Back in ’94, everyone’s homie and favorite rapper was robbed and shot 5 times while walking out of Quad Recording Studios in New York. Despite being shot twice in his

head, twice in his groin, and once in the hand, the ghetto prophet survived the shooting and the incident ultimately resulted in one of hip hop’s most beautiful photographs.

The

pic showed a triumphant Pac sticking his middle finger up at all of his haters as he was being carried away on a stretcher.

That photo has indeed become

a classic, almost a hip hop national treasure, if you will.

In 2011, during a show in L.A., The Game hit the stage with K.Dot for a fire a** freestyle. But in the midst of that, the L.A. rapper lets the

crowd in on some hip hop gold that’s about to go down: It’s time to pass the torch to the TDE lyricist, Kendrick Lamar.

Could yall imagine? OG rappers Kurupt,

Dr. Dre, Snoop, and Warren G all gather on stage to co-sign the passing of the torch down to the Compton rapper, in all his glory, still riding fresh off

the success of Section.80.

Mind you, this is months before the release of Kung Fu Kenny’s debut studio album, Good Kid, M.A.A.D City. Seven years later, and we all can

most definitely agree (and of course some haters will want to debate) that the lyrical tyrant is not just the King of West Coast rap, but hip hop period.

In 2005, Nola based rapper, Lil’ Wayne was nobody to f*ck with lyrically. Wayne took the mixtape game to all new heights after literally snatching everyone’s attention with the drop

of Tha Carter in 2004. Hip Hop fans couldn’t help but to realize that the homie was more than decent with the words.

So, to ride off everyone’s new peaked

interest while working hard on Tha Carter II, Weezy joined forces with DJ Drama to create pure dopeness: Dedication, the mixtape. Even more impressive, Dedication was loaded with material that

just didn’t make the cut for Tha Carter II, all flowed perfectly over other folks’ beats.

With Wayne’s cadence laden with witty rhymes, everyone was well aware that something incredible

was on the way, and it most definitely was. 

Back in the mid-90’s, Jay and Nasir had been throwing minor jabs back and forth at each other for a good minute until Hov performed a little bit of “Takeover,”

at Hot 97’s 2001 Summer Jam, ultimately fueling an already simmering fire. Jigga hit the crowd with the, “Ask Nas, he don’t wan’t it with Hov. No!” line and the

rest was history.

Fast forward, and it was literally on. Nas retaliated with his Stillmatic freestyle, and Jay hit him with the full version of “The Takeover.” Nas punched back

and damn near annihilated the emcee with “Ether,” and then Jay had everyone shaking their heads with a humiliating and unnecessary track, dubbed “Super Ugly,” in which he brought Nas’

mother of his child into the mix.

With Jay’s low blow, the feud ultimately came to a stop, concluding with Jay apologizing.

Leap ahead to October 2005 and we

get a more official closure to Nas and Jay’s diss tracks. Jay was on his “I Declare War,” tour when to everyone’s surprise, he had Nas hit the stage. The

two rocking out with each other and performing each other’s cuts literally made the crowd go bananas.

Nas and Hov dropping the beef was a pivotal hip hop moment.

Before Yeezy was brainwashed and taken to the Sunken Place by irrelevant reality stars, the Chicago native was what some would call militant and very politically outspoken. The rapper and

producer had no qualms about letting everyone know what was up.

During a telethon on the heels of Hurricane Katrina, Ye stood in front of the camera with an oblivious

Mike Meyers and spoke his truth. While everyone else turned a blind eye to FEMA’s failures, Yeezy spit truth by lighting up audiences with one of his best lines yet,

“George Bush doesn’t care about black people.”

Shout out to old Ye for shining a light on a topic that everyone else was just going to ignore. That’s classic Ye. 

“Puffy is good, but Wu-Tang is the best!” Yes, that line should be inscribed somewhere and on something, doesn’t really matter where.

During the 1998’s Grammy’s, Ol’ Dirty Bastard (RIP)

bum rushed the stage to tell the world and the Grammy audience exactly what was on his mind. And that’s just what hip hop has always been about. Not giving

a damn about y'alls protocol, etiquette, and formal a** procedures.

After Wu-Tang’s, Wu-Tang Forever, lost Best Rap album to Puff’s, No Way Out, the drunk Staten Island rapper hit the

stage (without an invitation to) to let the world know that, “Wu-Tang is for the children.”

Shout out and RIP to the Wu-Tang rapper who was spitting nothing but #Facts.

Much of the 80’s and 90’s was all about East and West coast rap. The South really wasn’t getting any love, and that’s a shame because the southern region was

home to some of rap’s greatest rappers. From UGK to Geto Boys and even Arrested Development, you wouldn’t really understand why no one was messing with the south like that.

But in 1993, OutKast’s “Player’s Ball,” would be the single that forever changed the way hip hop fans viewed southern rappers, but it would take the 1995 Source Awards for

folks to ultimately see that OutKast was more than a legit rap group.

That award night, the teens from ATL won Best New Artist and everyone had their panties in

a bunch. 3 Stacks said it best though, when he simply exclaimed, “The South got something to say.”

The crowd boos may have not shown much respect for Big Boi

and Dre, but that award and Andre’s simple speech was all that was needed to solidify OutKast as a group whose presence alone would now and forever demand respect.

Although Jay-Z had performed at Obama’s 2008 Inauguration, his performance at the then-president’s 2012 campaign rally in Ohio was a major leap for rap and politics’ historically rocky relationship.

Hov

performed a few of his songs, including “99 Problems” and “Public Service Announcement” the night before the 2012 presidential election, forcing everyone to go completely nuts.

Let’s really think

about this. Historically, presidents weren’t out here publicly aligning themselves with hip hop, confessing their love for the art form, and inviting rappers to the White House. They were instead

bad-mouthing artists, using rap as a scape goat, and essentially waging a war on hip hop.

Jigga and Obama’s budding bromance would eventually be the progress for rap and politics

that the world needed in order to shift the narrative.

Big ups to Hov for this stride!

In 1989, the Grammy’s tried to include hip hop in its annual grand award ceremony, but they still somehow managed to mess up. How? Well, the Grammy’s finally created a

category for rap artists (Best Rap Performance) but, they came to the conclusion that the presentation of the award should remain off everyone’s radar by not being televised. Sigh.

Talk

about a slap in the face. So, the hip hop community united together and pretty much gave the Grammy’s a big fat, unanimous f**k you by not attending the pretentious

award ceremony.

In 2006, Three 6 won an Oscar, yes, that’s right an Oscar, in the Best Original Song category for Hustle & Flow’s, “It’s Hard Out Here For a Pimp.” That’s

some historic sh*t right there being that no rap group has ever in the history of rap groups won an Oscar.

Hell, the Grammy’s doesn’t even give rap its due

respect. Nonetheless, the group also made history by becoming the first rap group to also perform at the Oscar’s.

We know Memphis is proud.