Illustrations by Jordan Kay
The early ’80s weren’t precisely the most effective time for love and romance in rap. And with good cause. Many of the rappers, in a style that was simply 10 years previous, had been male and recent out of puberty (if not nonetheless in it). The surge of girls (or mature) rappers needed to look forward to the second half of the ’80s: MC Lyte, Salt-N-Pepa, Queen Latifah, Monie Love, and extra. However at first, rap was, to be frank, a boyz-to-men affair: Run DMC, Beastie Boys, Boogie Down Productions, Eric B and Rakim, and LL Cool J. As a consequence, expressions of sensitivity, affection, and longing had been all however banned.
Permissible had been raps about ladies being “artful” (Beastie Boys), or “dumb” (Run-DMC), or “refined bitch[es]” (Public Enemy). Then, out of the blue, LL Cool J (as in: Women Love Cool James Todd Smith) dropped “I Want Love.” This 1987 observe, this confession, this expression of vulnerability from a rapper who, at age 17, claimed to be “as laborious as hell” (“Rock the Bells”) and mocked Prince and Michael Jackson for being wusses, was now 19 and “alone in [his] room” eager for “a woman who’s as candy as a dove.” This admission shook the rap world to its core. Love was now in the home, and there was no manner of throwing it again out the door. It was right here to remain.
The record we current right here of affection’s motion via practically 4 many years of a musical type that’s nonetheless, admittedly, dominated by hetero males, is under no circumstances complete. What we do right here is present 20 tracks that, in our estimate, are all up in it.
1) “The Look of Love, Half One” by Slum Village (2000)
4 issues to learn about Slum Village. One, they referred to as a metropolis identified for techno, Detroit, house. Two, Q-Tip of A Tribe Referred to as Quest thought, in 1999, they might be hiphop’s subsequent massive factor. Three, although Slum Village remained for probably the most half obscure, the crew’s producer, J Dilla, achieved a standing amongst hiphop’s deepest headz that borders on spiritual. And, lastly, they dropped a lyrical however frank evaluation of affection referred to as “The Look of Love, Half One.” And what does love appear to be, in line with Slum Village? Just about fucking and little else. “What love received to do with it / Ask SV it’s all bullshit.”
2) “You’re All I Must Get By” by Methodology Man feat. Mary J. Blige (1995)
This music, a remix that includes Mary J. Blige, which peaked at quantity three on the Billboard Scorching 100 in 1995, is usually known as an archetype for what has come to be often called “thug-love duets.” Nonetheless, Professor Daudi Abe’s private desire is the unique model of “All I Want” from Methodology Man’s 1994 debut album Tical. The rugged, RZA-produced observe (RZA additionally produced the remix) was a departure from the delicate and melodic sound of a music like “I Want Love.” Meth’s last strains from his final verse on the music state, “Then I might be your solar, you might be my earth, resurrect the God via beginning.”
3) “My Neck, My Again (Lick It)” by Khia (2001)
Khia doesn’t mince phrases on this completely bumping observe. Launched on the album Thug Misses, and produced by Michael “Taz” Williams and Plat’num Home (the latter additionally produced the Soiled South Divas), “My Neck” expressed a directness that put the masters of “soiled rap”—Oakland’s Too $hort and a pair of Stay Crew (who, like Khia, hail from Florida)—within the again seat. Though “My Neck” reached 42 on the US Billboard Scorching 100, it went all the way in which to quantity 4 within the UK. We surprise, with good cause, if “My Neck” made an impression on a younger Prince Harry.
