Flag this list:

















Part of the RYM Ultimate Box Set Industrial hip hop is an Experimental Hip Hop genre that uses Industrial Music beats and sounds. The production style is generally very dissonant, featuring atonal Noise and loud, distorted drums. Vocals are usually more aggressive than typical hip hop and are sometimes shouted. Lyrical content is usually disturbing and/or confrontational, typically involving dystopian or political themes, and other subject matter typical of industrial music (e.g. war, sexual abuse, radical politics, BDSM, cults, etc). Industrial Hip Hop began in the late 80's but has gained more public acceptance and evolved into a broader sound in the new millennium.

1 1. The Beatnigs The Beatnigs

"Nature"



"In 1988, the idea of combining rock and industrial was a very new thing, let alone the combination of hip-hop and industrial. With tire rims, chains, circular saws, and the like contributing intense textures to the (surprisingly still pretty impressive) hip-hop production, Franti and co. opened up a whole new world for the likes of Meat Beat Manifesto, Consolidated, etc. to expand upon. It's a shame they only recorded the one album; later Franti productions just don't do the same for me. Really, only the dated political content of the lyrics (Reagan etc.) prevents me from rating this higher."~dotadot

"Nature"



"In 1988, the idea of combining rock and industrial was a very new thing, let alone the combination of hip-hop and industrial. With tire rims, chains, circular saws, and the like contributing intense textures to the (surprisingly still pretty impressive) hip-hop production, Franti and co. opened up a whole new world for the likes of Meat Beat Manifesto, Consolidated, etc. to expand upon. It's a shame they only recorded the one album; later Franti productions just don't do the same for me. Really, only the dated political content of the lyrics (Reagan etc.) prevents me from rating this higher."~dotadot

"Half Cut Again"



"The origins of industrial hip hop are in the work of Mark Stewart, Bill Laswell, and Adrian Sherwood. In 1985, former Pop Group singer released As the Veneer of Democracy Starts to Fade, an application of the cut-up style of industrial music, with the house band of Sugar Hill Records. In the late 1980s, Laswell's Material project began to take increasing influence from hip hop. Adrian Sherwood was a major figure in British dub, as well as working with industrial groups such as Cabaret Voltaire, Einstürzende Neubauten, Ministry, KMFDM, and Nine Inch Nails. Tackhead, a collaboration between Sherwood and the Sugar Hill band, picked up where Mark Stewart left off.~wiki aka Treble article



While many on RYM disagree on As the Veneer of Democracy Starts to Fade being industrial hip hop you can see it starting to form and the early participants getting involved....

3 3. Consolidated Play More Music

"Tool and Die"



"Unflinchingly socialist at a time when radical politics were just re-entering music’s mainstream, this American trio assembled harsh and hidden social realities, a self-critical eye, and notorious fan participation using cut-and-paste propaganda as epoxy and earnest rhyming as catalyst. Prior albums like Friendly Fa$cism may have won Consolidated critical acclaim, but it was this third release that put them on a larger map. Granted, their biggest hits were the songs that needed the most help: San Francisco novelty act The Yeastie Girls rapped out the cult hit/dirty little secret “You Suck,” celebrating cunnilingus as feminism, while Paris spit hot fire on the black-on-white revenge fantasy “Guerrillas in the Mist.” However, Play More Music also showed an almost pastoral side to Consolidated on songs like “A Day on the Green” and “He,” even as they continued to boldly toss around talking points on veganism, the war on drugs, and a rampaging corporate state. – Adam Blyweiss

"Tool and Die"



