Southern hip hop, also called Southern rap, is a genre of American hip hop that emerged from a late-1980s club-oriented vibe in southern U.S. cities, including New Orleans, Houston, Nashville, Atlanta, Memphis, Charlotte and Miami. The music was a reaction to the 1980s flow of hip hop culture from New York City and California, and can be considered a third major American hip hop genre, after East Coast hip hop and West Coast hip hop. Many early Southern rap artists released their music independently or on mixtapes after encountering difficulty securing record-label contracts in the 1990s. Atlanta, Georgia, is a prominent city in the region's hip hop scene.

Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, rap music was primarily dominated by artists from the East and West Coasts. Los Angeles and New York City were the two main regions where hip hop was receiving attention. In the 1980s, Southern cities began to catch on to the rap movement. The Geto Boys, a rap group from Houston, were the first rap artists from the South to gain major popularity. Southern rap's roots can be traced to the success of Geto Boys' Grip It! On That Other Level in 1989, the Rick Rubin produced The Geto Boys (album) in 1990, and We Can't Be Stopped in 1991. After the Geto Boys rose to stardom, Houston became the center for Southern hip hop. Miami also played a major role in the rise of Southern Hip-hop during this time frame with successful acts like 2Live Crew, Uncle Luke, and other artists who relied heavily on the Miami Bass sound. In the late 1980s, other rising rap groups such as UGK from Port Arthur, Texas, and 8 Ball & MJG from Memphis, Tennessee, moved to Houston to further their musical careers.

Hip hop is a form of musical expression and artistic subculture that originated in African-American and Hispanic-American communities during the 1970s in New York City, specifically within the Bronx. The term often refers to hip hop music, which consists of poetry that is spoken - rather than sung - over either original or sampled instrumental recordings mixed with new original sounds from drum machines, and/or other instruments. However, the culture has expanded far beyond its original roots, and now is considered a worldwide subculture comprising rapping, DJing, hip hop dance, and graffiti art - known collectively as "Four Pillars of Hip Hop".

The block parties of DJ Kool Herc at 1520 Sedgwick Avenue, where Herc would mix samples of existing records with his own shouts to the crowd and dancers, are generally considered the birthplace of hip hop. Kool Herc is credited as the 'father' of the art form. DJ Afrika Bambaataa of the hip-hop collective Zulu Nation outlined the four pillars of hip hop culture: MCing, DJing, B-boying and graffiti writing. Since its emergence in the South Bronx, hip hop culture has spread to both urban and suburban communities throughout the world.Hip hop music first emerged with Kool Herc and contemporary disc jockeys and imitators creating rhythmic beats by looping breaks (small portions of songs emphasizing a percussive pattern) on two turntables, more commonly referred to as sampling. This was later accompanied by "rap", a rhythmic style of chanting or poetry presented in 16 bar measures or time frames, and beatboxing, a vocal technique mainly used to imitate percussive elements of the music and various technical effects of hip hop DJ's. An original form of dancing and particular styles of dress arose among fans of this new music. These elements experienced considerable refinement and development over the course of the history of the culture.