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#HipHopForever Is More Than a Hashtag to Me
40 years in, Gen X grapples with how hip-hop has changed — and where it goes from here
“Hip-hop started out in the park.”
Amidst the distant harbor lights, a new narrative arose to explain an emerging culture in 1970s New York City. Cyphers on corners, beat-boxers at bus stops, and break-dancers on cardboard-covered sidewalks colored the city’s streets with neo-expressionist aesthetics. Throwing their hands in the air with little care, marginalized, forgotten Black and Latinx youth innovated an approach to surviving the concrete jungle without completely losing their heads. They rapped truth to power, danced unshackled to freedom’s rhythm, and painted powerful images of a utopian society free of racism, classism, and xenophobia. Though their revolutionary genius has since permeated every corner of the globe, it was in the alleyways, on the parks and basketball courts, and in the jam-packed community centers of New York City that these youth created one of the most important cultural phenomena that the world has ever known: hip-hop.
I was born in Queens, New York, in the spring of 1979, a few months before Sugar Hill Gang hit the Billboard Hot Soul Singles chart with their groundbreaking song “Rapper’s Delight”.* My parents were 20-somethings who liked to party, occasionally fight the power, and do their best impression of adults who had their shit together.
Times were tough and money was tight for our unconventional family, but we weren’t alone — everyone was trying to make a dollar out of 15 cents, stay legit, and still pay their rent. They gravitated toward functions where people in the same situation could be themselves and have a good time when good times were hard to come by. I’ve been hip-hop since day one, and it was nearly impossible for any person born in the late ’70s New York City to not be influenced and shaped by hip-hop in some way.
Before hitting the charts, hip-hop music had made its way through the city’s underground passageways. On August 11, 1973, hip-hop pioneer D.J. Kool Herc (born Clive Campbell) hosted a “Back-To-School” jam at 1520 Sedgwick Avenue in the Bronx, New York City’s northernmost borough, and a new culture was born. Rapper (Keef) Cowboy of the Furious Five was the first to call it “hip-hop,” and he used its phonetic sound in his own rapping style. The term caught on and people began to use “hip-hop” to describe the sights and sounds of this underground movement.
[Hip-hop] carried on the tradition of beautiful Black bravado. It reaffirmed our status as creative geniuses and cultural architects.
In its earliest years, party-rocking DJ sets, boom-bapping rap battles, breakneck dance-offs, and avant garde graffiti tagging became young people’s alternative outlets to express their frustration, angst, and rage. “Hip-hop gave a voice to the voiceless,” says Cashawn Thompson, 45, creator of #BlackGirlsAreMagic and a Washington, D.C., native. “It made people who would have otherwise disregarded and dismissed us pay attention,” she says. “It carried on the tradition of beautiful Black bravado. It reaffirmed our status as creative geniuses and cultural architects. It proved once again the enormity and importance of our ability to create art.”
Herc and pioneer peers like Grandmaster Flash, The Furious Five and The Cold Crush Brothers developed not only an entirely new genre of music, but also a necessary intervention at a time when violence in the city was at an all-time high. The economy struggled to rebound after the Vietnam War, and returning veterans were left with few sustainable options to support their families, leaving women and children to struggle in neighborhoods that were crumbling and literally burning to the ground. Police corruption left communities feeling unprotected and underserved, and drugs were flooding the streets as city gangs drew bloody outlines of their budding empires.
Instead of enacting violence on each other and on themselves, some opted to get creative and focus on profiting from their artistry rather than become outlaws. For youth who needed something better to do than sell drugs or get caught up in gangs, but who struggled to find sustainable legitimate employment, hosting and promoting hip-hop parties quickly became a lucrative endeavor. “Hip-hop further encouraged the tradition of upward strivings that had been present in middle class Black environments, as well as the capitalist individualism that presents in Black middle and lower class environments,” says Dr. Tanji Gilliam, MFA, Director of Planning for Generation hip-hop and strategic planner for the Universal Hip-Hop Museum in New York.
After a few years, though, hip-hop was no longer limited to underground parties and word-of-mouth promotion. “For so many of us, hip-hop provided an opportunity for a way out of what has, at times, seemed to be insurmountable odds and conditions,” says Doug Simpson, a 43-year-old music producer (Grownish, Fast & Furious franchise, One Bedroom) and Bronx native. Hip-hop offered a generation of systematically disenfranchised people opportunities in entrepreneurship and encouraged them to believe that the American dream was actually theirs to achieve.