"Unflinchingly socialist at a time when radical politics were just re-entering music’s mainstream, this American trio assembled harsh and hidden social realities, a self-critical eye, and notorious fan participation using cut-and-paste propaganda as epoxy and earnest rhyming as catalyst. Prior albums like Friendly Fa$cism may have won Consolidated critical acclaim, but it was this third release that put them on a larger map. Granted, their biggest hits were the songs that needed the most help: San Francisco novelty act The Yeastie Girls rapped out the cult hit/dirty little secret “You Suck,” celebrating cunnilingus as feminism, while Paris spit hot fire on the black-on-white revenge fantasy “Guerrillas in the Mist.” However, Play More Music also showed an almost pastoral side to Consolidated on songs like “A Day on the Green” and “He,” even as they continued to boldly toss around talking points on veganism, the war on drugs, and a rampaging corporate state. – Adam Blyweiss

4 4. The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy Hypocrisy Is the Greatest Luxury

"Television, Drug of the Nation"



"I remember heavily listen to this disc in my early half of my college days; one would say this was my personal "alternative" record. Of course it's alternative; this is a Michael Franti project! If you can handle his viewpoints and the manic assemblage of sounds (an obvious production nod to Public Enemy's The Bomb Squad), you will experience one wild ride"~Ethan



Not an entirely Industrial Hip Hop Album but recognized as an important early part of the formation.

"Television, Drug of the Nation"



"I remember heavily listen to this disc in my early half of my college days; one would say this was my personal "alternative" record. Of course it's alternative; this is a Michael Franti project! If you can handle his viewpoints and the manic assemblage of sounds (an obvious production nod to Public Enemy's The Bomb Squad), you will experience one wild ride"~Ethan



Not an entirely Industrial Hip Hop Album but recognized as an important early part of the formation.

5 5. Meat Beat Manifesto Satyricon

"Edge of No Control"



"The British duo of Jack Dangers and Jonny Stephens grew from side project to ongoing industrial-music concern due in no small part to shifting their focus to America. The late 1980s saw them move to San Francisco (associating themselves with like-minded artists including Consolidated) and hook up with Chicago’s legendary Wax Trax! label. Already thick with mass media samples as well as the noises of No Wave and jazz, on Satyricon their takes on dub and cracked hip-hop instrumentals embraced melodic electronica as well. The vocal tracks on here include politically aware rapping (“Edge of No Control,” “Son of Sam”) and third-eye singing (“Mindstream”) as well as material that falls somewhere in between (“Drop,” “Original Control”). Don’t let that disqualify Satyricon from this list; – Adam Blyweiss

"Edge of No Control"



"The British duo of Jack Dangers and Jonny Stephens grew from side project to ongoing industrial-music concern due in no small part to shifting their focus to America. The late 1980s saw them move to San Francisco (associating themselves with like-minded artists including Consolidated) and hook up with Chicago’s legendary Wax Trax! label. Already thick with mass media samples as well as the noises of No Wave and jazz, on Satyricon their takes on dub and cracked hip-hop instrumentals embraced melodic electronica as well. The vocal tracks on here include politically aware rapping (“Edge of No Control,” “Son of Sam”) and third-eye singing (“Mindstream”) as well as material that falls somewhere in between (“Drop,” “Original Control”). Don’t let that disqualify Satyricon from this list; – Adam Blyweiss

6 6. Ice Bad Blood

"The Snakepit"



"Kevin Martin (Techno Animal, Ice, The Bug) has collaborated with some of leftfields finest including John Zorn, EL-P and Anti-Pop Consortium as well as recording for labels as diverse as Virgin, Rephlex, Position Chrome/Mille Plateaux, Hyperdub and Tigerbeat. This experience of experimental sound combined with his love of reggae and dancehall first appeared in his 1997 collaboration with DJ Vadim on ‘Tapping the Conversation’. Ever since, he has pursued and forwarded his sound whilst challenging ideals and even pioneering genres. "~experimusic



