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.