![]() ![]() ![]() My uncle was producing hip-hop, my father was producing and singing R&B, my grandfather was playing guitar, and my grandmother was singing in his band. I had already loved the idea of creating music. I could get my own shit off, but I also could affect others and charge them up to feel their power and be great. It kind of defined for me what I loved about being an MC. I wasn’t using the word “empowered” then, but that’s what it was. But I also liked the way they felt joy and felt empowered by it. I loved that feeling, like I was having my own Muhammad Ali–type moment. In ’84, I wrote my first rap - I was with my cousin again in Cincinnati - and all the homies, they started saying it. It was something that I needed, something that I desired. They represented a revolution in hip-hop, and in music, and in Black and brown America. The way they rapped, how much they was bragging about themselves, all of it exuded Black confidence and power. They were like a younger Muhammad Ali for me but in a musical way. They had a style that was fresh and cool, and they had a confidence that, as a young Black boy, I needed to be reminded of and see reflected. I literally had those Adidas sweatsuits that they wore on Krush Groove. It felt like they was superheroes, but relatable. had this thing about ’em that expressed Black pride. But hearing “Sucker M.C.’s” and “Rock Box” took me to a place where I was like, I really love this. I was already listening to “The Message,” Grandmaster Flash and Melle Mel with the Furious Five. The music was new, fresh, but a part of me already, like, man, this is me. I remember feeling a feeling I hadn’t felt before. They started playing “Sucker M.C.’s” and “Rock Box” by Run-D.M.C. Hip-hop has never been a monolith, but if there was ever one thread connecting it all, it’s that it has made us feel seen, or made us see something we never had before. Pain and euphoria are equal catalysts for creative brilliance.Įach of the stories below comes from people who didn’t just fall in love with the culture, they turned their curiosity into a profession - paying it forward by making art that led future fans to connect with the genre. Not all hip-hop love stories stem from joy, though: Navy Blue first embraced the music at his brother’s funeral. Fresh still thinks about his sister coming home to excitedly share something she heard at school. on an AM radio station in Los Angeles, Chika remembers hearing Outkast at a roller rink on a youth-group trip, and Doug E. B-Real of Cypress Hill recalls listening to Run-D.M.C. Everyone who loves hip-hop has an origin story - that lightning-in-a-bottle moment when you hear a lyric, see a performance, recognize a sample flip, or write your own rhyme and realize that, whatever it is that you just discovered, you are willing to do whatever it takes to make it happen again. Pioneers like the Cold Crush Brothers and Roxanne Shante are getting their due era-spanning performances including the Grammys’ tribute curated by Questlove and DJ Cassidy’s Pass The Mic Live! show at Radio City are showcasing the breadth of sonic, stylistic, and thematic excellence within the genre and there are important conversations being held in live panels and editorials about rap’s obsessions with misogyny, transphobia, and death.Īll told, hip-hop 50 has been a welcome moment of retrospection. Still, hip-hop has had a chance to shine elsewhere. Following years of sporadic corporate investment in the culture, some major companies have clumsily attempted “hip-hop 50” projects, and people who dismissed the genre or are decades removed from knowing it are being tasked with gatekeeping its record books and delivering tired eulogies. Much of this year’s anniversary festivities have been met with understandable cynicism as a result. The 50th birthday of the genre has been all of that in spades: plenty of reason to party, with even more problems to face once the speakers turn down and the lights turn on. Hip-hop was always rooted in the party: a place to enjoy good vibes, to embrace the moment, to celebrate despite troubles that aren’t going anywhere. Photo-Illustration: Vulture Photos: Backwoodz Studioz, Getty ![]()
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