"Despite this being on the experimental edge of hip-hop, and being another such release which seems to focus less on the vocal, this doesn't really bear comparison with the likes of Dalek, it's a different beast entirely. The beats are huge and covered in reverb, like outtakes from 2nd Gen's hugely abrasive Irony Is. The bass isn't funky or jazzy, but minimal, low, dirty, and also drenched in reverb. This isn't an outfit that's nimble and light on it's feet, it feels like Old Dirty Bastard's corpse has been reanimated, and is taking wild lumbering swings through a fog of reverb. There's plenty of reverb here, in case you hadn't noticed. It's a buzzy, mess of sound and samples, the MCs spitting incoherently over rasping backing vocals, as random noises swoop and slither around the morass of bass and beats sludging out of the stereo.~Darkness Fish

"The Snakepit"



"Kevin Martin (Techno Animal, Ice, The Bug) has collaborated with some of leftfields finest including John Zorn, EL-P and Anti-Pop Consortium as well as recording for labels as diverse as Virgin, Rephlex, Position Chrome/Mille Plateaux, Hyperdub and Tigerbeat. This experience of experimental sound combined with his love of reggae and dancehall first appeared in his 1997 collaboration with DJ Vadim on ‘Tapping the Conversation’. Ever since, he has pursued and forwarded his sound whilst challenging ideals and even pioneering genres. "~experimusic



"Despite this being on the experimental edge of hip-hop, and being another such release which seems to focus less on the vocal, this doesn't really bear comparison with the likes of Dalek, it's a different beast entirely. The beats are huge and covered in reverb, like outtakes from 2nd Gen's hugely abrasive Irony Is. The bass isn't funky or jazzy, but minimal, low, dirty, and also drenched in reverb. This isn't an outfit that's nimble and light on it's feet, it feels like Old Dirty Bastard's corpse has been reanimated, and is taking wild lumbering swings through a fog of reverb. There's plenty of reverb here, in case you hadn't noticed. It's a buzzy, mess of sound and samples, the MCs spitting incoherently over rasping backing vocals, as random noises swoop and slither around the morass of bass and beats sludging out of the stereo.~Darkness Fish

7 7. Techno Animal The Brotherhood of the Bomb

"Cruise Mode 101"



"This is a delicious dank, heavy record, one that's right up there with more famous experimental hip-hop touchstones like El-P and Antipop Consortium (both of whom feature on two of the album's best tracks, "We Can Build You" and "Glass Prism Enclosure" respectively). It's a nasty album, one that's all about hard-hitting drums and layers of crackling, confrontational noise - I didn't actually know Justin K. Broadrick was involved in this before I heard it, but it makes perfect sense to me now that I've found out. It's exactly the kind of hip-hop album you'd except an adventurous extreme metal guitarist with a fetish for Aphex Twin to make. Kevin Martin, aka The Bug, is the other half of Techno Animal, and again, you can hear links between this and London Zoo - it has the same oppressive atmosphere, and the same co-opting of dub production into something more direct. Powerful stuff."~Iai

"Cruise Mode 101"



"This is a delicious dank, heavy record, one that's right up there with more famous experimental hip-hop touchstones like El-P and Antipop Consortium (both of whom feature on two of the album's best tracks, "We Can Build You" and "Glass Prism Enclosure" respectively). It's a nasty album, one that's all about hard-hitting drums and layers of crackling, confrontational noise - I didn't actually know Justin K. Broadrick was involved in this before I heard it, but it makes perfect sense to me now that I've found out. It's exactly the kind of hip-hop album you'd except an adventurous extreme metal guitarist with a fetish for Aphex Twin to make. Kevin Martin, aka The Bug, is the other half of Techno Animal, and again, you can hear links between this and London Zoo - it has the same oppressive atmosphere, and the same co-opting of dub production into something more direct. Powerful stuff."~Iai

ADVERTISEMENT

8 8. 2nd Gen Irony Is

"Slowburn"



"It says something when the Techno Animal remix is one of the less abrasive and grimy tracks on here. This borders on power noise at times, I swear. It's not amazing - the rhythms are not always interesting - but it's quite a nice look at the outer edge of instrumental hip-hop."~RNG

"Slowburn"



"It says something when the Techno Animal remix is one of the less abrasive and grimy tracks on here. This borders on power noise at times, I swear. It's not amazing - the rhythms are not always interesting - but it's quite a nice look at the outer edge of instrumental hip-hop."~RNG

9 9. Dälek Absence

"Distorted Prose"



"Absence, the hip-hop record with instrumentals as thick and deep as a pool of tar and verses that will choke-hold you until you puke up blood. the rap piece that touches the subjects of what is really hell on earth. and it is all fucking amazing.



