Hip-hop legends and fans convened in New York City this weekend to celebrate 50 years of the music they love most. The city hosted the Hip Hop 50 Live concert at Yankee Stadium, which featured performances from Run-DMC, Snoop Dogg, Eve, the Wu-Tang Clan, Nas and more (including a surprise appearance from Lauryn Hill).
Run-DMC performed a set that might truly be their last concert ever (they previously stated that their final performance would be at Madison Square Garden in early 2023).
The group opened with “Rock Box” before Rev. Joseph “Run” Simmons asked the crowd, “How many people out there came to see Run-DMC? How many people from the old school had the cassette tapes? … Talking about my old-school people, people that know ‘Peter Piper’ and ‘My Adidas.’”
The concert isn’t the only way hip-hop is being celebrated this month. On Aug. 1, Men’s Health released its September cover featuring Busta Rhymes, Method Man and 50 Cent.
The outlet captioned an Instagram post featuring the cover, “In the words of Public Enemy lead rapper Chuck D, hip-hop has been the ‘CNN of the ghetto.’ It has given voice to the voiceless, amplifying the biggest issues facing Black America over the last five decades.”
The caption continued, “To honor the musical genre’s 50th anniversary of such a cultural revolution, we decided to revisit key moments in the intersection of hip-hop and Black men’s health using six global superstars — and some of the biggest names in the music industry — as our guides. You might recognize them: Busta Rhymes, Method Man, 50 Cent, Common, Wiz Khalifa, and Ludacris. … Our special Hip-Hop Is Life series shows exactly how this music not only changed people’s lives, but in many cases, saved them as well.”
On Aug. 7, Rolling Stone released an interview with Wu-Tang’s RZA, who spoke about where he believes hip-hop is at 50 years after its inception. As he put it, “We’re at the base of the mountain, not at the top. Somebody tweeted recently that ‘we are still not aligned.’ I think we need to align.”
He continued, “Maybe get some of the godfathers to come together and talk about what we’re going to do with this culture, and how we’re going to protect it, preserve it, and advance it.”
RZA also told the outlet that he believes hip-hop has proven those who didn’t believe in the culture wrong. He said, “People thought hip-hop was just youth culture. We had no examples like rock & roll, where you have the Rolling Stones playing into their seventies, or the Eagles or Earth, Wind, and Fire.”
He added, “The brothers you just named, Nas, Jay-Z, Wu-Tang, Busta, Joey Cracks, Outkast, pioneered this global success. Not taking nothing from Run-D.M.C. or Rakim and all of them, who also [pioneered hip-hop in the eighties], but it was the nineties when the constant multiplatinums just kept coming.”
New York City also toasted the anniversary by hosting a series of block parties in all five of the city’s boroughs. If the birthplace of hip-hop could be pinned down to a spot on a map, most experts would agree it’s the rec room at 1520 Sedgewick Avenue in the Bronx.
It was here that the little sister of Clive Campbell, who is better known as DJ Kool Herc, asked her brother to help her emcee a party in August 1973 so she could buy some clothes.
Herc is the man who developed the Merry-Go-Round emceeing technique, which is the term for when a DJ switches from break to break to break, often at the peak of a party. He showed it off that night. Saturday’s block party was particularly special because it took place back where it all truly began.
