At first glance, one might think
I’m out of touch with hip hop in giving it its 50
th birthday props a
year late and on the eve of its 51st. But fret not music
historians: I am fully aware of its inception especially since hip hop and I came
into the world in the same year, same month, a mere 17 days apart. However, I
approached the recognition of both milestones similarly: with no over-the-top celebrations
or blowout events, much to the surprise of family and friends. Now don’t get me
wrong: I did use an annual gala headlined by hip-hop legends a few days before
my birthday to “turn up” if you will, which was actually perfect as it embodied
the two things that best define me: having a good time and giving back. But, for
reasons I’m not able to fully articulate, some things just seem too big to
possibly ruin with an all-encompassing celebration that might not meet the
magnitude of the moment and diminish the beauty of prolonged reflection of all
that’s been gained. Which is exactly how I feel about hip hop….
Like life, the long, layered, complex
history of hip hop is made of so many milestones—super highs and devastating
lows—that defined and catapulted its existence from its August 11th inception in
the Bronx to the universal main stage. From its first recognition by the
Grammys in 1989 (with DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince’s win for Best Rap
Performance for their hit single, "Parents Just Don't Understand) to Jordan
'Juicy J' Houston’s Oscar win for Best Original Song in 2006 (with "It's
Hard out Here for a Pimp" from 'Hustle & Flow) to it first induction
into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2007 (with Grandmaster Flash and the
Furious Five), hip hop has always poised itself to “shake the table.”
And
then there would be those milestones we might take for granted but that were
equally as pivotal in bringing hip hop to the masses starting with 1983’s Wild
Style—regarded as hip hop’s’ first motion picture—, 1984’s Breakin’ and Beat
Street, and 1985’s Krush Groove, all laying the eventual profitable groundwork
for hip hop on the big screen, as reflected in recent years with 2015’s
Straight Outta Compton that amassed $60.2 million dollars at the box office its
opening weekend. And it’s no doubting that hip hop’s charm on the big screen ushered
in its presence on the small screen as well with the emergence of Smith
headlining the iconic Fresh Prince of Bel Air sitcom in 1990 thus opening the
door for Queen Latifah’s Living Single in 1993 and LL Cool J ‘s In The House in
1995.
And if we’re continuing to talk firsts, we can’t forget the ladies who birthed
a new kind of life into hip hop from pioneers like rapping trio The Sequence fronted by rapper-turned-singer Angie Stone to Roxanne Shante, credited with
spittin’ the first diss track with “Roxanne’s Revenge” in response to UTFOs
“Roxanne Roxanne,” to again the Queen herself (Latifah) as the first hip hop artist to own
a production company, host a talk show, and be nominated for an Academy Award.
Mic drop literally. However, like the oft painful unpredictability of life, there also would be those loses along the way toward building a legacy that felt personal and that changed the course of its history forever from the murders of Pac and Big to the untimely passings of Heavy D and Dilla and Phife and Prodigy and Left Eye and so many of our countless hip hop Kings and Queens in between.
Yet, if there were ever any doubt of the influence that hip hop has on the world, look no further than this year’s 2024 Summer Olympics, where breaking (breakdancing) officially debuted as a competitive sport and whose global impact is so wide the final battle would see an African dancer representing France battling an Asian dancer representing Canada, with the latter taking it all for the win.
But even with such milestones under its gold-plated name belt, hip hop has continued to evolve and expand, rise and fall, be celebrated and criticized, but throughout it all continue to grow as we make space for newer artists who—although some of us Golden Age of Hip Hop heads have not fully embraced them, just like at a family reunion—we welcome them to bring something to the table and we’ll just figure out where it belongs when it gets there.
And just like at any family reunion where the love of community and fellowship is enhanced through the exploration of shared experiences is why the question “When did you fall in love with hip hop?” will always be an ample conversation starter, debate generator, and instant accelerator for a welcomed trip down memory lane. And so, before I conclude, I’ll answer it myself….
Being a Washington, D.C. native, go-go music is a part of our heartbeats from cradle to grave; a sound most of us 70s DMV babies actually can’t remember life without and, indeed, our first loves. So when this new “rap” sound with its rhymes and TR-808 percussions blasted out of our stereos, it felt intoxicatingly rebellious, which made us pre-teens all the more curious, including yours truly. Enter Stetsasonic’s 1986 “On Fire” album and its explicit B-side feature “Faye.”
For reasons I’ll never know, D.C.’s WOL radio station latched on to the sleeper track and would play it regularly—late night—after spinning all of the current R&B and go-go jams of the day. With nothing more than playful rhymes from group members Daddy-O and Wise over beat boxing and with no instrumentation until their final bars when a campy Caribbean melody drops in, it could easily be one of the most simply produced hip hop songs to date notwithstanding Doug E. Fresh and Slick Rick’s “La Di Da Di” that dropped a year prior. And yet word about it in our pre-teen circles traveled fast, prompting me like many of my counterparts to sit patiently by our boom boxes (at minimum volume and out of earshot of our parents, of course) with our fingers hovered over the play and record buttons, waiting to capture it as our very own forbidden keepsake.
Til this day, I can rap the entire song without missing a beat (don’t ask me to. I had no business being able to do so then; I definitely don’t now. LOL). But everything about it opened the portal that hooked me to hip hop from its colorful storytelling to its genius recreation of classics (now known as “samples”) that rebirthed and gave new life to classic hits and unknown gems. Yet while Stetasonic opened the door, it should be no surprise from a D.C. native that Salt-N-Pepa’s 1987 “My Mic Sounds Nice”—one of the first hip hop songs to pay homage to go-go—solidified my relationship with the genre that would become the soundtrack to a lifetime of magical moments that shaped who I am today. And I don’t see us breaking up anytime soon….
So, again, with so much to behold in hip hop, I asked myself, how does one even begin to celebrate it? I did so exactly how I acknowledged my birthday: in deep, year-long reverence and gratitude for all of the many milestones and accomplishments achieved on the road to 50 with a toast to the next semicentennial being even greater than the last.
Mega producer Pharrell once said, “Don’t wait for the stars to align, reach up and arrange them the way you want [and] create your own constellation.” Not only does that sum up how I’ve curated my first five decades on earth, but it perfectly defines hip hop’s mark on the world: a 50-year constellation; illuminated through music, art, and dance; shaping and redefining culture; bold; daring; dimming its light for no one; every bright, ever shining, and whose impact and reach cannot be measured in one lifetime let alone on one day. Just like life. But for the one-time—from 1520 Sedgwick Avenue to Norway; from the Sugar Hill Gang to EarthGang; and from boom boxes to digital platforms, Happy Birthday Hip Hop! Don’t you dare stop.
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