DJs were being hired to spin at world-class events and being offered production deals. MCs emerged as linguistic architects and hip-hop’s language began permeating everyday conversations of those outsiders who wanted to appear hip and cool. Dance crews that were once gathering mostly at parks and competing for the crown at those parties began appearing in mainstream films and music videos. TAKI 183, a New York-based graffiti artist, grabbed the first New York Times feature on the artform in 1971, paving the way for graffiti artists like Jean-Michel Basquiat (originally part of the tagging duo SAMO©) to have their work featured in New York’s art galleries and be co-signed by famous artists like Andy Warhol and Martha Cooper.
It was in 1979, though, that hip-hop landed on mainstream charts (with the help of people like Sylvia Robinson, founder of Sugar Hill Records), and people living above ground began to take note.
Shannon Wade, 52, says, “Hip-hop developed during a time period when mainstream music was stagnant, and it felt like a totally new form. It was accessible to those who were shut out of big label music, and took full advantage of that freedom.” In cities across the United States, and eventually the world, hip-hop’s messages resonated with those who faced struggles similar to those of the pioneers from New York. Los Angeles rappers had stories to tell about gang life and police brutality. Miami rappers made club anthems to keep people shaking and moving. Philadelphia schooled us on hip-hop royalty. And ATLiens gave us Cadillac-bouncing grooves and cookout classics.
As more artists landed record deals and began making popular music videos, hip-hop’s reach expanded, making it more accessible to people around the world. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, hip-hop took hold of our cultural consciousness and there was no turning back — every iconic thing that came out of the Golden Age (1987 to 1996) solidified that hip-hop was here to stay.
Its treatment of women, specifically Black women, has been hip-hop’s biggest hindrance to functioning as a powerful tool for collective liberation.
Posdnuos/Plug One (born Kelvin Mercer), one-third of the legendary hip-hop group De La Soul and my favorite rapper of all time, knows hip-hop. At 49, the Bronx-born, Long-Island-bred MC has been immersed in the culture as an artist for over 30 years and continues to perform for stadium crowds around the world. As part of one of the longest-standing, most successful hip-hop groups in history, it’s hard for him to imagine life without it. “Hip-hop has had a hold on my life all these years because it’s my job,” he joked in a private message via Instagram. He says hip-hop has been a way to express himself and it’s “been used to relay messages to me and others who are born and bred from its coding. It’s brought my attention to social and economic issues that I believe in, as well as plights I learned about for the first time through an MC’s verse.”
In such a tricky, multi-faceted culture, one that both educated and demonstrated — and convinced us that bitches weren’t shit but hoes and tricks — my connection to it is complicated. Hip-hop is far from being beyond reproach, and its treatment of women, specifically Black women, has been its biggest hindrance to functioning as a powerful tool for collective liberation. Along with rampant homophobia, capitalist infiltration, and a disconnect from its origins, hip-hop continues to struggle to elevate beyond the conditions that created it. However, hip-hop’s transformations over the years have sparked important and necessary public conversations about racism, sexism, queerphobia, and other societal plagues. And with the advent of social media and developments in technology, people continue to find a home in the culture as creators, consumers, scholars, and entrepreneurs.
My introduction to feminism came through hip-hop music. Hearing Salt-N-Pepa tell me that I could shake my thang however I wanted to, and Queen Latifah telling me I was a queen — it was life-changing. Lil’ Kim and Missy Elliott taught me that it was perfectly fine to enjoy sex and be open and proud of my sexuality. Hearing women battle rap men (and win!) was so inspiring because for so long, guys around the way acted like women were lyrically inferior by default. Adding “female” in front of “MC” suggested that the MC was supposed to be a man and being a woman who rapped was a novelty.
It doesn’t help that so many of the lyrics heard by men in classic jams are derogatory toward women, and while I danced along when I was younger, I’ve found it increasingly difficult to enjoy hip-hop music on the radio because of how saturated it is with anti-woman and anti-LGBTQ hatefulness. Unfortunately, massive damage has been done, and too many of us grew up developing negative ideas about how women should be thought of and treated as a result of hip-hop’s messaging.
For many who contributed to this piece, misogyny was cited as the biggest problem with hip-hop music and culture.
“As an American-born art form, hip-hop inherited some of the worst of this nation’s cultural traits as it relates to misogyny and patriarchy,” says Takiyah Nur Amin, PhD, a 40-year-old Black woman from Philadelphia who studies dance culture. “At the same time I’ve heard, seen, and been lifted up and liberated by a hip-hop culture that affirmed me, challenged me, and encouraged me. I am lucky enough to remember a time when I heard a lot of women’s voices in the form pretty regularly — that was a healthy thing for me and showed me I could be more than any one thing.”
