The Rap "Question"

One of the most contentious controversies in the Rock Hall’s history came when rap and hip-hop came under consideration. The question was straightforward: “Does rap belong in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame”?

Well, the question has been answered, and in the positive. As of July 19, 2020: Grandmaster Flash and The Furious Five (2007), Run-DMC (2009), the Beastie Boys (2012), Public Enemy (2013), NWA (2016), Tupac (2017), and The Notorious B.I.G. (2020) are inductees. [Note: Jay-Z was inducted in 2021, and LL Cool J was given an Honorable Mention... um, Award for Musical Excellence that year. Missy Elliott got in in 2023, the first woman in rap to make it.]

(Should rap/hip-hop have its own hall of fame? Sure, the more the merrier. But...many Rock Hall inductees are also in the Blues, Vocal, R&B, Jazz, and even Country halls already, as well as the Songwriter’s Hall of Fame. So, yeah… but so what? Even if there is a Rap Hall, some of its inductees will also be in the Rock Hall.)

Flash and the Five— the first rap act inducted into the Rock Hall— entered in 2007. The genre has its origins as early as the mid-1970s, and the song “Rapper’s Delight” dropped in 1979. Considering the Hall’s built-in 25-year waiting period before any act becomes eligible for induction, an act debuting in 1980 would have to wait until 2005 to get in anyway.

Still, it is now 2020, a decade and a half after that threshold. And there are still only 7 rap acts are in the Hall.

So the “Rap Question” now is not, “Does rap belong in?” or “Which rappers belong in?” or even “Shouldn’t there be more in by now?”

The real question is: “What can be done to get more rappers in?”

Let’s look at the data. So far, even in the years in which a rap act has gotten in as Performers, they have been the only ones. In other words, it has never been the case that two rap acts got inducted as Performers in the same year. 

Focusing on the years in which rap acts have gotten in, we see a pattern: The first one entered in 2007, then a two-year gap to 2009, then a three-year gap to 2012… but then, one in the following year, 2013. Another three-year gap followed, with the next coming in 2016, but the next one was the next year, 2017. Followed by, sigh, another three-year gap to 2020.

So the Hall is willing to induct rappers two years in a row (it’s happened twice), but not three years in a row. In fact, if they do induct a rap act, their attitude seems to be, “Well, now we can take a break from that for a few years.”

Rap is in the Rock Hall of Fame. That question has been answered.

Which means the new “Rap Question” is: “How do we get the Hall to increase the frequency of rap-artist inductions… maybe even to one every year?”

There are people tracking this situation:

https://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/hip-hop/8533130/hip-hop-rock-roll-hall-of-fame

Update: In 2021, Jay Z and LL Cool J got in. But it was still not really the first time two rap acts had gotten in, in one year, because LL was only given a Musical Excellence Award, not full Induction. This award was meant for accompanists, and even if you can argue that some others (who I feel deserve full induction) technically are that... LL never accompanied anyone.

And then in 2022, Eminem got it, and even though he was the only rap act at all that year, it was still a milestone-- it was the first time two rap acts had been inducted in two consecutive years. 

And Gil Scott-Heron, who is not early as rock goes, is nevertheless in as of 2021 as an Early Influence... on a later genre, namely: rap. 

2023 saw Missy Elliot's induction, which is pretty major considering she is the first woman rapper to get in. Strange that she is ahead of Queen Latifah or Salt-N-Pepa, but it's still historic. 
DJ Kool Herc is also now in... as an Early Influence. As I had suggested on my post about that category, they are now including those who were early influences on rock-adjacent genres that emerged after rock had, such as rap and electronica. And this is the first time TWO rappers have been inducted in one year, even if one is not in as a Performer. Two rap Performers in one year? May we live to see it.