10 Rappers Redefining Their Hometown Sound

When GoldLink brought his future bounce to the table, it represented the beginning of a new rap chapter for the DMV. The God Complex was the musical equivalent of a kung-fu movie: beautiful, chaotic, and intensely focused.

He was raised in a region once ruled by Go-Go music (and Wale), a syncopated sound heavy on alternative percussion like cowbells and congas.

GoldLink took that pots-and-pans swing and updated it for the internet age by speeding it up, adding a bevy of electronic synths, and unleashing a firestorm of tongue twisters detailing his sexual conquests. The acoustic qualities of Go-Go were gone, but the rhythm remained. But the update also included some new additions.

GoldLink drew upon East Coast influences like New York's Big L and Philadelphia's Kurupt. He's also had heavy experience with dance producers like Sango & Kaytranada, and he toured with SBTRKT last fall. By blurring these lines between hip-hop and dance music without sacrificing profound lyrical content, GoldLink is pushing the DMV forward.

In the midst of skyrocketing murder rates and the drill craze, Chance the Rapper decided to stay positive. When his breakthrough Acid Rap mixtape dropped in 2013, it was tough to pin down exactly what you were listening to. Chance blended soul, gospel, funk, and hip-hop into a glorious mix that hadn't been heard in the Midwest since Common, Lupe Fiasco, and Kanye had the world by its ear.

His current Social Experiment is taking things even further, with Arthur theme song remixes, a full band, and the liberating absence of a record label. Chance's voice, too, is a breath of fresh air: hyperarticulate and brimming with emotion, he provides a counterpoint to Chicago's militarized rap scene. While Young Chop, Chief Keef, and Lil Durk have spread their music amongst the neighborhoods that inspired it, Chance's decision to go against the grain and spread love has gained him diehard fans.

Though his music runs counter to Chicago's current style, he's actually one of the purists on this list. He's a self-professed student of Chicago's conscious rap era. He also lists Eminem (Detroit) and Lil Wayne (New Orleans) as early influences, but it was Kanye's instrumentals Chance chose for his first freestyles. By bringing Chicago's history back to the fore, Chance is breaking boundaries as much as any other rapper on this list. And he's earnest, evolving his style since he was a part of Instrumentality back in 2009:

This group of Harlem emcees came up in 2013, immediately heralded as one of the groups (along with Pro Era and Flatbush Zombies) that could bring back New York hip-hop. But while Wiki, Hak, and Sporting Life certainly draw upon their regional heritage (the beats are heavy on samples, raps full of poetic flow), they didn't stay mired in nostalgia.

Ratking's first release, 1993, pulled direct inspiration from Wu-Tang Clan and synthpunk duo Suicide. But Wiki also listened to a lot of Baltimore's Animal Collective growing up. As their legend started to spread, so did their web of collaborators. The group found kindred spirits from England, collaborating with Skepta and King Krule's raspy bellows to add a little grime to their sound.

Then they went on tour with Earl Sweatshirt and Run the Jewels, gravitating away from the smooth lyrical flow of NYC and towards the politically-charged energy blasts currently enabling RTJ to take over the nation. These days, the group possesses a sound that recalls punk rock and trap as much as Wu-Tang—but they haven't forgotten their roots. Their latest (free via BitTorrent) release, 700 Fill, features rising New York rappers like Remy Banks, Despot, Princess Nokia.

Crunk music and Jon Waltz were both raised around Memphis, Tennessee. That's about where the similarities end. The shouted vocals, pounding bass and call-and-response tactics popularized in crunk music like Al Kapone's "Whoop That Trick" (s/o Hustle & Flow) only permeated the periphery of Waltz's suburban upbringing, and his music took a different tack as a result.

He came of age in a post-crunk Memphis, listening to rappers like Toronto's Drake and Childish Gambino, artists who could spit and sing in equal measure, and artist who both had an interest in pop music. Sure, Waltz looked up to Three 6 Mafia as a kid, but he recoiled early on when the press tried to brand him as the Memphis kid from the streets: “I didn’t grow up in that type of area. I’ve got family like that; I was never exposed to that. I try to come off as a very well-spoken person and I don’t try to promote that type of image," he said in a 2014 interview.