Dälek's albums have been compared to My Bloody Valentine, Einstürzende Neubauten and Public Enemy, which are perfect for a description of their music. MBV's eerie, jet engine-like guitar drones, EN's clanging rhythms done with amplified garbage and sledgehammers, and PE's heavy use of turntables, samples and most of all, politically charged verses. those are the 3 artists, the 3 influences, the 3 elements which are kept inside their music, and most of all, their most popular album and magnum opus, Absence."~thisDREAMYfeeling

"Distorted Prose"



"Absence, the hip-hop record with instrumentals as thick and deep as a pool of tar and verses that will choke-hold you until you puke up blood. the rap piece that touches the subjects of what is really hell on earth. and it is all fucking amazing.



Dälek's albums have been compared to My Bloody Valentine, Einstürzende Neubauten and Public Enemy, which are perfect for a description of their music. MBV's eerie, jet engine-like guitar drones, EN's clanging rhythms done with amplified garbage and sledgehammers, and PE's heavy use of turntables, samples and most of all, politically charged verses. those are the 3 artists, the 3 influences, the 3 elements which are kept inside their music, and most of all, their most popular album and magnum opus, Absence."~thisDREAMYfeeling

10 10. WWW Neurobeat

"Drát"



"Bits of this are awesome. Sometimes bits drag a tad, but it's definitely worth a listen, especially for fans of such things as Dalek - people who like their hip-hop flavoured with an industrial edge. Aggressive and paranoid."~richeym



"Doing hip-hop in ku-klux-klan like clothing is rather confusing, but it is maybe one of the hints that this is not going to be your ordinary hip-hip record. Even without vocals this would be a very interesting electronic record, but agressive vocals and intelligent lyrics make this one of hip-hop masterpieces. From musical point of view it reminds of the Nine Inch Nails' industrial, and they may be the lyrical inspiration too, along with the feelings of urban paranoia known from Peťo Tázok or Dunaj. Well, lyrically it is a terrifying trip trough mass murderer's contorted psyche. Here hip-hop is a unique mean of communication, a record you long to hear if you care more about art then just plain pose."~xenakis

"Drát"



"Bits of this are awesome. Sometimes bits drag a tad, but it's definitely worth a listen, especially for fans of such things as Dalek - people who like their hip-hop flavoured with an industrial edge. Aggressive and paranoid."~richeym



"Doing hip-hop in ku-klux-klan like clothing is rather confusing, but it is maybe one of the hints that this is not going to be your ordinary hip-hip record. Even without vocals this would be a very interesting electronic record, but agressive vocals and intelligent lyrics make this one of hip-hop masterpieces. From musical point of view it reminds of the Nine Inch Nails' industrial, and they may be the lyrical inspiration too, along with the feelings of urban paranoia known from Peťo Tázok or Dunaj. Well, lyrically it is a terrifying trip trough mass murderer's contorted psyche. Here hip-hop is a unique mean of communication, a record you long to hear if you care more about art then just plain pose."~xenakis

11 11. Saul Williams The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of NiggyTardust!

