2008 Rock the Bells International Festival Series Powered by Sandisk featuring A Tribe Called Quest, Nas, Mos Def, special guest

Kid Sister
Kid Sister is from Markham, IL but currently resides on Chicago's north side. She makes club rap and works at a childrens clothing store slanging bibs and teething rings. Yes, her DJ (J2K of Flosstradamus) is her real brother, and yes that does rule.

A Tribe Called Quest
Without question the most intelligent, artistic rap group during the 1990s, A Tribe Called Quest jump-started and perfected the hip-hop alternative to hardcore and gangsta rap. In essence, they abandoned the macho posturing rap music had been constructed upon, and focused instead...

De La Soul
At the time of its 1989 release, De La Soul's debut album, 3 Feet High and Rising, was hailed as the future of hip-hop. With its colorful, neo-psychedelic collage of samples and styles, plus the Long Island trio's low-key, clever rhymes and goofy humor, the album sounded like nothing...

Ghostface Killah
As one of the original members of the seminal '90s rap crew the Wu-Tang Clan, Ghostface Killah (aka Tony Starks) made an impact before he released his debut album, Ironman, late in 1996.

Dead Prez
The Florida-based political rap duo Dead Prez consists of Stic.man and M-1, a pair of rappers inspired by revolutionaries from Malcolm X to Public Enemy. They immersed themselves in political and social studies as they forged their own style of hip-hop.

B.o.B.
In spite of the plethora of rap artists constantly emerging from Atlanta in the late 2000s, B.o.B., who was only 17 when he signed his first major-label record deal, was still unique. His borderline eccentricity and artistic mind, belied by his music's conventional Dirty South appeal...

Murs
A longtime friend of Definitive Jux leader El-P, rapper Murs first appeared as a solo artist in 2003, after nearly a decade of working with various groups in the underground. Based in Los Angeles, his first single was released in 1993, and came from a self-released album by his first...

Method Man & Redman

Immortal Technique
Born Felipe Coronel in a military hospital in Lima, Peru, in 1978, Immortal Technique moved to Harlem with his parents when he was two years old. At age nine he started rapping, though he didn't start to take it more seriously until he was in high school.

Spank Rock
Reflecting the party rap atmosphere of Baltimore's club scene, Spank Rock arrived as one of the best things to happen to both underground hip-hop and dirty rap, a pair of styles that rarely intermingle.

Kidz in the Hall
In the mid-2000s, alternative hip-hop duo Kidz in the Hall became the new face for the revamped Rawkus Records, the underground rap powerhouse responsible for introducing groundbreaking acts like Mos Def and Talib Kweli before its operations were temporarily closed in 2004.

Wale
In an era when critics and rappers themselves jump to declare the death of hip hop, 22 year-old Wale Folarin has been breathing new life into the genre through dazzling wordplay, a fresh sound steeped in DC's legendary go-go scene, and boundless on-stage energy.

Rakim
Although he never became a household name, Rakim is near-universally acknowledged as one of the greatest MCs -- perhaps the greatest -- of all time within the hip-hop community. It isn't necessarily the substance of what he says that's helped him win numerous polls among rap fans...

Santogold
As a solo project comprised of a revolving door of members, the heart and face of Santogold is vivacious frontwoman Santi White. Paired with John Hill, her former counterpart from ska-punk band Stiffed, the two use their common backgrounds as production-savvy musicians to make bombastic...

The Cool Kids
Part of the mid-2000s hip-hop movement that found kids in all-over prints rapping about their shoes and their favorite forms of transportation (which often weren't cars), the Cool Kids proved to be both an Internet and live show phenomenon.

Rock the Bells Festival

Jay Electronica
One of the most talked-about rappers of 2008, Jay Electronica built his reputation via the Internet and word of mouth, without so much as a single commercial release to his credit. Born Je'Ri Allah in 1976, he grew up in the Magnolia projects of New Orleans, where he lived until age 19.