Waltz's music faces the industry's pressures head on, but in a darker, broader way than Drake. Rather than discuss one-to-one emotional turmoil and late-night texts, Waltz is more likely to bring up the big picture. His breakout hit "Bang" has been justly compared to Kendrick Lamar's "Swimming Pools (Drank)."

He's been working with producers from all over, and has come to represent a conscious rap that's quicker to draw on Samuel Beckett and Emily Dickinson as inspiration than fashion brands. A new generation of Memphis rap.

Yung Lean is, if nothing else, a concrete example of the internet's effect on expanding hip-hop's global reach. His homeland of Stockholm, Sweden didn't exactly boast a booming rap scene (aside from unaffiliated local legends Latin Kings), so Lean fell into a 50 Cent wormhole. He cites Get Rich Or Die Tryin' as his first rap album.

Yung Lean's raps evolved into a hobby, and he began to post strange, magnetic music videos to YouTube. It wasn't exactly 50's brand of tough-talk NY hip-hop (replace guns with Arizona iced tea) or the Latin Kings' melancholy Motown rap, but it was perfect for the internet's odd, lo-fi collage aesthetics, and the digital world responded.

Soon Lean and the Sadboys were touring Europe, and Lean's desire to work Chief Keef and King Louie didn't seem so crazy anymore. Sweden has certainly held its own in the pop music spectrum (Little Dragon, Lykke Li, Elliphant, Tove Styrke), but its hip-hop scene was unable to make the trans-Atlantic leap until Lean came along. His lackadaisical style and internet-heavy content were tailor-made for the millennial crowds that extended far beyond Stockholm.

Allan Kingdom hails from Minnesota, where a vibrant hip-hop scene has been thriving since Atmosphere was coming up in the mid '90s. The music, centralized around the Twin Cities of St. Paul and Minneapolis, reverberated around conscious rap and alternative hip-hop: cold, stark beats that embraced social and political issues alongside personal exorcisms. Swagger rap, it is not.

Kingdom came to St. Paul by way of Canada and Wisconsin, a half-Tanzanian transplant that found a city ready to collaborate upon his arrival. His early releases (including the homemade Talk To Strangers debut) reflect his hometown's affinity for musicality and vulnerability, as well as a childhood spent listening to African music and Lionel Richie. He began collaborating with fellow Minnesotans like Spooky Black and Psymun.

As Kingdom began to buzz, however, the big names came calling. Rather than disappearing into a label, however, Kingdom continued to test the waters. He began working with Plain Pat, and found inspiration from Pharrell, Kid Cudi, and Kanye West. After his appearance on "All Day," Kingdom has released a couple tracks that are a far cry from his early minimalist experimentations with Spooky Black. "Keep It Easy" sounds like it could have come from Yeezus or the South Side of Chicago, except for the fact that there's still a depth to the lyrics that separates Kingdom from his contemporaries and serves as a reminder of his Minnesotan roots.

Atlanta's Raury can't be labeled a rapper. Maybe if he had been born ten years earlier, he would have taken that route. But in the era of Frank Ocean and Kid Cudi, (and on the home turf of Andre 3000), Raury drew inspiration from artists that could wear a number of different hats: Phil Collins and Bon Iver are appear alongside Atlanta legends like Cee-Lo Green on Raury's list of influences.

He's kept that seemingly endless collaborative energy alive since surfacing on the mainstream, teaming with English producer SBTRKT on "Higher," a standout on one of the year's best albums.

The Atlanta roots are intact—Raury has often mentioned his intent to "keep the Atlanta heritage alive," but it was always an ingredient in the recipe, never the end product. His album title, Indigo Child, reflects as much. It's a reference to the New Age belief of children with supernatural, spiritual abilities, a concept Raury has applied to his millenial generation and the boundless resources they have at their fingertips.

Detroit hip-hop has a rich and vicious history. Its most famous mainstream rappers (Eminem, Insane Clown Possee, Kid Rock) came up on the tail end of a crack epidemic by clawing their way through the town's vibrant freestyle scene, all the while combatting claims of cultural appropriation.

