Sucker MC's should call me sire
To burn my kingdom, you must use fire
I won't stop rockin' till I retire
The fusion of rap and rock was first sketched out of the Post-Punk experimentation of bands like The Clash, who were influenced by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five on their songs "The Magnificent Seven" and "This Is Radio Clash", and Public Image Ltd., who collaborated with Afrika Bambaataa on the song "World Destruction", as well as New Wave bands like Blondie with "Rapture". The more experimental side of Hardcore Punk also developed some of Rap Rock's early artists, such as Beastie Boys, who, along with the Hip Hop group Run–D.M.C. and the Dutch band Urban Dance Squad, codified Rap Rock as we know it in The '80s, marking the Genre Turning Point where Rock fans went from being hostile towards Hip Hop to embracing Hip Hop. Kid Rock was another significant Rap Rock artist in The '90s, for linking Hip Hop to Rap Rock, due to having started out as a Hip Hop DJ.
Rap Rock is often conflated with, but not related to, Punk Rap, Rap Metal, or Nu Metal, especially as the latter two terms were used interchangeably with Rap Rock during The '90s. The key difference between Rap Rock and other genres that contain Rock and Hip Hop elements combined, is that Rap Rock is more closely related to the more experimental sides of Hip Hop, Punk or Rock, while Rap Metal's roots are more closely tied to Alternative Metal, and while Rap Rock tends to be more Funk oriented and rooted in a more organic Hip Hop influenced sound, Rap Metal sounds more rooted in Hard Rock/Alt-Metal and essentially sounds more like a metal vocalist rapping over heavy electric guitars, with the Hip Hop elements of Rap Metal sounding more like they were overdubbed onto Metal songs rather than organically integrated into the music, as Rap Rock had done, while Punk Rap tends to be used to describe a very specific form of Hip Hop with Punk/Hardcore/Metal influences developed by rappers in the late 2000s and early 2010s that is more Rap influenced by Rock than Rock influenced by Rap. This term is also confused with "Rapcore", which is sometimes used as a microgenre term to describe Hardcore/Punk bands who mix those styles with Rap, the exact inversion of Punk Rap's fusion. Making things even more confusing for categorization purposes, many Nu Metal bands have been miscategorized as Rap Rock, Rap Metal and Rapcore, although Nu Metal is a distinct genre of it's own with origins in Alternative Metal. Psychedelic Rap, a microgenre of Alternative Hip Hop that fuses Rap with Psychedelic Rock and Soul, and Progressive Rap, which is like Prog Rock Meets Rap, is also sometimes conflated with Rap Rock, though also unrelated.
These distinctions, however, were not generally made by the public, so the term "Rap Rock" has often been slapped onto music that would more accurately be described as Rap Metal, Nu Metal or some other unrelated style, and when Nu Metal fell out of favor, Rap Rock fell alongside it by sheer association. Emo Rap and Punk Rap have been described as successors to Rap Rock, but Rap Rock itself is generally seen as being dead.
Examples:
- 311 — also Alternative Rock, Reggae Rock and Funk Rock
- Beastie Boys — also Hip-Hop and Alternative Hip Hop, previously a Hardcore Punk band
- 1986: Licensed to Ill
- Bloodhound Gang — also Alternative Rock and Comedy Rock
- Boondox — also Horrorcore and Country Rap
- Death Grips — also Industrial Hip Hop and Punk Rap
- Flobots — also Alternative Hip Hop, Alternative Rock and Political Rap
- Fort Minor — also Alternative Hip Hop
- Fun Lovin' Criminals — also Alternative Rock and Hip Hop
- Gym Class Heroes — also Hip Hop
- Insane Clown Posse — also Hip Hop and Horrorcore
- 1997: The Great Milenko
- 1999: The Amazing Jeckel Brothers
- 2000: Bizaar Bizzar
- 2002: The Wraith: Shangri-La
- 2007: The Tempest
- 2009: Bang Pow Boom
- Kid Rock — also Country Rock and Hip Hop
- 1993: The Polyfuze Method
- 1996: Early Mornin' Stoned Pimp
- 1998: Devil Without a Cause
- 2001: Cocky
- Kottonmouth Kings — also Hip Hop
- Lil Aaron — also Alternative Hip Hop
- Lil Peep — also Trap Music and Alternative Hip Hop
- Luscious Jackson — also Alternative Rock and Alternative Hip Hop
- Machine Gun Kelly — also Pop Rap, Pop Punk and Alternative Rock
- N*E*R*D — also Alternative Hip Hop, Alternative Rock and Funk Rock
- New Kingdom
- Pop Will Eat Itself — also Alternative Rock and Industrial
- Post Malone — also Trap, Hip Hop and Pop
- Run–D.M.C. — also Hip Hop
- Twenty One Pilots — also Alternative Hip Hop and Alternative Rock
- Uncle Kracker — also Country Rock and Country Rap
- Urban Dance Squad
- Yelawolf — also Hip Hop and Country Rap
- Zebrahead (Band) — also Pop Punk
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., Urban Dance Squad and the Beastie Boys pioneered the genre, and, along with Kid Rock are easily Rap Rock's most respected performers.
- 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 to Reggae to Psychedelia to Punk.
- 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 confusion 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.