#BlackGirlsAreMagic’s Thompson says she became enamored with hip-hop when she first heard Salt-N-Pepa on the radio. “Hearing women rap told me that it was truly for me too,” she says. “The misogynoir — Black women-specific misogyny — that bubbled to the surface of hip-hop has been some of the ugliest I’ve ever seen, but it has never turned me off from the genre.”
For many who contributed to this piece, misogyny was cited as the biggest problem with hip-hop music and culture, and it’s clear that the gratuitous lyrical degradation of women has become quite a deterrent for a lot of folks who grew up listening to it in its early years. Universal Hip-Hop Museum’s Gilliam adds, “It’s a patriarchal culture and can be extremely violent towards women. [Hip-hop] has not been very responsible with women.”
Though she was born in Detroit, Bianca O., 40, has lived mostly in Nigeria, where hip-hop has been wildly popular and newer artists like Wizkid and Burna Boy are becoming household names. She says that while hip-hop “has definitely spread Black [American] culture (i.e. fashion, speech) to the rest of the world, and has been really great outlet for Black people to tell their stories” there has been “too much objectification of women [which] has definitely led to the way women are addressed in the community.” She hopes to see less misogyny and more opportunities for women to succeed, and laments the scarcity of openly LGBTQ artists still, in 2019.
Al-Lateef Farmer, a 40-year-old college advisor from Plainfield, New Jersey, says that “hip-hop has done a terrible disservice to women, Black women in particular. Women have been reduced to conquests and less in many cases. However, there has been a place for women’s voices in hip-hop, and many of the most powerful have been these voices. But, the commodification of hip-hop often places sexuality over talent and message when it comes to women [artists].”
Simpson, the music producer, believes a change is coming. “Now, we are starting to see women expressing themselves through this creative process and sharing their truths with us. We still have work to do, but I love where we seem to be heading.”
Mayor Cooley, a 45-year-old Black man from South Central, Los Angeles, grew up proud to see Black people representing themselves, especially at the beginning. “When the so called ‘pro-Black’ era was in effect, hip-hop was the greatest thing in the world,” he says. “We were being taught about our Black culture and history in a rhythmic way that made the knowledge stick to your brain like Now and Laters candy stick to your teeth.” Like many others, he laments that there seems to be a lack of an educational focus in hip-hop music today, and wishes for a “reawakening,” a renaissance, perhaps.
Though it began with Black and Latinx youth in New York City, hip-hop’s rapid expansion has touched nearly every race and ethnicity in the world. It quickly became a go-to resource for those hell-bent on raging against the machine, and white youth, in the U.S. especially, gravitated toward early rock collaborations, gangster rap from the West Coast, and of course, Eminem, the popular white battle rapper from Detroit who dominated the charts in the early 21st century.
Eric Boylston, a white man from Colorado who turns 40 this year, notes, “[Hip-hop] has been a great way for people to know more about black urban culture and get a perspective that one might not ever get,” but he adds “Many of the kids I knew in school who were white kids adopting hip-hop tended to be bullying, aggressive, and used substances. Not saying that’s the music’s fault; it was more like these kids saw these elements of the culture and took them for their own.”
There has been quite a bit of debate over the years about whether or not non-Black and Latinx people can engage in hip-hop culture without it being a form of cultural appropriation. While we have definitely seen many cartoonish acts rise to fame, we have also been blessed with talented, authentic, respectful artists who represent hip-hop as a culture. When thinking of hip-hop artists like The Beastie Boys, Rick Rubin (Def Jam), graffiti artist TAKI 183, and DJ Stretch Armstrong, for instance, the impact is undeniable.
There is hardly a place one can travel to, where the people had access to radio and television, where one can’t feel the impact of hip-hop culture in some way.
These were folks who grew up as exposed to hip-hop as the rest of us, so even though they may not have experienced racialized oppression, or even the same levels of economic disenfranchisement, they came into their own appreciation for the art form by circumstance, and became artists in their own right.
“I hear white boys blasting hip-hop on their car stereos more than any other music form,” says Dr. Angela Gyurko, a 51-year-old white woman who became immersed in hip-hop in 1980s New York. “I hear this in areas that I know voted for Trump for President, and I am struck by their love of the music, but apparent voting dislike of the people who make the music.”
Forty years ago, New York City was poised to export arguably the greatest cultural phenomenon of modern times, and its pioneers knew — they had to know — they were on the brink of one of the greatest movements the world would ever know. Hip-hop’s tremendous, sustainable impact and influence over the last four decades doesn’t show signs of letting up.
