Historical Text

The golden age is noted for its innovation – a time "when it seemed that every new single reinvented the genre" according to Rolling Stone. Referring to "hip-hop in its golden age", Spin's editor-in-chief Sia Michel says, "there were so many important, groundbreaking albums coming out right about that time",[10] and MTV's Sway Calloway adds: "The thing that made that era so great is that nothing was contrived. Everything was still being discovered and everything was still innovative and new".[11] Writer William Jelani Cobb says "what made the era they inaugurated worthy of the term golden was the sheer number of stylistic innovations that came into existence... in these golden years, a critical mass of mic prodigies were literally creating themselves and their art form at the same time".

One of the definitive characteristics of the golden age of hip-hop is the proliferation of sample-heavy music. These samples were derived from a number of genres, ranging from jazz to rock & roll. Much of the sample-laden albums that were release during this time would not be able to receive legal clearance in today’s day and age.
It also provided some of the greatest advances in rapping technique - Kool G Rap, referring to the golden age in the book How to Rap says, "that era bred rappers like a Big Daddy Kane, a KRS-One, a Rakim, a Chuck D. . . their rapping capability and ability - these dudes were phenomenal".

Many of hip-hop's biggest artists were also at their creative peak – Allmusic says the golden age, "witnessed the best recordings from some of the biggest rappers in the genre's history... overwhelmingly based in New York City, golden age rap is characterized by skeletal beats, samples cribbed from hard rock or soul tracks, and tough dis raps... rhymers like PE's Chuck D, Big Daddy Kane, KRS-One, Rakim, and LL Cool J basically invented the complex wordplay and lyrical kung-fu of later hip-hop".

There was also often an emphasis on black nationalism – hip-hop scholar Michael Eric Dyson states, "during the golden age of hip hop, from 1987 to 1993, Afrocentric and black nationalist rap were prominent", and critic Scott Thill says, "the golden age of hip hop, the late '80s and early '90s when the form most capably fused the militancy of its Black Panther and Watts Prophets forebears with the wide-open cultural experimentalism of De La Soul and others"

Stylistic variety was also prominent – MSNBC says in the golden age, "rappers had an individual sound that was dictated by their region and their communities, not by a marketing strategist" and Village Voice refers to the golden age's "eclecticism".

Along with focusing on black nationalism, hip hop artists often talked about urban poverty. This brought a great deal of listeners to the genre who were struggling with poverty and were coping with the scourge of alcohol, drugs, and gangs in their communities. Public Enemy's most influential song came out at the time of urban poverty called "Fight the Power." The song speaks up to the government proclaiming that people in the ghetto have the freedom of speech and rights like every other American. One line in the song by Public Enemy, "We got to pump the stuff to make us tough from the heart," grasped the listeners attention and gave them motivation to speak out for themselves.