Abstract
Hip-Hop is an art form born in the streets of the Bronx, New York in the 1970s under very harsh conditions. Rapping ultimately became the chief aspect of the elements of hiphop, and rap music rose to prominence. Its expressive form lied in-between its roots and what rap is considered today. As rap gained popularity, big recording labels seeking profit brought rappers into the mainstream. This study conducts a content analysis of the changes in lyrical content of the top rap music from 1990 to 2013, and an Intersectionality framework is used to identify and understand the emergent themes. The study indicated that themes of opulence and decadence increase within mainstream rap music over the 23-year period of this study. Sexually explicit themes increase as well over time and as opulence and sexually explicit lyrical content increases, the diversity of the content within mainstream rap decreases as political/pro-Black references were no longer observed after 1995.