The five best North Carolina rappers of all time
North Carolina has long been a musical place, with a rich musical tradition stretching back over a long, long time. But as for rap music specifically, the Tar Heel State hasn’t exactly historically led the way.
North Carolina has produced some true musical legends over the years, including Nina Simone, John Coltrane, Ben E King, Roberta Flack, and many others. It is as much a part of America’s musical story as any other state, having contributed some of the country’s greatest ever artists.
But by the time hip-hop rolled around and started to become dominant, it took North Carolina a little while to get off the ground. As New York and California duked it out for dominance in hip-hop’s earlier days, followed by places like Atlanta elbowing its way to prominence, North Carolina’s rap scene took a while to mature and become known.
Today, though, there are a great many top rappers representing the state, including at least one who is considered to be a bone fide modern great. Here’s a look at five of the best of them.
5. Petey Pablo
A native of the North Carolina city of Greenville, Petey Pablo’s road to rap stardom wasn’t a straightforward one. A big portion of his early adulthood was spent behind bars, after he was sent to prison for armed robbery in 1993. But after he got out five years later, things started to fall into place. He moved to New York and met the likes of Black Rob and Busta Rhymes, before forging a place for himself in rap music.
It’s said that Petey got his big break in the bathroom of a club, where a record exec apparently overheard him rapping. This is supposedly what led to his first record deal with Jive Records, which set him on the path to success. He had a number of hits during the 2000s, most notably ‘Raise Up’ and ‘Freek-a-Leek,’ which were both club bangers of the era.
4. Cordae
People from Maryland might have something to say about Cordae’s inclusion on this list, but, despite growing up there from the age of nine, the fact is that he was born, and spent the first years of his life, in Raleigh, North Carolina. The Tar Heel State has a right to claim him as its one of its own.
As a kid, Cordae was a big fan of the likes of Rakim, Nas, Big L and Talib Kweli, whom he learned about from his father. These classic artists left a certain inflection upon his own rap style as it started to develop, which ended up bringing him a great deal of success. His 2019 debut album, The Lost Boy, was Grammy-nominated, and his emergence onto the wider rap scene was unmissable.
3. DaBaby
Timing is everything for a popular musician, and DaBaby’s career really caught fire when he released the right music for the right moment. His first two albums had been great successes on their own terms, with his 2019 second album, Kirk, even topping the Billboard 200. But it was his follow-up, 2020’s Blame It on Baby, that truly took on a sort of generational status, precisely because of the context in which it arrived.
Album number three and its massively successful single ‘Rockstar’ arrived during the COVID-19 pandemic, and, crucially, during the George Floyd protests. DaBaby released a Black Lives Matter remix of the track, which forever ties it so viscerally to that particular period of time. While lots of artists can release successful songs and albums, it takes a lot to truly capture the zeitgeist. But DaBaby managed to.
2. Rapsody
Rapsody has kept some esteemed company throughout her music career, working alongside the likes of Kendrick Lamar, J Cole and Talib Kweli, among many others. Her success as a rapper has been the stuff of dreams, except she wasn’t exactly striving towards it growing up in North Carolina. She seemed to fall into rapping as she got a little bit older, only starting to spit verses when she started attending North Carolina State University.
Her talent for rap quickly became apparent, despite her lack of experience, and soon she was being invited into the recording studio. She featured on 9th Wonder’s 2007 album The Dream Merchant Vol 2, and, not long after that, she was releasing music on his label as a solo artist, too. She matured into a skilled artist over the following years, becoming arguably one of the best lyricists of her generation.
1. J Cole
No other North Carolina native could reasonably claim top spot besides J Cole. He is, unquestionably, the state’s biggest and most influential rapper. While technically born in Frankfurt, on an American military base in what was then West Germany, Cole later moved to Fayetteville in North Carolina, where he was raised and his passion for hip-hop was forged. Aged 12 or so around the turn of the new millennium, he began to rap and make his own beats — and the rest is history.
Cole got his big break when he moved to New York, where he grew to become one of the most successful rappers of his generation. Striking that rare balance between critical acclaim and huge popularity, Cole is not only one of North Carolina’s best rappers but one of America’s best, too. His home state has always remained close to his heart, but, at this stage, he’s a truly global superstar.