Hip Hop

Three-second clips of those same four singles. The piano on "Still D.R.E.," the Hornsby sample on "Changes," the Stevie Wonder loop under "Gangsta's Paradise" — each of these is identifiable in under a bar if you know it. If not, you'll be guessing.

Hip-hop covers a lot of ground, and this set deliberately spans what you might call the genre's mainstream-charting era — late 90s through mid-2000s — with one foot in West Coast G-funk and the other in the conscious / battle-rap tradition.

Eminem's "Lose Yourself" (2002) is the 8 Mile single that became the first hip-hop song ever to win the Academy Award for Best Original Song. The opening piano figure plus that "his palms are sweaty, knees weak, arms are heavy" first verse is one of the most quoted openings in the genre. It's also a structural masterclass — three verses, no hook break, building tension until the bridge.

Dr. Dre's "Still D.R.E." (1999) is a comeback record with a Scott Storch piano riff on top of a Mel-Man and Dr. Dre beat — minimal, menacing, and built to be a single you don't get tired of hearing. Snoop Dogg trades the verse with Dre, and this was the lead single from 2001, the album that set up the whole Aftermath empire.

Coolio's "Gangsta's Paradise" (1995) interpolates Stevie Wonder's "Pastime Paradise" as its melodic spine and was the lead single for the Dangerous Minds soundtrack. It went #1 in basically every country with a chart and won the 1996 Grammy for Best Rap Solo Performance. The minor-key choir loop is one of the most recognizable hooks of the decade.

2Pac's "Changes" (1998) is a posthumous release built on a Bruce Hornsby "The Way It Is" sample — Tupac recorded the original verses in 1992, and the track was reworked and released two years after his death. The political weight of the lyrics combined with the gentle piano loop made it a global crossover, especially in Europe where it hit #1 in multiple countries.

The Easy variant of this quiz gives you ten seconds, which is plenty to catch the hook on any of these. The Hard variant gives you three — enough to recognize the piano on "Still D.R.E." or the Hornsby sample on "Changes," but you'll need to be sharp.