Progressive rap (or progressive hip hop) is a broad subgenre of
hip hop music that aims to progress the genre thematically with
socially transformative ideas and musically with stylistic experimentation. Developing through the works of innovative US hip hop acts during the 1980s and 1990s, it has also been known at various points as
conscious
Consciousness, at its simplest, is sentience and awareness of internal and external existence. However, the lack of definitions has led to millennia of analyses, explanations and debates by philosophers, theologians, linguisticians, and scien ...
,
underground
Underground most commonly refers to:
* Subterranea (geography), the regions beneath the surface of the Earth
Underground may also refer to:
Places
* The Underground (Boston), a music club in the Allston neighborhood of Boston
* The Underground ...
, and
alternative hip hop.
Progressive rap music
critically examines social issues, political responsibility, and
existential
Existentialism ( ) is a form of philosophical inquiry that explores the problem of human existence and centers on human thinking, feeling, and acting. Existentialist thinkers frequently explore issues related to the meaning, purpose, and valu ...
concerns, particularly in the context of
African-American life and
youth culture Youth culture refers to the societal norms of children, adolescents, and young adults. Specifically, it comprises the processes and symbolic systems that are shared by the youth and are distinct from those of adults in the community.
An emphasi ...
. Common themes include
social injustice
Social justice is justice in terms of the distribution of wealth, opportunities, and privileges within a society. In Western and Asian cultures, the concept of social justice has often referred to the process of ensuring that individuals f ...
,
inequality
Inequality may refer to:
Economics
* Attention inequality, unequal distribution of attention across users, groups of people, issues in etc. in attention economy
* Economic inequality, difference in economic well-being between population groups
* ...
,
status
Status (Latin plural: ''statūs''), is a state, condition, or situation, and may refer to:
* Status (law)
** City status
** Legal status, in law
** Political status, in international law
** Small entity status, in patent law
** Status confere