But that generation is more than a decade old, and Detroit has seen greatness come and go before: it was the center of American music during the Motown era, and is the birthplace of the legendary producer that passed too early, J Dilla. It's a city recovering from rampant desertion and governmental corruption.

Out of the city's west side came Danny Brown, a hyperactive buck-toothed wonder who raps like he's engulfed in flames. Danny is a direct product of Detroit: he was releasing mixtapes as part of the Rese’vor Dogs for nearly a decade, building a resumé of violent, funky group raps.

Danny might still be part of the Detroit scene, but his influences spanned both coasts. After immersing himself in the West Coast music of Spice 1 and E-40, Danny's father started bringing home Wu-Tang Clan and A Tribe Called Quest. From there, Danny picked up lessons from punk rock and England, listening to Korn, Rage Against the Machine, and Dizzee Rascal. Just recently, he even said he was "on some Trent Reznor shit."

The result is a jack-of-all-rappers who started to bloom once he started blending his inspirations. Back in 2012, Danny Brown told Complex, "The first song that I ever rapped [with the high-pitched voice] was 'The Hybrid,' that's why we called it 'The Hybrid.' I think that was [when I found my voice]. That was the statement that I can rap and I can do every style of rap." He's continued to prove his versatility since, not least by collaborating with non-rappers like Purity Ring.

Born in Los Angeles, bred on Big Daddy Kane and religious texts, Blu is simultaneously an anomaly in rap and an archetypal underground figure. Growing up, he split time with his stepfather (a pastor who showed young Johnson Barnes Christian rap and gospel) and his father, who turned Blu on to the then-emerging genre of gangsta rap and G-funk.

Blu spent his early years in L.A. as a hype man for groups like Slum Village before signing to the independent label Sound in Color in 2004—all in all, he's certifiably local when it comes to Los Angeles. But he used the city's influence to create music very different from Dr. Dre and Snoop.

In fact, it was a Chicago rapper that inspired Blu to start putting heavy thoughts into his lyrics. After listening to Common's "I Used to Love H.E.R.," he said, "I felt like I had heard hip-hop for the first time. It made me change my content and my whole approach. It made me serious about writing and wanting to say something."

From listening to The Roots in high school, making his landmark 2007 album Below The Heavens through to his time with Detroit's Danny Brown and the most recent collabs with Brooklyn rapper ScienZe, Blu has been pushing boundaries and testing the genre's limits for decades. Long before Kendrick brought free jazz to the masses with To Pimp a Butterfly, there was Blu's Her Favorite Col(ou)r. He's been an L.A. rapper from the beginning, but never according to anyone's definition but his own.

Isaiah Rashad's Cilvia Demo was freakin' majestic. The TDE signee's debut album swam in a warm nonchalance, Rashad's profundity weaving through a honky-tonk hip-hop all his own. From "Tranquility" to "Heavenly Father," Rashad had arrived, confessional and reverential.

It was not what you'd expect from a rapper that far south of the Mason-Dixon. But Rashad's Chattanooga roots don't necessarily make him a Southern rapper. Chattanooga is about two hours north of Atlanta, a small city of about 200,000 where hip-hop has often played second fiddle to country music.

That seemingly small separation allowed him to find inspiration across the map: Rashad's cited influences range from Atlanta to New Orleans and L.A., with nods to Outkast ("West Savannah"), Master P ("R.I.P. Kevin Miller," Percy's brother), and the frequent appearances of Rashad's new T.D.E. teammates.

Rashad said the album went through a lot of phases: “At first it was going to be like eight tracks of one-and-a-half-minutes, just verses. Then it was going to be some alternative, black-power shit. Then it was going to be some eclectic-alien shit. Then it was going to be some Southern-banging shit." It ended up being a little bit of everything, and could be considered a modern classic as a result.

The followup to Cilvia Demo is in the works: In a recent interview with Complex, Rashad said he's eager to move beyond Cilvia: "I gotta get 'em off that shit," he said. "That’s why I’m home right now. I’m trying to get 'em on the shit I’m on now."