Hip hop hits 50 as powerful tool for Black Americans

Fifty years after it was created in New York City’s Bronx borough, hip hop is a multi-billion dollar industry that doubles as a powerful political tool for Black Americans.

The music for a half-century has highlighted the experiences that Black, Brown and poor people face in America, and has operated as a breaking news service of sorts — often ahead of the rest of the media — in drawing attention to injustice and police brutality.

It’s also become a global phenomenon, which Harvey Mason Jr., the CEO of the Recording Academy, says is because it is an art form that can be understood globally.

“Hip hop has absolutely put a voice to a lot of issues that many groups of people have had. It’s been everything from a political tool, a power that can make people pay attention. It’s been a lesson, history teacher, has been a future prognosticator, it’s been an outlet, a way for people to fantasize and imagine or aspire to things. It’s been so many things to so many people,” Mason told The Hill. 

“There’s a lot of different communities, constituencies that can listen to it and find some commonality, the humanity of it, and the shared human experience of hip hop music goes across borders, it goes across socioeconomic fences, it goes to people that might not be living in the same community where the music is coming from, but there’s something about it that resonates.” 

Hip hop is unique in that there is no one specific way to create its music. It can incorporate hard beats, rapid-fire lyrics, DJs spinning on turntables, sampling and so much more; even breakdancing and visual art is part of the genre.

DJ Kool Herc, a Jamaican immigrant, is credited as the founding father of hip hop.

In 1973, he and his sister hosted the “Back to School Jam,” and Herc began spinning the same record on twin turntables, toggling between them to isolate and extend percussion breaks.

The importance of the genre is, for many, embedded in the artists themselves. 

For Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.), hip hop filled a gap in his life from the time he was a young boy. 

“Hip hop is my life. It’s literally an art form and culture that raised me ever since I was about seven or eight years old,” Bowman told The Hill. “I didn’t grow up with a father, so many of the artists were like father figures to me, and really gave me the intellectual, social and political blueprint that I lived by as a kid growing up and and I live by now as a member of Congress. It’s been everything. It’s the father I never had, pretty much.”

Revolt CEO Detavio Samuels referred to hip hop as the anchor to his life, telling The Hill that he listened growing up in Colorado to Tupac Shakur, DMX, Wu-Tang Clan and Jay-Z before dabbling in rap himself and releasing his own album.

Revolt is a media company founded by hip hop mogul Sean “P. Diddy” Combs. 

“You know, I’m a child of the 80s and 90s and so as hip hop is going from what people think is going to be a fad to the globalization of this incredible cultural phenomenon, like that’s my childhood,” Samuels said. “And so hip hop was the soundtrack to my life, it impacted everything that I do from the music I listen to, to the clothes that I wear, to the words that I use to how articulate and communicate hip hop has been core to my beings since I was probably like, seven years old.”

Bowman said he often thinks of one of the first hip hop songs — “The Message” by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five — for what it was telling American about itself.

“It’s really important to discuss hip hop not just as an art form — which in and of itself is incredibly powerful — but as a political force. It has always been,” said Bowman. 

“The Message” chronicled what life was like in the New York neighborhoods where the group grew up and lived.

“Broken glass everywhere, people pissin’ on the stairs, you know they just don’t care. I can’t take the smell, can’t take the noise. Got no money to move out, I guess I got no choice,” the artist raps. 

The song’s last line — “a child is born with no state of mind, blind to the ways of mankind” — is now in the Library of Congress.

“It was born from neglect and marginalization and policy that defunded public education within redlining communities that were also devalued,” Bowman said. “It was born within a political context, so in that context, it has to be viewed and discussed and understood through a political lens.”

Hip hop has been controversial since its inception, with many often criticizing its lyrics as overtly sexual, violent or misogynistic. 

“Rap is targeted because it’s rap and because it’s people of color, men of color, but it’s also targeted because that’s also a genre that is probably the most popular genre in the world,” said Bowman. “And there’s power in that, and not just financial power and economic power, but also political power, and that’s another reason why that target remains on the backs of rappers.”

Artists such as Young Thug, Gunna and the Young Stoner Life (YSL) crew have had their lyrics used against them in a court of law when they were hit with RICO charges. 

But this infringes upon artists’ First Amendment rights, advocates say — and there’s also a bias that’s cropping up in whose lyrics are being used.

“We know there’s this inherent bias around Black music, and hip hop artists specifically,” Mason said. “So the idea that they would be using those types of lyrics or that type of a bias to prejudicially potentially incarcerate or accuse someone of a crime based on using their art form, as evidence is just unacceptable.”

Bowman added that other genres of music can also have dark and even violent undertones, but the bias around rap artists rests in the bias around Black communities in general. 

“Because of our historic discrimination and bias and racism towards Black people, what we know, is structurally, prosecutors and juries view rap lyrics more as commentary, as documentation, of what that particular artists has done,” he said.

The recording academy has been working with rap artists to protect them. Bowman and Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.) earlier this year reintroduced the Restoring Artistic Protection Act, or the RAP Act.

The legislation would limit the use of evidence of an artist’s creative or artistic expression against them in court. When the bill was reintroduced, Bowman and Johnson were joined by the Black Music Action Coalition, the Recording Academy, the Black Music Collective and SAG-AFTRA. 

More broadly, the wider music industry is taking care to honor hip hop’s 50^th anniversary.

The recording academy this year closed the Grammy’s with a 12-minute homage to rap, with artists like Grandmaster Flash, Run DMC,  Flavor Flav,  Ice-T, and Jay-Z. For years, such artists did not get primetime play with the Grammys. Grandmaster Flash is also now in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

More celebrations will take place throughout the year, Mason said, including a two-hour special.

“We haven’t always done everything exactly right around the genre, and I’m pretty sure we’ll make other mistakes and I’m going to try not to,” he added. “We are very aware of the importance of hip hop and the community around that genre of music and how influential they are, how important they are and how we have to accurately honor and represent them going forward. So it’s going to be this year, but it’s also going to continue on into the future.”

Bowman said the Congressional Black Caucus’s annual legislative conference will have a variety of parties recognizing the 50th anniversary of hip hop, along with panel discussions about how the culture is leaning into building political power. 

Bowman is also in the process of creating the first Congressional Hip Hop Caucus as well. 

“It’s really important to discuss hip hop not just as an art form — which in and of itself is incredibly powerful — but as a political force. It has always bee. It was born from neglect and marginalization and policy that defunded public education within redlining communities that were also devalued. It was born within a political context, so in that context, it has to be viewed and discussed and understood through a political lens.”

Olafimihan Oshin contributed to this article.