Hip Hop Music
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47 free Hip Hop Music trivia questions with answers — music quiz, new questions added Sep 2026.
11 free Hip Hop Music trivia questions with answers. Hip Hop Music trivia lives in two places on BrainPickle. This page is the shorter set; the main quiz is Hip Hop trivia, with our deepest question pool on the topic and a source behind every answer.
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Q 01Which Jamaican-American DJ is credited as the 'Father of Hip-Hop' for his 1973 block parties?
DJ Kool Herc
DJ Kool Herc. Born in Kingston, Jamaica, Herc isolated and extended the instrumental breaks of funk records at his 1973 parties, starting at 1520 Sedgwick Avenue.
Q 02Which Eminem song became, in 2003, the first rap song to win the Academy Award for Best Original Song?
Lose Yourself
Lose Yourself won, but Eminem had stayed at home expecting to lose and, by his own account, was asleep when it was announced; he finally performed it at the Oscars in 2020.
Q 03Which Dr. Dre album is widely credited with popularizing the G-funk subgenre?
'The Chronic'
'The Chronic', Dre's first solo album after leaving N.W.A, built its sound on Parliament-Funkadelic samples and made a star of the then-unknown Snoop Doggy Dogg.
Q 04In 2019, Forbes named which rapper hip-hop's first billionaire?
Jay-Z
Jay-Z grew up in Brooklyn's Marcy housing projects; Forbes built its billion-dollar estimate on his drinks brands, the streaming service Tidal, his art and his music.
Q 05Beyond MCing, DJing and graffiti, which is the fourth of hip-hop's original four elements?
Breakdancing
Breakdancing, or B-boying, grew up on the instrumental breaks that DJs stretched out for dancers, and in 2024 it made its debut as an Olympic sport in Paris.
Q 06Which N.W.A member quit in 1989 over money and later hit back at the group with the diss track 'No Vaseline'?
Ice Cube
Ice Cube had written much of Straight Outta Compton; he went solo with AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted and then into films, starting with Boyz n the Hood in 1991.
Q 07Which group, formed in 1992 and signed to Loud Records, released the debut album 36 Chambers in 1993?
Wu-Tang Clan
Wu-Tang Clan signed to Loud only once the label agreed that each member could still record solo elsewhere, so Method Man went to Def Jam and GZA to Geffen.
Q 08Which director commissioned Public Enemy's 'Fight the Power' for a 1989 film set on one hot Brooklyn day?
Spike Lee
Spike Lee wanted an anthem for Do the Right Thing, where it blasts from Radio Raheem's boombox; a version also appeared on Public Enemy's album Fear of a Black Planet.
Q 09Which album was the first rap LP to reach number one on the Billboard 200?
Licensed to Ill
Licensed to Ill reached number one in March 1987, carried by '(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (To Party!)', a send-up of party anthems that ended up defining the group's image.
Q 10Which show, launched with a 1988 pilot, was its network's first programme devoted to hip hop?
Yo! MTV Raps
Yo! MTV Raps began as a one-off experiment on a channel that had been slow to play rap; it proved so popular that weekly shows with Fab 5 Freddy and then daily ones followed.
Q 11Which New York turntablist is credited with inventing scratching, reputedly while being scolded by his mother?
Grand Wizzard Theodore
Grand Wizzard Theodore, a Bronx schoolboy in 1975, held a record still while his mother scolded him, rubbed it back and forth and liked the sound; he is also credited with the needle drop.
Q 12Which Charlie Ahearn film, cast with real graffiti writers, DJs and MCs, is regarded as the first hip-hop motion picture?
Wild Style
Wild Style took its name from a style of graffiti lettering and put real figures such as Lee Quiñones, Fab 5 Freddy and Grandmaster Flash on screen.
Q 13The mid-1980s to mid-1990s period of hip-hop is commonly known as what?
The golden age
Q 21Outkast's Speakerboxxx/The Love Below won which top Grammy in 2004?
Album of the Year
Album of the Year went to what were really two solo albums in one case: Big Boi's Speakerboxxx and André 3000's The Love Below, on which he sang more than he rapped.
Q 22A Tribe Called Quest co-founded which influential hip-hop collective in 1988?
