New York Hip Hop – Birthplace Magazine NY Hip Hop – Music, News, Information and Events – New York, NYC, NY

A new crop of NY's finest are marrying the home of hip hop's traditions with a bold look toward the future. Here's a quick playlist of names you either should know by now or need to know in 2012.

We're back with another installment of "10 Must See Videos by NY-area Hip Hop Artists," a semi-regular series where we take time to collect and deliver recently released, entertaining visual displays from hip hop artists and filmmakers in the New York City area.

We visited The Art of Lyrics, an ongoing monthly hip hop and arts showcase series up in the Bronx, where the people are fresh, creative, and still care about the art of lyrics.

Despite what some New York hip hop purists want to believe, 1990s New York hip hop does not define the genre. Today's music is no less "real" than that of hip hop's Golden Era. This doesn't mean that good, New York flavored hip hop doesn't exist, but is also doesn't mean that it has to sound the same as the 90s.

Harlem's Skotch Davis has always been around music, so his evolution into an artist was largely inevitable. With his latest project, Are You Hearing Me Clearly?, a 10-track tape hosted by DJ Fresh Direct, Davis is making strides to take his career to its next phase. We spoke with Skotch Davis, to learn a little more about who he is, and what he has coming, to help make sure you all are hearing him clearly.