Sophia Michaels
Since hip-hop was born in the 1970s, the genre has always covered a wide range of topics. But one of the things hip-hop is particularly great at is talking about sex. And as hip-hop went more mainstream during the 1980s and 1990s — and finally got the time it deserved on MTV — hip-hop’s greatest stars started to make some very, very sexy music videos to match their lyrics. The tradition of sexy videos has continued to this day — though some women rappers have had to fight against misogyny in the process.
Take one of the biggest videos in the last five years: Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion’s “WAP.” The song is an unapologetic ode to women’s search for pleasure in the bedroom, and the visual matches its sexy, fun energy. Megan Thee Stallion talked about the drama around the song in a 2020 interview with British GQ. “Some people just don’t know what to do when a woman is in control and taking ownership of her own body,” she explained. “I feel like for a long time men felt like they owned sex and now women are saying, ‘Hey, this is for me. I want pleasure. This is how I want it or don’t want it,’ it freaks men the hell out. It just comes from a place of fear and insecurity, like why would anyone be mad about my WAP? It belongs to me.”
Ahead, these are 45 of the sexiest rap videos of all time.