Simpson notes that “Hip-hop and urban culture has had such an immense global impact — it has done everything from influence and color other genres of music to help global brands speak to and connect with individuals and communities who grew up on hip-hop and are now entering the consumer market.”
There is hardly a place one can travel to, where the people had access to radio and television, where one can’t feel the impact of hip-hop culture in some way.
My passion for documenting hip-hop’s origins, evolution, and impact, along with being a self-proclaimed “daughter of hip-hop culture,” has inspired my writing for more than two decades. In the 40 years since hip-hop hit the mainstream airwaves and charts, there is little that has remained untouched by the culture. We may not have had the theoretical framework or academic language to understand and communicate exactly what was happening when it was coming together early on, but colleges and universities now offer classes in hip-hop cultural origins, and scholars like Tricia Rose, Mark Anthony Neal, and S. Craig Watkins have made invaluable hip-hop-inspired contributions to academia.
It’s the love of hip-hop — which flows through the veins of those of us who honor its origins and revere its impact — that keeps the culture alive.
The music industry has undergone tremendous changes, and for some of us, it feels like hip-hop has largely fallen victim to the capitalist control it once rallied against. You’d be hard-pressed to find a brand that hasn’t relied on some element of hip-hop culture to market their products and connect with audiences. Hip-hop’s presence in professional sports has been driven by the athletes who grew up in the culture and sports reporters often rely on urban, hip-hop-related language to deliver their commentary. Fashion houses regularly infuse hip-hop styles into their designs, occasionally stealing from lesser-known innovators who continue to languish in the margins. Even the most popular white “influencers” on YouTube and Instagram can be found co-opting and often appropriating hip-hop culture for views and likes.
Maybe it’s the old head in me, but I struggle with connecting to a lot of what’s coming out of the youngest hip-hop generation. However, I think the same can be said for anyone who reaches a certain age and has a particular fondness for a specific type of music; sometimes, it feels unrecognizable to those of us born into its first generation. This doesn’t mean it’s automatically bad or doesn’t have its place; the youngest generation doesn’t know a world without hip-hop, and it’s their right to embody it as they see fit.
While I’ve personally found myself disinterested in a lot of what’s floating up and down the mainstream airwaves, my commitment to scouring the underground keeps me hopeful for the future of the art. I see vibrant signs of life in the hashtagged dance challenges that take over Instagram and SnapChat, and hip-hop dance continues to thrive in those spaces. And there are visual artists and filmmakers who have been influenced by hip-hop culture, as it shows up in their paintings, photographs, films, and television shows. Hip-hop nostalgia is great for keeping Generation X interested in newer projects, but how long will that “ole skool” quality last? “Hip-hop influenced my drive to add more quality to its lanes of quantity, so I can do my part in taking care of the culture the way it has for me,” says Posdnuos, who adds that he continues to make hip-hop music because of his “undying love” for it.
For many Gen Xers, when hip-hop has been at its best, it’s brought about consciousness, representation, pride, and joy. At its worst, hip-hop has glorified the darkest parts of us and cost too many of us our lives. It’s the love of hip-hop — which flows through the veins of those of us who honor its origins and revere its impact — that keeps the culture alive.
It’s the appreciation for the trails blazed by pioneers who changed the entire world through their beats, rhymes, and lives.
And it’s the understanding that if hip-hop can survive Reaganomics, 9/11, and our 45th president, hip-hop can survive for eternity. However, in the interest of cultural preservation, those of us who were made in hip-hop’s image must continue to tell the stories and keep the truth alive for future generations.
I stand firm in my affirmation that hip-hop is here to stay, and sometimes, we just need to be reminded not to take for granted the things that have made us who we are. #HipHop4ever
*NOTE: “Rapper’s Delight” was recorded by the three members of Sugar Hill Gang (Michael “Wonder Mike” Wright, Henry “Big Hank” Jackson, and Guy “Master Gee” O’Brien) but there has been controversy around the song itself. Curtis Fisher, better known as Grandmaster Caz, a former member of The Cold Crush Brothers, claims that Jackson, who was once his manager, plagiarized Caz’s raps for his own verse on the song. The downside of being underground meant having little legal protection and ownership of one’s creative outputs, and “biting” (the act of stealing someone’s beats or raps) wasn’t uncommon. Had Jackson actually changed the song’s lyrics to not include Caz’s alternative stage name, “Casanova Fly,” we might believe he actually wrote it himself.
