New York City mapped by rappers' origins

Click through to A Very Small Array for full size. You may also enjoy The Rap Map.

• [angusm]

  I’m shocked to see Lower Manhattan so under-represented. Are there no gritty hardscrabble gangstas growing up on the mean streets of the Financial District? More to the point, this also confirms that my Loisaida neighbors who rap noisily to themselves as they walk down the street are simply wannabes, and not incognito rap celebrities.

  • [awjt]

    All I listen to is Wall Street Gangster Rap.  Oh and a little Soho Gangster Rap thrown in too. I have my intern download new songs from the Apple Store while I’m over picking out a fine Chardonnay and a sack of mussels from Dean & Delucca.

    • [kgb]

       Listen to some Action Bronson: “But I’m known to eat expensive lunches/From the farm right to the table/Aired straight right to the plate I doubt you could relate/Figs at the peak of their ripeness” & “About to cop the crib furnished/Wood burning brick oven shit with the furnace/Quattro formaggi/Big plate look like a lobster collage”

• [peterkvt80]

  How many of those names do you recognise could be a good test of something, but I’m not sure what. My score was 10.

  • [Quiche de Resistance]

    53 here.  I make no claims of being down.

    • [Antinous / Moderator]

      I’m 54.  I babysat Tupac once.

• [awjt]

  That’s right, to hell with Jersey

  • [Quiche de Resistance]

    Maybe they’re just focusing on the five boroughs; no love for L.I. either (De La!).

• [malindrome]

  Interesting how Brooklyn essentially ends in Flatbush.  No rappers from Bensonhurst?

• [gizzardface]

  Where are the Beastie Boys?  I thought they were from New York

  • [Quiche de Resistance]

    MCA is from Brooklyn, he’s on there.  I know Ad-Rock is from Manhattan, I think Mike D too.

    • [penguinchris]

      Anyone who has listened to Licensed to Ill knows this, of course, because they mention that in several songs :)

• [James Pascaleff]

  I didn’t realize so much of Wu-Tang clan was from Staten Island

  • [Quiche de Resistance]

    Staten Island aint nuh’in ta fuck wit.

  • [tkdgns]

    All the way from the slums of Shaolin

• [Quiche de Resistance]

  “I can’t stand how they try to put in Staten Island just off the tip of Manhattan, like if they’re pretending Jersey isn’t way closer.  I know it’s an inset, but still.”

  “I know, so awful but what do you expect from a place with the north-south grid thirty degrees off true north!”

  -New York rapped by mappers.

  • [Quiche de Resistance]

    “Ayo, JFK aint in Brooklyn, and this street grid like all wobbly n shit.”

    “Ease up bitch, ain’t no muhfuckin cartographer!  That shit freehand!”

    -New York mapped by rappers.

• [knappa]

  I had no idea that Tupac was from Central Park.

• [Robert]

  OK, so I see someone’s name in Bayside. Seriously, a rapper from Bayside? Nope, he’s from South Jamaica along with 50 Cent, his name is just in the wrong place. Whew!

• [Rosin Ffield]

  LoLoL -that’s reall cool & funny

• [Slant]

  Zoom out a bit, add Chuck D, then republish or this map will be destroyed!

• [Itsumishi]

  I know that Tupac was born in Harlem, but  it sure seems odd to have what is pretty much the face of the West-coast side of the East-coast-West-coast hip-hop rivalry on that map.

• [Alexander Hu]

  Yeah the problem with thinking so NYC-centric and chopping off the rest of Long Island like it’s a rotten limb is that you leave out icons like Rakim, Chuck D/Flava Flav, and De La Soul. Show some love for Strong Island!!