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Jazz rap is a fusion of alternative hip hop and jazz, developed in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Lyrically it has often been intellectual, often socio-political or Afrocentric in content. Musically the rhythms have been typically those of hip hop rather than jazz, over which are placed repetitive phrases of jazz instrumentation: trumpet, double bass, etc. There has been little jazz improvisation in the genre.

Peter Shapiro, in his Rough Guide to Hip-Hop (2nd ed. London: Rough Guides, 2005) lists Louis Armstrong's 1925 recording of Heebie Jeebies in his timeline of hip hop. In the 70s, the proto-hip hop of Last Poets and Gil Scott-Heron placed spoken word and rhymed poetry over jazzy backing tracks. Many have drawn parallels between jazz and the improvised phrasings of freestyle rap. Despite these disparate threads, jazz rap as a genre didn't coalesce until the late 80s.

In 1988, Gang Starr released the debut single "Words I Manifest", sampling Charlie Parker, and Stetsasonic released "Talkin' All That Jazz", sampling Lonnie Liston Smith. In 1989, Gang Starr's debut LP, No More Mr. Nice Guy, and their track "Jazz Thing" for the soundtrack of Mo' Better Blues, further popularized the jazz rap style.

De La Soul and their cohorts in the Native Tongues Posse also had jazzy releases, including the Jungle Brothers' debut Straight Out the Jungle (1988) and A Tribe Called Quest's debut, People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm (1990). A Tribe Called Quest's follow-up, The Low End Theory (1991), had only a modest jazz influence, but it was a critical success, and earned praise from jazz bassist Ron Carter, who played double bass on one track.

Though jazz rap had achieved little mainstream success, jazz legend Miles Davis' final album (released posthumously in 1992), Doo-Bop, was based around hip hop beats and collaborations with producer Easy Mo Bee. Davis' ex-bandmate Herbie Hancock returned to hip hop in the mid-nineties after coming to the genre in the early 1980s with his single "Rockit", releasing the album Dis Is Da Drum in 1994. Jazz musician Branford Marsalis collaborated with Gang Starr's DJ Premier on his Buckshot LeFonque project that same year.

Digable Planets' 1993 release Reachin' (A New Refutation of Time and Space) was a hit jazz rap record sampling the likes of Don Cherry, Sonny Rollins, Art Blakey, Herbie Mann, Herbie Hancock, Grant Green, Steven Bernstein and Rahsaan Roland Kirk. It spawned the hit single "Rebirth of Slick (Cool Like Dat)". Also in 1993, Us3 released Hand on the Torch on Blue Note Records. All samples were from the Blue Note catalogue. The single "Cantaloop" was Blue Note's first gold record.

Recordings by Freestyle Fellowship and Aceyalone fuse jazz with hip hop, by including jazz elements such as unusual time signatures and scat-influenced vocals.

Beginning in 2000, Guru's Jazzmatazz project uses live jazz musicians in the studio. Its four volumes so far have assembled jazz luminaries like Freddie Hubbard, Donald Byrd, Courtney Pine, Herbie Hancock, Kenny Garrett and Lonnie Liston Smith, and hip hop performers such as Kool Keith, MC Solaar and Guru's Gang Starr colleague DJ Premier.

• A Tribe Called Quest: People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm, Low End Theory, Midnight Marauders
• Aceyalone: All Balls Don't Bounce
• Beat Assailant: Hard Twelve
• Bop City: Hip Strut
• Buckshot LeFonque: Music: Evolution, Buckshot LeFonque
• Common: Resurrection
• Crown City Rockers: Earthtones
• Miles Davis: Doo-Bop
• Deda: The Original Baby Pa
• Digable Planets: Reachin' (A New Refutation Of Time & Space), Blowout Comb
• DIALOKOLECTIV : Hip Hop ?
• Dream Warriors: And Now, the Legacy Begins
• Freestyle Fellowship: To Whom It May Concern..., Innercity Griots
• Fun Lovin' Criminals: Come Find Yourself, 100% Colombian
• Galactic: Ruckus (production by Dan Nakamura)
• Gang Starr: No More Mr. Nice Guy, Daily Operation
• Guru: Jazzmatazz (Vols. 1-4)
• Herbie Hancock: Dis Is Da Drum
• InI: Center Of Attention
• Jazzkantine: Jazzkantine
• Jungle Brothers: Straight Out the Jungle, Done by the Forces of Nature
• Jurassic Five: Quality Control, especially the track Swing Set
• Justice System: Mobilization
• Little Brother: The Listening
• Soweto Kinch: Conversations With The Unseen
• MC Solaar: Prose Combat
• Nas: Illmatic
• Nujabes: Metaphorical Music, Modal Soul
• O.C.: Word...Life
• Ohmega Watts: "The Find"
• Greg Osby: 3-D Lifestyles
• Oxmo Puccino: Lipopette bar
• Ozomatli: Ozomatli
• Pete Philly and Perquisite: Mindstate, Mystery Repeats
• Pete Rock & CL Smooth: Mecca And The Soul Brother, The Main Ingredient
• Pete Rock: Petestrumentals
• The Pharcyde: Bizarre Ride II the Pharcyde
• Q-Tip: Kamaal the Abstract (Unreleased)
• Quasimoto: The Unseen
• The Roots: Organix, Do You Want More?!!!??!, Illadelph Halflife
• Raw Produce: The Feeling of Now
• saviorself.: Starving Artists on Hope
• Souls of Mischief: "93 'til Infinity"
• The Sound Providers: An Evening With The Sound Providers
• Spearhead: Home
• Stetsasonic: On Fire, In Full Gear
• US3: Hand On The Torch, Broadway & 52nd
• Philo Taaveti:love and the human...

• Ahmad Jamal - "02 - the Surrey with the Fringe on Top"
  • Edan - "Key Bored"
• Ahmad Jamal - "Dolphin Dance"
  • Common - "Resurrection"
  • Deda - "Can't Wait"
  • O.C. - "Time's Up (Remix)"
• Ahmad Jamal - "I Love Music"
  • Nas - "The World Is Yours"
  • Jeru The Damaja - "Me Or The Papes"
• Ahmad Jamal - "Pastures"
  • Jazz Rappin Dezmond - "This Rapp is The Jazzy Type"
  • Jay-Z - "Feelin' It"
• Ronnie Laws - "Tidal Wave"
  • Black Moon - "Who Got Da Props?"
  • Organized Konfusion - "Stress (Extra P Remix)"
• Wes Montgomery - "Mellow Mood"
  • Quasimoto - "Low Class Conspiracy"

• Discussion group on Jazz Rap at last.fm
• Jazz-Rap Producer from Los Angeles