Some fifty years after its birth in the Bronx, hip hop is one of the most significant cultural forms of the internet age. Now that the internet is enmeshed in our everyday lives, hip hop is predominantly encountered and experienced online, where it comprises a third of all streamed music. People are constantly making, commenting on, and sharing hip hop media on internet platforms—Drake memes, viral TikTok dances, AI-generated rappers—challenging hip hop’s conventional connections to place, authenticity, and community. This book provides an urgent study of the most recent chapter in the life of hip hop, one closely intertwined with the networked cultural flows of the internet.

With an innovative method encompassing music and cultural analysis, ethnography, and web data analysis, Digital Flows provides a cutting-edge account of the intersections between hip hop and the internet. For old school heads and Extremely Online memesters alike, for fans and creatives, for students and academics seeking to understand digital transformations of music, Digital Flows uncovers what happens when a cultural form born on the streets thrives on transformative technologies of global reach.