Lineage
Which hip hop artists shaped which, and how the sound moved between cities.
Data as of 31 Oct 2026 · Sources: Wikidata, MusicBrainz, chart credits
Most cited in hip hop
Artists ranked by how many other hip hop acts name them as an influence.
How this is counted
Only declared influence links between hip hop acts count, once per artist influenced. Across eras means the two careers started ten or more years apart. Same era means less than ten.
Trace an artist
Pick an artist to see who shaped them, who they shaped and who they worked with.
What the lists mean
Declared: one artist names another as an influence. Collaborated: two artists share a credited chart record. Members: a group and its people. Coverage follows what Wikidata and MusicBrainz record, and grows as they do.
Run-DMC
Active from 1982Artist pageNew York sound
Influenced by
No influences recorded yet.
Influenced
Worked with
No collaborations recorded yet.
Members
How the sound travelled
Arcs join metros where an influence reached an artist credited somewhere else.
How the map is drawn
Only links between artists credited to different metros are counted. Each metro sits at the average position of its artists. Routes with a single link stay hidden until you pick a metro.
Busiest routes
Metro pairs ranked by how many artist links run between them.
From outside hip hop
Artists from other genres that hip hop acts name as an influence.
Where these links come from
Influence and membership links come from Wikidata and MusicBrainz, both open data. Collaborations come from the credits on the chart records behind Sound of the Metros.
- Wikidata, CC0 licence
- MusicBrainz, CC0 licence
- Sound of the Metros chart credits
Metros are the hometown metros used across Sound of the Metros. See also Scenes and Artists.