Progressive rap

Progressive rap (or progressive hip-hop) is a broad subgenre of hip-hop that aims to progress the genre thematically with socially transformative ideas and musically with stylistic experimentation. Developing through the works of innovative US hip-hop acts during the 1980s and 1990s, it has also been known at various points as conscious, underground, and alternative hip-hop.

Progressive rap music critically examines social issues, political responsibility, and existential concerns, particularly in the context of African-American life and youth culture. Common themes include social injustice, inequality, status, identity, and religion, with discourses around ideologies such as Afrocentricity and Black religiosity. Unlike the genre's more commercially-dominant counterpart gangsta rap, prog-rap artists typically disavow intracultural violence and economic materialism in favor of constructive and educational responses such as consciousness, uplift, heritage, humor, and activism.