Secondary Stylistic Influences:
I'm the king of rock, there is none higher
Sucker MC's should call me sire
To burn my kingdom, you must use fire
I won't stop rockin' till I retire
Sucker MC's should call me sire
To burn my kingdom, you must use fire
I won't stop rockin' till I retire
— Run–D.M.C., "King of Rock"
The fusion of rap and rock, first sketched out by The Clash with "The Magnificent Seven" and Blondie with "Rapture" back in 1980 and codified as we know it in The '80s by the Beastie Boys and Run-D.M.C, although one of the earliest examples (predating even Hip-Hop!) would be Year of the Guru
by Eric Burdon And The Animals. Subgenres include Punk Rap and Rap Metal, which is sometimes confused with Nu Metal, resulting in some overlap.
It was at its most popular in The '90s, thanks to the explosion of nu metal. Unfortunately, that genre eventually fell out of favor with the general public, and rap rock fell alongside it by sheer association. The '10s have seen a bit of a revival, but it's nowhere near as close to being as popular as it was back then.
As with Rap Metal, the genre is sometimes mistakenly referred to as "rapcore". That is incorrect; rapcore is a fusion of rap and punk.
Examples:
- 311
- ApologetiX - In some of their parodies.
- Beastie Boys
- Licensed to Ill (1986)
- Biohazard
- Bionic Jive
- Bloodhound Gang
- Cage
- Candiria
- Caparezza
- Clawfinger
- Crazy Town
- Cypress Hill
- 1993 - Black Sunday
- A handful of D12 songs fit into this genre, generally during times Eminem was most experimenting with the sound, such as in the early 2010s.
- Eminem, a lover of Classic Rock, has used this genre on several of his albums:
- The Eminem Show (2002)
- Recovery (2010)
- Revival (2017)
- Music To Be Murdered By (2020)
- 8 Mile: The Soundtrack (2002), Relapse (2009) & The Marshall Mathers LP 2 (2013) each have a few tracks in this genre - "Lose Yourself" and "Stimulate" on 8 Mile; "Stay Wide Awake", "Beautiful" and the Travis Barker remix of "3 a.m." on Relapse; "Rhyme or Reason", "Berzerk", "Survival", "So Far..." and "Love Game" on MMLP2.
- Em has also done a handful of other collaborations, remixes and Diss Tracks in this genre, such as the Danny Lohner remix of "The Way I Am" (with Marilyn Manson), "Turn Me Loose" (with Limp Bizkit), "Fuck Off" (with Kid Rock), "Vegas" (as part of Bad Meets Evil), and his Everlast diss "I Remember".
- Faith No More - not actually representative of the genre, but often gets pigeonholed due to "Epic". Only a handful of songs fit.
- Flobots
- From Ashes to New
- Grandson
- Guano Apes
- Gym Class Heroes
- Hacktivist
- (həd) p.e.
- Hollywood Undead - Probably the best known 2010s example of this genre.
- iann dior (mixed with Pop Rap)
- Incubus
- Kid Rock
- 1993 - The Polyfuze Method
- 1996 - Early Mornin' Stoned Pimp
- 1998 - Devil Without a Cause
- 2001 - Cocky
- Kottonmouth Kings
- Lil Aaron
- Lil Wayne (Rebirth only)
- Limp Bizkit
- Three Dollar Bill, Y'all$ (1997)
- Significant Other (1999)
- Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water (2000)
- The Unquestionable Truth, Part 1 (2005)
- Gold Cobra (2011)
- Linkin Park - When Mike Shinoda has lead vocals.
- Hybrid Theory (2000)
- Meteora (2003)
- Fort Minor - Shinoda's Solo Side Project carries on the tradition.
- Machine Gun Kelly (Starting with Hotel Diablo)
- Manafest (The Chase through Fighter, and again with Stones, though he had a few songs in this style before)
- MOD SUN
- Molotov
- Necro
- New Kingdom
- Papa Roach - Primarily their early material, after that they abandoned rapping completely in favor of singing. However, their later material features the return of rapping.
- Rage Against the Machine
- RedHook
- Red Hot Chili Peppers
- Blood Sugar Sex Magik (1991)
- "Weird Al" Yankovic parodied "Give it Away" and the beginning of "Under the Bridge" on "Bedrock Anthem."
- Californication (1999)
- This album has songs such as "Around the World" and "Get on Top" which fit this trope. Since then, however, they've deemphasized rapping in favor of singing, even though they have rapped on more recent songs such as "By the Way," "Can't Stop" and "Factory of Faith."
- By the Way (2002) featured some Rap Rock too.
- Blood Sugar Sex Magik (1991)
- Run–D.M.C. - Possibly the Trope Maker and Codifier.
- Stuck Mojo
- TechN9ne - Experiments with this from time-to-time. Even has an entire Nu Metal EP.
- Thousand Foot Krutch
- Travis Barker's solo work features rappers over Alternative Rock + Pop Punk instrumentation.
- Twenty One Pilots
- Uncle Kracker
- Urban Dance Squad
- Vanilla Ice
- YUNGBLUD
- Zebrahead (Band)
Tropes
- Cluster F-Bomb: Not as often as Hip-Hop itself, but many bands feature a lot of swearing.
- Ensemble Dark Horse: Run–D.M.C. and the Beastie Boys pioneered the genre, and are easily the most respected. In the '90s, Rage Against the Machine was considered to be the best band. Today, Twenty One Pilots fits the bill.
- Genre Mashup: It's rap and rock mixed together, what more could you want? Well, if you have to know, many different artists bring in a variety of influences in the mix. This can range from funk, reggae, psychedelia, metal, punk, and ska.
- Out-of-Genre Experience: It's not uncommon for rappers working in more conventional hip-hop styles to suddenly drop a rap-rock album as an experiment. Lil Wayne's Rebirth is a clear example of this.
- Piss-Take Rap: Some vocalists have been accused of this.
- Pretty Fly for a White Guy: Some bands give off this impression, especially if they have turntables.
- Rated M for Manly: Many bands have a 'tough guy' attitude.
- Taking You with Me: As mentioned above, the association with nu metal gave this genre a bad image and it died out from the mainstream largely at the same time that nu metal did. As with nu metal, it's seen a partial revival in the '10s, but is nowhere near as popular as it used to be.
