Black History Month: How Hip-Hop Changed America’s Culture Forever

Welcome to Black History Month 2023, with Diversity Explained. This is the fourth and final article in our BHM series, which explores fascinating stories of Black excellence in American history. Each week I reflect on different dimensions of Black life – politics, business, the arts – and explore critical figures in their development.

What hip-hop has meant to me

This year at the GRAMMY Awards, millions of viewers watched as the event honored the last 50 years of hip-hop in America.

The segment turned into a runway for some of the genre’s biggest names and innovators: Run DMC, LL Cool J, The Roots, Salt-N-Pepa, Public Enemy, Busta Rhymes, Missy Elliott, Nelly and many more. It was the music so many of us grew up on over the past few decades.

Hip-hop is unique in the history of American art and in Black history. It evolved from earlier styles like jazz, funk and soul, but unlike them it grew up in the unique economic and cultural conditions of the post-Civil Rights era.

It also occupies a unique space in Black culture. As a kid, hip-hop was the one thing you had to listen to in order to fit in. It didn’t matter who you were or where you came from. Hip-hop was a common thread throughout our youth culture.

As the ‘90s progressed, hip-hop came to occupy a central place in mainstream American culture – though it had previously been defined by its outside-in perspective. Rap and hip-hop were originally seen as Black (and Latinx) art forms, beyond the reach or relevance of a majority white national culture. This led many to discount it as too modern, unmusical, and offensive.

30 years into its history, that changed. Hip-hop and rap evolved into a spectrum of new sub- and crossover genres. Mainstream audiences made stars like Dr. Dre, Jay-Z, and Drake some of the highest-paid and most-listened to entertainers in the world. Hip-hop influences every facet of American life beyond music: fashion, film/TV, language, sports, and business chief among them.

The respect we now accord hip-hop and its creators was hard fought. When I was growing up it was still viewed suspiciously, especially by white and middle-class culture. The development of gangsta rap in the late 80s and early 90s forced anyone who heard it to reckon with the economic inequality ingrained in American society. The themes in this music were purposefully (and bravely) graphic. They necessarily alienated people who didn’t understand the economic and social realities behind them.

Even in my own family, rap was viewed as a potentially confusing influence. I remember Will Smith was the first hip-hop artist I was allowed to listen to, because there were no swear words. (Not that that stopped me from branching out!) Hip-hop culture was beginning to occupy an influential space in film and television, and The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air was one of my first forays into exploring the difference between urban and suburban Black life.

When I played basketball as a teen and left the bubble of my suburban town, I came face to face with those differences. My teammates were quick to question whether I could even understand the music they were listening to, coming from where I did. As my listening repertoire grew over the years – with artists like Jay-Z, old school Kanye West, and Kendrick Lamar -– hip-hop gave (and continues to give) me a new way to explore my identity as a Black man.

I dwell on my relationship with hip-hop because I think it in some ways mirrors the broader relationship American culture has had to Black music. It has always reflected Black life and culture, and mainstream audiences have either appreciated it (and appropriated it) from a distance or struggled to figure out how to identify with it.

But now, after 50 years of hip hop, things have changed. This music influences every aspect of our society. In many ways it represents a triumph of Black cultural influence and integration. Hip-hop – and by extension, artists of color – now impact the culture from the center, not from the fringe. To understand how we got here, though, we’ve got to understand where and how hip hop was born.

The origins of hip-hop

The story of hip-hop always begins in the Bronx. In the 1970s, the Bronx could have been mistaken for a war zone. The South Bronx in particular was known to have regular fires, which decimated buildings and destabilized neighborhoods constantly. Poverty was rampant, leading to crime, gang violence, and low-to-no economic mobility.

After economic uncertainty had led many white families to leave the city, New York’s urban demographics changed. Down in Manhattan, an increasingly segregated population remained committed to revolutionary change but struggled to put it into practice. The Bronx and the other boroughs suffered from political neglect and lack of investment, while inflation soared nationwide and small business suffered.

The 1970s was also the Golden Age of disco: the never-ending party at clubs like Studio 54 stood in contrast to the poverty in the other boroughs. Which is why hip-hop didn’t grow out of the disco craze. The first hip hop DJs – DJ Kool Herc, Afrika Bambaataa, and Grandmaster Flash, known today as the pioneers of the genre – turned instead to the beats of soul and funk for their inspiration. This was first and foremost Black music created for a Black audience.

As early as 1973, DJ Kool Herc inadvertently launched a musical revolution at his now legendary “Back to School Jam,” the first hip-hop party of its kind. Herc’s innovation was to take soul and funk records and spin them so he could extend what was called “the break”. This was a section of the song that had a strong beat and no lyrics. MCs like Coke La Rock, one of Herc’s collaborators, would then rap over it, while “break boys” and girls showed off their best dance moves.

Afrika Bambaataa, who was originally a member of a major gang on the east side of the south Bronx, elaborated on this innovative dance party concept, and turned it into a community improvement mission. He launched the Universal Zulu Nation in the late 70s, using his charm and platform to compel various gang leaders to put aside their differences, end violence, and channel their energies instead into hip-hop, dance, and graffiti.