"Convict Colony"



"The NIN rap album. Trent is all over the motha - every note and every beat is pure Nine Inch Nails. Moreover, Saul really does assume Trent's vocal mannerisms on a lot of these tracks. Content? Well, Saul's talkin' 'bout Issues. That much I'm sure about. He spins a dark and foreboding historical landscape of violence and oppression."~LloyddDobler



"Williams's style on the mic revives with relish hip hop's ancestry among 70s black radical art -- Watts Prophets et al -- and I guess it's kind of pointed that he chooses to discuss the state of the mongrel form par excellence against a striking backdrop of styles and sounds, an ethereal electro-lysis of punk, breakbeat, post-hardcore, new wave and the nth-type industrial aesthetic of Nine Inch Nails that came to the fore on Niggy Tardust."~Nigh

"Convict Colony"



"The NIN rap album. Trent is all over the motha - every note and every beat is pure Nine Inch Nails. Moreover, Saul really does assume Trent's vocal mannerisms on a lot of these tracks. Content? Well, Saul's talkin' 'bout Issues. That much I'm sure about. He spins a dark and foreboding historical landscape of violence and oppression."~LloyddDobler



"Williams's style on the mic revives with relish hip hop's ancestry among 70s black radical art -- Watts Prophets et al -- and I guess it's kind of pointed that he chooses to discuss the state of the mongrel form par excellence against a striking backdrop of styles and sounds, an ethereal electro-lysis of punk, breakbeat, post-hardcore, new wave and the nth-type industrial aesthetic of Nine Inch Nails that came to the fore on Niggy Tardust."~Nigh

"Don't Cum 2 Houston"



"A massively underrated release, loud all the way through, love it"~gilchrist707



"Loud, brash, interesting samples. Ticks all the boxes for myself. Hell yes."~whitey25

13 13. Uochi Toki Cuore amore errore disintegrazione

"Dato che per me è naturale trovarmi spaesato nei non luoghi"



Uochi Toki is a hip-hop group from Alessandria, Italy. The group consists of Matteo “Napo” Palma, Riccardo “Rico” Gamondi, and “Fele”. They formed in 2002 when Rico and Napo (who were active in the rap duo Laze Biose) met Fele and decided to form a new group. They released their first album Vocapatch in 2003 consisting of 31 tracks without titles that were mainly minimal noise tracks. Their follow-up self-titled album had a whopping 81 tracks which was mostly made up of spoken word (in Italian) tracks and minimal electronic pieces. 2006 saw the release of their first actual hip-hop album that fused noise music with rapping. Cuore amore errore disintegrazione is often considered one of their best album in the Industrial Hip Hop genre.

"Dato che per me è naturale trovarmi spaesato nei non luoghi"



Uochi Toki is a hip-hop group from Alessandria, Italy. The group consists of Matteo “Napo” Palma, Riccardo “Rico” Gamondi, and “Fele”. They formed in 2002 when Rico and Napo (who were active in the rap duo Laze Biose) met Fele and decided to form a new group. They released their first album Vocapatch in 2003 consisting of 31 tracks without titles that were mainly minimal noise tracks. Their follow-up self-titled album had a whopping 81 tracks which was mostly made up of spoken word (in Italian) tracks and minimal electronic pieces. 2006 saw the release of their first actual hip-hop album that fused noise music with rapping. Cuore amore errore disintegrazione is often considered one of their best album in the Industrial Hip Hop genre.

14 14. Death Grips The Money Store

"The Fever (Aye Aye)"



"I have never heard a album before that combines hip hop, industrial, electronic, and has the fury and anger of a hardcore punk album. This band is from California but they sound more like they are from the future. This album is way ahead of it's time and just a crazy mindrape of a album. The album art fits the music it contains very well which is a strange and disturbing masterpiece. It sounds like A Clockwork Orange if it was a rap album. The band that plays on here is MC Ride on vocals. Zach Hill on drums. And Flatlander on beats and production. The vocals and flow on this album are very in your face, loud, unsettling, violent, powerful, fast, and scary from time to time. The electronic sound effects are pretty mind-blowing and all over the place. The drums sound very punkish in a experimental way."~macmusicman

"The Fever (Aye Aye)"



