Current scholarship suggests that many youths identify with hip-hop, especially youths of color. Study of this artistic form has been suggested as a means of helping youths acquire and become fluent in literacy practices. This article explores how the use of a hip-hop literacies curriculum addressed the literacy skills of urban ninth-grade English students while helping them contextualize the significance of their in-school and out-of-school literacy experiences. The article explains the connections between literacies and hip-hop--based education, illustrates how hip-hop can serve as a culturally responsive and rigorous pedagogical tool in the English classroom, and shares students' views on the use of such curriculum.