A Hip Hop Story

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A Hip-Hop Story By Kevin Powell which I still own—and drove my mom nuts as I quickly Hip-hop has always been about making memorized those corny, yet catchy rhymes. something out of little or nothing. Few knew that I have literally come of age along with hip- something would become the biggest pop music hop, from the tight-fitting jeans I once wore (a innovation since rock and roll in the 1950s. Hip- different color for every day of the week), to the hop was born in New York City in the mid-1970s African medallions we proudly displayed in the late as a vehicle for inner-city youth to throw parties Eighties; from those below-the-behind balloon jeans on their blocks and at area clubs, and for them to of the mid-Nineties, to the expensive, name-brand make money as DJs and promoters. Early hip-hop clothes many of us hip-hop heads now prefer. was largely a “throw-your-hands-in-the-air” music, Like rock and roll before it, hip-hop has taking its cues from the funk of James Brown and literally transformed youth culture worldwide. And Parliament-Funkadelic. However, hip-hop remained just as rock created entire industries around its largely ignored outside of New York City until the fall energies—record labels, promoters, magazines like of 1979 when the crossover success of the Sugar Hill Rolling Stone, and, of course, “rock journalists”— Gang’s “Rapper’s Delight” brought hip-hop national many of us in love with hip-hop have benefited from and international attention. It wasn’t long before hip- this art form’s infiltration into the bloodstream of hop pioneers like Afrika Bambaataa, Grandmaster American life. I certainly owe my career as a music Flash, and Kurtis Blow were making records. writer, and specifically, as a hip-hop journalist, to this Now a billion-dollar industry, hip-hop phenomenon. has become the voice of young people on the In a sense, rock and hip-hop are kindred planet breaking down racial, ethnic, gender, class, spirits. Both are rooted in black music and language, language, and regional barriers. Hip-hop is manifest both came to dominate the American pop culture everywhere, pushing the sales of entities as different landscape, and both, because they have been able as high profile designers and soft drinks, and turning to reinvent themselves time and again, are with us rappers into box-office stars. Like rock and roll in the forever. n 1950s, hip-hop has become the great cultural bridge in these times—it is the pop culture of young America today. Hip-hop is and has been a part of my life The Sugar Hill Gang since that momentous fall 1979 day when I first heard the Sugar Hill Gang’s “Rapper’s Delight” on a New York City radio station. I knew that people “rapped” on the streets, at block parties, yet my boyish mind never gave the concept much thought. But to hear a speaking pattern from around the way, as we say, on the airwaves was nothing short of miraculous to me. I bought a 45rpm of “Rapper’s Delight” for 99 cents— VISIT EDU.ROCKHALL.COM FOR MORE RESOURCES. © 2018 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame 1.

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