"I have never heard a album before that combines hip hop, industrial, electronic, and has the fury and anger of a hardcore punk album. This band is from California but they sound more like they are from the future. This album is way ahead of it's time and just a crazy mindrape of a album. The album art fits the music it contains very well which is a strange and disturbing masterpiece. It sounds like A Clockwork Orange if it was a rap album. The band that plays on here is MC Ride on vocals. Zach Hill on drums. And Flatlander on beats and production. The vocals and flow on this album are very in your face, loud, unsettling, violent, powerful, fast, and scary from time to time. The electronic sound effects are pretty mind-blowing and all over the place. The drums sound very punkish in a experimental way."~macmusicman

15 15. Kanye West Yeezus

"Black Skinhead"



"Kanye is showing that the Death Grips are this generation's De La Soul - this influential rap group that nobody really wants to promote because they fulfill some sort of stupid stereotype in their minds. Kanye, rapping about himself and why black people are disenfranchised, takes many of the same production quirks from No Love Deep Web, The Money Store, and Exmilitary and expands them to something that sounds like a drugged-out Ben-Hur with tons of gritty violence and social commentary.



This is the album that 2012 was building up to. This is the confirmation that the Death Grips need in order to be accepted - if Kanye can do some of the same promotional quirks, rap within the same boundaries (without screaming like MC Ride), and make beats that sound nothing like standard rap, then they can too."~Malkmusian

"Black Skinhead"



"Kanye is showing that the Death Grips are this generation's De La Soul - this influential rap group that nobody really wants to promote because they fulfill some sort of stupid stereotype in their minds. Kanye, rapping about himself and why black people are disenfranchised, takes many of the same production quirks from No Love Deep Web, The Money Store, and Exmilitary and expands them to something that sounds like a drugged-out Ben-Hur with tons of gritty violence and social commentary.



This is the album that 2012 was building up to. This is the confirmation that the Death Grips need in order to be accepted - if Kanye can do some of the same promotional quirks, rap within the same boundaries (without screaming like MC Ride), and make beats that sound nothing like standard rap, then they can too."~Malkmusian

16 16. Moodie Black Nausea

"Hawk vs Vulture"



"Myke C-Town from Dead End Hip-Hop talked about this on his solo channel, and he said it was really good, and I pretty much agree with him on everything hip-hop, so I copped this one. Now, these guys get labelled as Industrial Hip-Hop, and I really hoped that it wasn't anything like Death Grips, and more like Clipping or something. Actually, I was hoping even more that they were unique. And as it turns out, they are. Moodie Black consists of MC KonGeror and instrumentalist Sean Lindhal. I'm not sure exactly how much Sean does, but KonGeror certainly does some awesome stuff. His rapping on here is just crazy. It's very toned down and laid back, but they way it's mixed and all of that kind of stuff is just awesome. The production would have to be my very favorite part of this."~Qualmon

"Hawk vs Vulture"



"Myke C-Town from Dead End Hip-Hop talked about this on his solo channel, and he said it was really good, and I pretty much agree with him on everything hip-hop, so I copped this one. Now, these guys get labelled as Industrial Hip-Hop, and I really hoped that it wasn't anything like Death Grips, and more like Clipping or something. Actually, I was hoping even more that they were unique. And as it turns out, they are. Moodie Black consists of MC KonGeror and instrumentalist Sean Lindhal. I'm not sure exactly how much Sean does, but KonGeror certainly does some awesome stuff. His rapping on here is just crazy. It's very toned down and laid back, but they way it's mixed and all of that kind of stuff is just awesome. The production would have to be my very favorite part of this."~Qualmon

17 17. clipping. CLPPNG

"Body & Blood"



"Of all of the album that I have rated in the (Not) Dusty Delights series so far, this is probably the most underrated. I'm not always a fan of industrial hip hop, but something just really clicked for me here. For me, CLPPNG is the perfect balance between noise and artistry.



The real highlight of the album is the production. There are a lot of innovative beats, one of the most notable being "Get Up" which samples an alarm clock. My favorite instrumental on here is probably "Work Work" with its creative percussion patterns and smooth synths."~True Music Reviews