4) “Electrical Leisure” by A Tribe Referred to as Quest (1993)
As nice as the unique model is, the remix, which incorporates new lyrics and a extra uptempo pattern from “Between the Sheets” by the Isley Brothers, can also be terrific. Native Tongues members definitely contributed to the love-rap dynamic with songs like “I’ll Home You” by Jungle Brothers, “It’s a Disgrace” by Monie Love, “La Menage” by Black Sheep, and others. Nonetheless, “Electrical Leisure” is iconic each sonically and lyrically. In 2024, the web site Rock the Bells named it the third biggest hiphop beat of all time (behind “Nonetheless D.R.E.” and “Shook Ones Half II”), and the takeaway line from Phife—“Let me hit it from the again, lady I received’t catch a hernia / Bust off in your sofa now you bought Seamen’s furnishings”—has been intently examined by hiphop students. It seems that Seamen’s Furnishings is a series of furnishings shops within the New York space.
5) “Medication” by Anderson .Paak (2014)
The love on this observe is definitely bleak, but it surely deserves our consideration and even amazement. What rapper/singer Anderson .Paak describes to a background of a booming/rolling beat is the foggy relationship of two spent junkies. Apparently, the girl solely loves him (the rapper) when he has the products and they’re each sky-high. At that inconceivable level of addled bliss, she is his “wifey.” If there are not any medicine, the 2 are as removed from fucking as Venus is from Uranus.
6) “Your Love” by Nicki Minaj (2010)
In 2010, Billboard referred to this music—which closely samples Annie Lennox’s “No Extra ‘I Love You’s’”—as containing “a brand new model of hood majesty.” Minaj, usually identified for faster-tempo songs, slows this one all the way down to ballad territory and she or he sings the refrain with the assistance of ever-popular auto-tune. Additional, Billboard added, “The Younger Cash rap princess places the sleazy speak apart and finds herself smitten with a younger man… Minaj proves that even the wildest ones might be tamed.” Tradition critic Tricia Rose argued that love-rap from ladies can solid a special gentle on male-female sexual energy relations and solid them as resistant, aggressive contributors. Nonetheless, she famous that “even the raps that discover and revise ladies’s function within the courtship course of typically retain the bigger patriarchal parameters of heterosexual courtship.”
7) “Temptations” (1994), “Can U Get Away” (1995), and “How Do U Need It” (1996) by 2Pac
Within the many years since his demise, Tupac Shakur has come to signify quite a few issues not simply in hiphop, however in mainstream tradition total. His skill to concurrently preserve each “hardcore” and weak personas was distinctive for the time. Talking overtly about crying in a music like “So Many Tears” caught quite a few hiphop followers and artists off guard. In “Temptations,” Tupac acknowledges that “even thugs get lonely” and “even the toughest of my homies want consideration.” “Can U Get Away” contains the road, “cuz if he contact ya, I received some drama for that busta”—a risk in the direction of the abusive companion of the girl who’s the topic of the music.
8) “Killing Me Softly” by Fugees (1996)
The observe that despatched the sensible rapper (however so-so singer) Lauryn Hill right into a solo profession is her try to match the emotional energy of one in all Roberta Flack’s three number-one Billboard hits, “Killing Me Softly.” Although Hill got here nowhere near the unique (nothing hurts so laborious like a damaged coronary heart), the observe cleverly sampled the beat of A Tribe Referred to as Quest’s “Bonita Applebum,” which was dropped in 1990 and included the groundbreaking (for rap on the time) line: “I wish to kiss ya the place some brothers received’t.”

9) “Lady” by Doja Cat (2021)
With this observe, Doja Cat (who Charles Mudede by no means fails to level out has roots in South Africa; Mudede’s roots are Southern African) makes a clearing for the looks of a womanhood that’s not uncomplicated however definitely facilities feminist themes. She will not be a lot asking to be a lady however to be a human. The observe was an enormous hit (it reached the stratosphere of Billboard Scorching 100) and employed Nigerian pop, which can also be referred to as Afrobeat beats.
10) “Romantic Interlude” by Sir Combine-a-Lot (1988)
This music from Combine-a-Lot’s debut album SWASS comprises Egyptian Lover-inspired instrumentation, Roger Troutman-esque vocal modulation for the refrain, and an cardio cadence that sounds extra like a spoken-word piece than a standard rap supply. That is an instance of early love-rap evolution/experimentation, significantly in an area sense. As in “I Want Love,” the premise revolves across the hectic, promiscuous lifetime of a rap star who struggles to get the ladies he meets to grasp that he might be relationship materials, regardless of the trimmings of fame. “You mentioned, ‘Now you bought what you need! Don’t you need to go away?’ / I mentioned earlier than it’s love, lady, not a one-night stand / You’re not a sleaze, ah!”