The Native Tongues
The Native Tongues. Formed in 1988 around the Jungle Brothers, De La Soul and A Tribe Called Quest, the Native Tongues collective championed Afrocentric, jazz-flavoured, playful rap in place of gangsta bravado.
Q 23Which Salt-N-Pepa album featuring 'Push It' was the first by a female rap act to go gold and then platinum?
Hot, Cool & Vicious
The golden age. Hip-hop's golden age, roughly 1986 to 1996, brought a burst of innovation and acclaim from acts such as Public Enemy, Eric B. & Rakim and De La Soul.
Q 14Which DJ turned his Black Spades street gang into a culture-oriented hip-hop movement?
Afrika Bambaataa
Afrika Bambaataa, a Black Spades warlord, changed course after an essay prize took him to Africa, and named his Universal Zulu Nation after the 1964 war film Zulu.
Q 15Which hip-hop trio began in 1981 as a New York hardcore punk band?
Beastie Boys
The Beastie Boys switched for good only after 'Cooky Puss', a comedy rap single from 1983, became a local hit; their drummer, Kate Schellenbach, left soon afterwards.
Q 16Def Jam Recordings was co-founded in 1984 by Russell Simmons and which producer, in his NYU dorm room?
Rick Rubin
Rick Rubin, a punk and metal fan who first used the Def Jam name for his own band's single, ran the label from his room until LL Cool J's 'I Need a Beat' gave it a hit in 1984.
Q 17Death Row Records was co-founded by The D.O.C., Dick Griffey, Dr. Dre and whom?
Suge Knight
Suge Knight's label was home to Snoop Dogg and Tupac, went bankrupt in 2006 after his imprisonment, and in 2022 was bought by Snoop himself.
Q 18In which city was Kanye West raised?
Chicago
Chicago: Kanye West grew up in its South Shore neighbourhood, where his mother taught at Chicago State University, apart from a year in China when he was ten.
Q 19Which Kanye West album includes the single 'Through the Wire'?
The College Dropout
The College Dropout includes the single he rapped through a jaw wired shut after a 2002 car crash; labels had turned him down as a rapper, yet the 2004 debut won his first Grammys.
Q 20Outkast formed in 1992 in which city?
Atlanta
Atlanta's LaFace Records signed Outkast as its first hip-hop act before Big Boi and André 3000 had left high school, and the duo went on to put their city on rap's map.
Hot, Cool & Vicious, the 1986 debut, owed the sales to 'Push It', which was added in 1987 after a remix took off and reached number 19 in the US.
Q 24In LL Cool J's stage name, what do the two Ls stand for?
Ladies Love
Ladies Love Cool James was the name James Todd Smith took as a teenager, and he lived up to it in 1987 when his ballad 'I Need Love' topped Billboard's Black singles chart.
Q 25Who in 2006 became the first hip-hop artist to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame?
Queen Latifah
Queen Latifah released All Hail the Queen at 19, and by the time of her star she was also an Oscar nominee, for her supporting role as a prison matron in a 2002 film musical.
Q 26Which rapper signed to Cash Money Records at eleven after leaving freestyles on Birdman's answering machine?
Lil Wayne
Lil Wayne joined the label's Hot Boys as a teenager and stayed with Cash Money until 2018, when his lawsuit over the long-delayed album Tha Carter V ended in a settlement.
Q 27Which group's 1986 'Walk This Way' with Aerosmith charted higher on the Hot 100 than the original?
Run-DMC
Run-DMC. Their 1986 version with Steven Tyler and Joe Perry peaked at number four on the Hot 100, six places above Aerosmith's 1977 original, and pulled hip-hop onto rock radio and MTV.
Q 28Which double album did Tupac Shakur make for Death Row Records within months of leaving prison in 1995?
All Eyez on Me
All Eyez on Me counted as two of the three albums he owed the label in return for the bail that freed him, and he went straight from prison to the studio to start on it.
Q 29Tupac Shakur was born to parents who were members of which organisation?
The Black Panther Party
The Black Panther Party: his mother, Afeni Shakur, defended herself in court while pregnant and was acquitted in the Panther 21 trial a month before he was born.
Q 30In 1993, the Notorious B.I.G. followed Sean Combs from Uptown Records to which new label?
Bad Boy
Bad Boy was founded by Sean Combs after Uptown Records fired him in 1993; Biggie went with him, and Ready to Die arrived the following year.