Grandmaster Flash also brought a technical expertise to spinning. He was the one who figured out how to catch the “break” in these records at just the right time so you could extend a song’s break in a polished way. His performative DJing became legendary, and set the stage for rap and hip-hop to use new musical technologies to experiment with form.

From its very beginning, hip-hop was always about more than the music. It launched a new style of dance (aka, “break” dancing) and influenced visual artists, who turned their desolate urban landscape into a canvas. It also demanded a degree of technological innovation from DJs and mixers, which would lead to the golden age of cross-genre sampling. But most importantly, it represented a collective expression and response of a community. Hip-hop belonged entirely to the Black and Latinx youth from whom it originated.

In the 1980s, things accelerated. Run DMC hit the scene and pivoted the genre away from the instrumentality of funk and soul. They pared the music down to the percussion, streamlining it while simultaneously setting the stage for rappers to show off their lyrical genius. Russell Simmons got his start managing Run DMC and soon formed Def Jam Records with his creative collaborator Rick Rubin. They would go on to launch and support major artists in the following years, like LL Cool J, The Beastie Boys, and Public Enemy.

Later in the 1980s, rap took on more and more social commentary in its themes. Public Enemy was one of the first manifestations of that shift. Out on the West Coast, N.W.A. became famous for its unashamed lyrical challenges to the establishment. The group launched the careers of Dr. Dre and Ice Cube, and represented a shift in the genre toward gangsta rap.

Gangsta rap (initially called “reality rap”) was raw: it expressed the collective frustration of marginalized communities living in economically and politically uneven societies. While elite politicians were busy investing in police forces, and the media referred to Black teenagers as superpredators, hip-hop provided a means for neglected communities (many of them majority Black) to express their rage.

The Golden Age of rap began in the late 80s and early 90s. Legendary artists like Notorious B.I.G., Tupac Shakur, A Tribe Called Quest, Queen Latifah, Lil’ Kim, and so many others helped expand rap and hip-hop to a mainstream audience. Rap had also started to intersect with other genres, like rock, helping it to gain new listeners beyond communities of color. This was the golden age of sampling, before copyright laws caught up, in which rappers frequently drew on a broad range of references from music and film. These cross-genre innovations represented a new, modern sound in the ‘90s that remixed hip-hop for new audiences.

By 1995, The Grammy Awards had added “Best Rap Album” to their award categories. The genre had officially crossed over and now occupied a central spotlight in American society. The next phase of hip-hop would see mega stars like Eminem, 50 Cent, Jay-Z, Puff Daddy, Nelly, Lil Wayne, and others translate their musical success into mainstream cultural influence.

Beyond the music: hip-hop and the triumph of Black culture

Hip-hop began as a cultural, community-driven project. It has always touched more aspects of our lives than just music. Street art and graffiti were an early manifestation. Fashion quickly followed. One of Run DMC’s important innovations was that they ditched the glitz and glam of funk-era fashion for what’s now become known as streetwear. Clad in tracksuits and adidas, they related to their audience by dressing like them. The hit song “My Adidas” helped launch a partnership that ushered in a new era of brand-sponsored musicians.

Hip-hop therefore had a major impact on the business of the music industry. By the late ‘90s, when hip-hop reached a mature stage of growth, corporate America realized they could leverage these stars to reach millions with new products.

But the stars themselves also realized that. Jay-Z, Diddy, Dr. Dre, 50 Cent, Kanye West – all of these major artists built off their musical success to become cross-industry moguls. From multi-billion dollar deals to film and TV careers, hip-hop served as a launchpad for Black entrepreneurship, influence, and innovation.

It hasn’t trickled down to benefit everyone, of course. Significant racial disparities persist in wealth, education, and employment. But this channel to mainstream culture represents a massive shift from the position of Black culture in the earlier half of the 20th century. Black art used to be held at arm’s length by mainstream America, relegated to the communities of color by and for whom it was supposedly created. Hip-hop changed that forever. It’s a cornerstone of Black culture that has become a cornerstone of American culture. It represents the nation all around the world. And at its core is an unavoidable culture of self-expression, self-assertion, and truth-telling.

Above all, hip-hop and rap have become a recognized cultural influence. While newer artists sometimes garner the same old critiques from mainstream media, hip-hop has for the most part become a permanent, accepted fixture of our culture.

Whatever your opinion on its artistic merits, you can’t deny that women like Lizzo and Megan Thee Stallion are changing what Black womanhood looks like in America today. You can’t deny that Jay-Z and Dr. Dre represent a new standard for Black entrepreneurship within and beyond the music industry. And you certainly can’t deny that hip-hop has produced an amazing amount of money and artistic excellence all around the world. All of that is the result of 50 years of musical and cultural innovation, the bulk of which originated from Black and Latinx artists.

“Rap is something you do; hip hop is something you live.”

– KRS One

Porter Braswell