11) “Hey There, Residence Boys” by Man Parrish (1985)
Man Parrish is among the most fascinating figures within the historical past of hiphop. He produced “Hip Hop, Be Bop (Don’t Cease)” in 1982, which was, from prime to backside, as pure a b-boy beat may very well be. It’s inconceivable to not begin popping and locking the minute the needle hits its groove. Man Parrish additionally produced “Boogie Down (Bronx)” (1984), which featured the legendary Freeze Pressure. These things is deep. Man Parrish was there for the time being hiphop was transitioning from electro-funk to the boom-bap introduced by Run-D.M.C.’s “Sucker M.C.’s” (1983). And so you possibly can think about the shock Charles Mudede skilled when, in 1987, he discovered and purchased a file by Man 2 Man Meet Man Parrish referred to as “Male Stripper.” Was it hiphop? It was not. It was high-energy and unrepentantly homosexual. Mudede liked it and found, to his shock, that Man Parrish was not solely homosexual, however white. He additionally realized that the video for “Hip Hop, Be Bop (Don’t Cease)” was hardly hetero. Homosexual tradition was there on the beginning of hiphop. As for love, Man Parrish launched in 1985 the observe “Hey There, Residence Boys.”

12) “Funky Dividends” by Three Occasions Dope (1988)
Within the Nineteen Eighties, pop music went hardcore materialistic. There was Gwen Guthrie’s “Ain’t Nothin’ Goin’ On however the Lease” (1986), and Madonna’s “Materials Lady” (1984). Hiphop responded to this crassness with the sobriety of “Funky Dividends.” The rapper, EST, lamented the demise of romantic love and the rise of “ain’t nothing occurring however the lease.” EST pleads to his girlfriend: “[Why] it at all times gotta be about cash?” She responds: “After I was with Regular B, I had all of it /Gucci, Louis Vuitton, gold, Liz Claiborne, I had all of it / You ain’t giving me nothing.” Regular B was an actual rapper. And, like Three Occasions Dope, from Philly. However in contrast to Three Occasions Dope, he, in line with his ex, was down with Guthrie’s “no romance with out finance.”
13) “Tough…” by Queen Latifah (1993)
This tune is for the S&M crowd. You’re represented in hiphop. The observe is by Queen Latifah, a rapper who famously performed a masc lesbian in Set It Off. In “Tough,” she makes it clear that: “If it ain’t tough (I may do with out it) / If it ain’t tough (simply throw it to the curb) / If it ain’t tough (he may do with out it) / If it ain’t tough (it’s working my nerves).”

14) “I Want Love” by LL Cool J (1987)
As David Toop famous within the ebook Rap Assault 2, “LL found precisely how necessary the ‘hardcoreness’ was to his viewers when he tried to go delicate,” performing “I Want Love” from his second album Greater and Deffer. “In London,” Toop continued, “the gang booed him for this transgression, forgetting that LL’s system had at all times been a mix of laborious and delicate.” That mentioned, it may very well be argued that the scene within the video for “I Want Love,” which takes place on a lodge balcony overlooking the Golden Nugget Resort and On line casino in Atlantic Metropolis, New Jersey, is among the most transformative sequences within the historical past of hiphop.
15) “Hotline Bling” by Drake (2015)
That is Drake caught within the traditional fantasy of a dumped lover: The ex regrets leaving them, the ex can’t cease eager about them, the ex will definitely name once more. “Hotline Bling” is for lovers within the gutter.
