PnB Rock

PnB Rock, born Rakim Hasheem Allen in 1991 in Philadelphia, was a hip-hop and R&B artist known for blending melodic singing with rap in the mold of Philly's street-conscious scene. He broke through with the 2014 single «My City Need Something», a track shaped by the violence he witnessed growing up, and encouraged by his uncle to pursue music seriously. His string of «RnB» mixtapes between 2014 and 2015 built a devoted local following before his 2017 mixtape GTTM: Goin Thru The Motions pushed him into the mainstream.

His sound combined Auto-Tuned hooks with street narratives, placing him alongside a wave of artists blurring the line between rap and R&B in the mid-2010s. He landed placements on high-profile soundtracks, including songs for The Fate of the Furious, and was featured on the 2017 XXL Freshman Cover, a signal of his growing industry recognition.

PnB Rock continued releasing music steadily through the following years, collaborating widely across hip-hop and R&B. He was fatally shot during a robbery in Los Angeles on September 12, 2022, at age 30, cutting short a career that had helped define a melodic, emotionally direct strain of Philadelphia hip-hop.