Slideshow: White rappers whose beats broke barriers
| 8:29 AM on 10/12/2010 | |
Deborah Harry
No, the lead singer of New Wave group Blondie was not a rapper, not by a long shot. But her simplistic rhymes on the smash hit song "Rapture" was the first taste of hip-hop for mainstream white audiences. Her shout out to future Yo! MTV Raps host Fab 5 Freddy is the stuff of hip-hop lore.
(AP Photo)
The Beastie Boys (AP Photos/Los Angeles Times, Lori Shepler)
It's hard to believe Vanilla Ice topped the Billboard charts roughly 20 years ago and became perhaps the most infamous white rapper ever. But hip-hop never really excluded Caucasians. In fact, an artist primarily associated with punk and new wave music, Deborah Harry of the band Blondie, introduced rap to pop audiences with her number one 1980 smash "Rapture". Ever since, white hip-hop artists have struggle to win street cred in a genre that has been dominated by African-Americans telling black stories. Still, there are a handful of artists who, for better or worse, changed perceptions about white people and hip-hop.
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