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How 'Yo! MTV Raps' helped mainstream hip-hop

Edo.G performs during the <em>YO! MTV Raps</em> 30th Anniversary Live Event in New York City in 2018.
Nicholas Hunt
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Edo.G performs during the YO! MTV Raps 30th Anniversary Live Event in New York City in 2018.

The MTV show Yo! MTV Raps helped bring hip-hop into mainstream American culture in the 1980s and was made by a scrappy team in the face of a skeptical corporate network.

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Juana Summers is a co-host of NPR's All Things Considered, alongside Ailsa Chang, Ari Shapiro and Mary Louise Kelly. She joined All Things Considered in June 2022.