Urban culture is the culture of towns and cities. In the United States, Urban culture may also sometimes be used as a euphemistic reference to (post-Great Migration) contemporary African American culture.

In the United States, "urban" is often used as a euphemism to describe contemporary African American culture.

Prior to the 20th century, the African American population was primarily rural. The Great Migration of African-Americans created the first large, urban black communities in the American North. It is conservatively estimated that 400,000 left the South during the two-year period of 1916-1918 to take advantage of a labor shortage created in the wake of the First World War. The 20th century cultures of many of the United States' modern cities were forged in this period.

In 1910, the African American population of Detroit was 6,000. By the start of the Great Depression in 1929, this figure had risen to 120,000.

In 1900 Chicago had a total population of 1,698,575. By 1920 the population had increased by more than 1 million residents. During the second wave of the Great Migration (from 1940–1960), the African American population in the city grew from 278,000 to 813,000. The South Side of Chicago was considered the black capital of America.

Carl Craig is a Detroit-based producer of techno music, and is considered to be one of the most important names in the Detroit second generation of techno producers and DJs. According to an article about Craig, "Of this group, Craig was often recognised as being the most artful and the most willing to engage the rapidly growing shape of techno outside Detroit." Carl Craig has approached techno using inspiration from a wide range of musical genres, including jazz and soul.

Carl Craig has released many successful albums under a large number of aliases, such as BFC, Psyche, Paperclip People, 69, Designer Music and Innerzone Orchestra. He also had a hugely successful collaboration album with NYDJ Patrick Picasso. Using one alias, Innerzone Orchestra, he released perhaps his best-known track "Bug in The Bassbin" in 1992, a track that many regard as being a key influence in the then evolving sound of drum and bass.

Carl Craig has also created his own record label called Planet E Communications, which apart from his own work, has released records by well known techno and house artists like Kevin Saunderson, Alton Miller and Moodymann.

Angela McRobbie (born 1951) is a British cultural theorist, feminist and commentator. McRobbie combines the study of different dimensions of youth culture with a commentary on development in cultural theory and politics.

McRobbie studied as a postgraduate at the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies at the University of Birmingham. She taught in London, later at Loughborough University, and is a Professor for Communications at Goldsmiths, University of London.

McRobbie’s best-known work revolves around the analysis of gender in youth culture. She was critical of the work on subcultures at the CCCS completed by Paul Willis and Dick Hebdige, because of its lack of attention to gender. Furthermore, she stressed the need to analyse the nature of young women’s cultural life, in order to establish whether it was structured differently from that of boys. This approach led to papers on the culture of femininity, romance, pop music and teenybop culture, the teenage magazine Jackie and so on. These earlier essays can be found in Feminism and Youth Culture (1991).