Geography of American rap: rap diffusion and rap centers.

The goal of this paper was to contribute to the interdisciplinary research that linked place and music by conducting a brief geography of rap. Rap music grew from the isolated Bronx in the 1970s and became a mainstay in popular culture today. Hip hop music was noted for its strong sense of place, as rap credibility (what 'hood do you represented), identities (e.g. Flo Rida), and local slang (e.g. sippin' sizzurp in Houston) were often geographically-based. This research described the various spatial meanings of rap, mapped the diffusion of hip hop music, and identified rap centers. Cartographic analysis was based on the hometowns of 1124 rappers and the release dates of their debut albums from 1979 to 2015. The diffusion of rap followed the hierarchical diffusion pattern by leapfrogging from one major urban area to another. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]