16) “One Love” by Whodini (1986)
Whodini, one of many earliest teams to realize nationwide traction in rap, additionally produced one of many earliest love-rap movies. “From the L, to the O, and the V, to the E.” Though not essentially thought of a ‘hardcore group,’ the dilemma of, one, presenting oneself as weak on wax, and, two, having that vulnerability take the type of the male rapper getting the brief finish of the connection stick was one other dialogue completely. Co-vocalist Ecstasy rhymes about being left a observe by his departed lover: “Perhaps one in all lately you’ll should be taught that love is one thing that you simply gotta earn / And when you earn it gotta know find out how to hold it, you bought to need it in addition to you want it.” Nonetheless, on the planet of contradiction that’s hiphop, one in all Whodini’s different best-known songs from the identical album was: “I’m a Ho.”
17) “Let’s Speak About Intercourse” by Salt-N-Pepa (1990)
Although Salt-N-Pepa weren’t the primary feminine rappers, they clearly had been the primary feminine rappers, as a crew, to achieve the mainstream. Their breakthrough album, Blacks’ Magic, featured a observe that was an enormous industrial success and promoted protected intercourse at a time when AIDS was ravaging the Black group. This observe saved lives. Lots of the millennials who learn this paper wouldn’t be right here if Salt-N-Pepa didn’t rap: “Don’t be coy, keep away from, or make void the subject / Trigger that ain’t gonna cease it / Now we speak about intercourse on the radio and video reveals.” (Mudede recollects this observe was banned in Zimbabwe by the prime minister, Robert Mugabe—Black Africans might be as conservative and cussed as MAGA.)
18) “O.P.P.” by Naughty by Nature (1991)
The piano pattern from the Jackson 5’s traditional music “ABC,” paired with the idea behind “O.P.P.,” made this music a surefire hit. Though it was launched within the midst of the HIV/AIDS disaster, this anthem for infidelity—O.P.P. as in “Different Individuals’s P-ssy” and “Different Individuals’s P-nis”—was an irresistible musical deal with. It reached quantity 5 on the Billboard Scorching 100, turning into one of many early rap-pop hits. Naughty rapper Treach summarized the strategy: “There’s no room for relationships, there’s simply room to HIT IT!”
19) “Funky Experience” (1994) or “Hey Ya!” by OutKast (2003)
“Funky Experience” is an fascinating one. It appeared on OutKast’s 1994 album Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik and is a sluggish and attractive music, however all vocals are sung by Sleepy Brown, with André 3000 and Huge Boi nowhere to be discovered. Together with a killer guitar solo—carried out by legendary Atlanta, Georgia guitarist Ed Stroud—“Funky Experience” stood out on OutKast’s debut. In distinction, “Hey Ya!” was sung completely by André with an acoustic guitar accompaniment, and it generated dialogue on what was or was not thought of rap music. The music additionally requested some deeper philosophical questions not at all times present in love-rap, akin to, “If what they are saying is, ‘Nothing lasts without end,’ then what makes (what makes what makes) love the exception?” Regardless, “Hey Ya!” topped the Billboard Scorching 100 for 9 weeks and helped the album Speakerboxxx/The Love Beneath win Album of the Yr on the forty sixth Grammy Awards in 2004.
20) “Work It” by Missy Elliott (2002)
The professor and The Stranger’s senior employees author agree: Missy Elliott is among the biggest rappers of all time. Her dexterity, her stream, her consideration to element are not often surpassed on this style. And he or she labored with the best producers of her time within the solar, Timberland. In Mudede’s estimation, “Work It” is on the prime of the record in terms of what the hiphop scholar Tricia Rose referred to as “Black pleasure.” Elliot expresses nothing however the complete blast of want. It’s not aggressive, it’s not problematic, it’s not sophisticated. It’s simply plain previous enjoyable. And the truth that Elliott transforms a penis into an elephant blowing its trunk makes our level incontestable.
See Charles Mudede and Daudi Abe carry out I Want Love: The Story of Romance in Rap with DJ Vitamin D and Taylar Elizza Beth at Clock-Out Lounge on Tuesday, February 11.