial signing with Meek Mill for a probation-reform law that limits jail time for technical violations.
Album
June 30, 2023
Uzi's third straight solo No. 1 album.
Listen to Flooded The Face on Spotify (opens in a new tab)Reunion
November 2023
DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince reunite on stage for "A Grammy Salute to 50 Years of Hip Hop." Black Thought publishes his memoir, The Upcycled Self.
For hip hop's 50th, City Council declared a Summer of Hip Hop, and the city treated it like a homecoming. The Free Library issued a hip hop library card designed by Akinseye Brown. WURD held "Message in Our Music." Chill Moody and the Philadelphia Orchestra premiered Black Metropolis at the Mann. On August 12 there were battles, graffiti and MCs at Francisville Playground and Hip Hop in the Park at Eakins Oval, and the Roots Picnic brought Lauryn Hill and a State Property reunion.
Tierra Whack's World Wide Whack, Black Thought's Glorious Game, and gun deaths fall fast.
Album
March 15, 2024
Tierra Whack's full-length debut, with videos directed by Alex Da Corte over Center City and with the Phillie Phanatic, makes the Inquirer's best Philly albums of the year.
Listen to SHOWER SONG on Spotify (opens in a new tab)Album
Black Thought & El Michels Affair
Black Thought's album with El Michels Affair on Big Crown, begun at the start of the pandemic. It follows Cheat Codes with Danger Mouse in 2022.
The city
2024
The largest one-year decline in 60 years, and more than half below the 2021 peak.
Schoolly D joins the Walk of Fame, Will Smith makes an album, the Picnic sinks in mud, and Power 99 goes syndicated.
Honor
Broad Street · May 1, 2025
Forty years after "P.S.K.," Schoolly D gets his plaque on the Avenue of the Arts. DJ Jazzy Jeff's has been there since 2000.
Album
March 28, 2025
Will Smith's first album in 20 years, with DJ Jazzy Jeff on one track.
Listen to Beautiful Scars on Spotify (opens in a new tab)Archive
Temple University · July 2025
Temple's Charles L. Blockson Collection and scholar Frank Johnson launch a digital archive of the city's Black music history.
Radio
October 13, 2025
iHeartMedia lays off Mikey Dredd, 30 years at the station, and MuthaKnows, and simulcasts The Breakfast Club from New York.
Festival
The Mann · May 31 – June 1, 2025
Weeks of rain soak the grounds, gates open late, and Questlove apologizes. The Roots play Do You Want More?!!!??! in full.
The decade's local institutions showed the strain. REC Philly, which gave independent artists studio time and business training for a decade, closed its Fashion District headquarters on December 20, 2025. The Fire, the Northern Liberties club with the city's longest-running open mic, closed in late September 2026, with Philly rapper Deek Westside playing the last show. Power 99's mornings went to New York.
If a room mattered to you, the archive wants the flyers, the photos and the stories.
Jay-Z and the Roots on Belmont Plateau; Will Smith and Jazzy Jeff close the 250th on the Parkway.
Festival
Belmont Plateau · May 30–31, 2026
The Roots Picnic moves to the hill where Philly's DJs once played Sundays. Jay-Z, backed by the Roots, plays his first festival since 2019, joined by Meek Mill, Bilal and Beanie Sigel; DJ Jazzy Jeff hosts his Magnificent Block Party, and about 40,000 people come each day.
Mixtape
June 19, 2026
Tierra Whack's new mixtape comes out on Juneteenth.
Listen to WAX PAPER on Spotify (opens in a new tab)The 250th
July 4–5, 2026
For the Semiquincentennial, the city's free Parkway concert brings Jill Scott, the Roots, State Property (Freeway, Beanie Sigel, Peedi Crakk and Young Gunz) and Will Smith with DJ Jazzy Jeff. After a rain delay of more than three hours, Will and Jeff play after midnight and close with "Summertime."
Honor
Dell Music Center · September 4, 2026
Mayor Cherelle Parker honors the Philadelphia International co-founder at the label's 55th-anniversary tribute.
The courts
February 25, 2026
The District Attorney charges 19 people in shootings from 2022 to 2024 that prosecutors say were documented in drill videos, the latest turn in a national argument over violence and expression that Philly artists and advocates have been leading.
Fifty years after Cornbread's name went up on a North Philly wall, the city is building the places to keep its story. That's what this library is for. Add yours.
Now2026 · The story continuesAt the library
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.
