Rap Genius Introduces New Program to Track Word Usage in Hip-Hop: The Most Fun You'll Have With Analytics This Year

The concept of hip-hop-as-social-studies isn't exactly a new concept, as academics in a number of fields have looked at the genre as a method of examining culture in America. Perhaps no network has made it as easy for those of us without Ph.D's to examine the inner-workings and deeper meanings of hip-hop and R&B than the website Rap Genius. The site has long allowed both fans and rappers to post comments and discuss both lyrics and trends.

The site has recently added a new feature utilizing Google-style analytics to analyze linguistic trends within hip-hop. "Rap Stats," the name of the new feature, allows users to enter search terms, and the service goes through every track in Rap Genius's catalog and takes note of songs that feature the searched term. The site then offers a line graph showing how usage of the word has ranged throughout the history of hip-hop.

For example, Rap Genius showed a graph demonstrating comparison between usage of the word "money" versus the word "bitches." Rappers have always claimed to represent "money, cash, ho's" in that order, but do they actually? Rap Genius demonstrates that they have always had money on their mind first, although the two topics came dangerously close around the year 2000, before money saw a renewed rise in popularity. Users can also track references to cities, political topics, and just about anything.

Music Times made our own graph to look at the relative popularity of various luxury car brands throughout the history of hip-hop. The graph demonstrates that all luxury brands have seen a rise as hip-hop becomes more lifestyle-centric, but no brand has been nearly as successful as Bentley. That make has fallen off since 2005 however, and Ferrari continues to rise. Bugatti has also seen a dramatic rise in the last five years.