← Hip Hop Lineage

New York and the East Coast · Virginia · since 1992

1992
East Coast
↑ See it on the map

Virginia Beach

Virginia
Stutter drums · space funk · pop-rap engineering
Ride the roster1:40
Story, bloodline and 6 names

Not a street scene — a production scene. Teddy Riley moved his studio down, and the teenagers who hung around it (Pharrell, Chad, Tim, Missy) went on to build the rhythmic language of American pop for fifteen years.

Bloodline · 2 stops from The Bronx
  1. 1973The Bronx
  2. 1979Harlem
  3. 1992Virginia Beach

TransferQueens

Teddy Riley invented new jack swing in Harlem, then moved his studio to Virginia Beach. The teenagers who hung around it — Pharrell, Chad, Tim, Missy — inherited a New York studio education without the New York scene.

The NeptunesStar TrakSwing Mob
Roster
1987
Teddy Riley

Invented new jack swing, then relocated and seeded the whole scene.

YTW
1996
Timbaland

Off-grid drums and empty space; rewired what a rap beat could be.

YTW
1997
Missy Elliott

Portsmouth. Rapper, singer, writer, video auteur — no one had that job before.

YTW
1998
The Neptunes / N.E.R.D.

Pharrell and Chad Hugo: four sounds, no clutter, everywhere at once.

YTW
2002
Clipse

Pusha T and Malice writing the most precise coke rap ever recorded.

YTW
2006
Danjadeep cut

Timbaland's protégé; the harder edge on the late-2000s pop machine.

YTW

All 43 cities

New York and the East Coast

The West Coast

The South

The Midwest

Around the world