Main picture • Honoree Kendrick Lamar, with Cardi B at the Grammy last February. • Frazer Harrison/Getty Images
The shoes we wear, the hairstyles we would like to have, the language we try to imitate: 50 years after its creation, hip-hop shapes our everyday lives like no other genre.
It was actually an ordinary party that Cindy Campbell organized in a rented party room on the south side of Manhattan’s Lower East Side. The special thing about it: Her brother Clive, later also known as DJ Kool Herc, put on a few records. A friend of his moderated over his music and was one of the first MCs (“Masters of Ceremonies”). That happened on August 11, 1973 in the New York Bronx and is now considered the birth of the hip-hop genre, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary today.
In 1980, the Sugar Hill Gang brought the genre to a wider audience for the first time with their song “Rapper’s Delight”. In the early 1980s, rappers such as Run DMC, LL Cool J and the Beastie Boys achieved their first commercial and international success. Today, the music industry cannot be imagined without hip-hop, what was once a political minority subculture has entered the commercialized heart of pop culture. Nicki Minaj, Drake, Post Malone, Tyler the Creator are just a few of the artists who consistently make the US Billboard Top 100 charts. The following list makes it clear in which varieties hip-hop manifests itself in pop culture – far beyond the borders of the USA.
Hood Politics
Shortly after its creation, hip-hop became the political platform for the black minority in the United States. In their texts, artists such as Public Enemy, NWA, Childish Gambino and Kendrick Lamar tell of police violence, life in poorer neighborhoods in American cities characterized by street violence, or a nationwide discriminatory drug policy that means that black children often have to grow up fatherless. Lauryn Hill, Missy Elliot and Little Simz drew attention to the sexism of the genre and the discrimination against black women. Hip-hop has helped make these discourses more inclusive. The genre received international recognition in an institutionalized form for this cultural achievement at the latest in 2018, when Kendrick Lamar was the first rapper ever to be awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Music for his album “Damn”. The Pulitzer Committee said it was a virtuoso collection of songs filled with “haunting snapshots that capture the complexities of modern African-American life.”
2023-08-09 06:27:36
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