“The thing about hip-hop today is it's smart; it's insightful. The way they can communicate a complex message in a very short space is remarkable.” -Barack Obama

Hip hop has been able to tell a story from voiceless people and get it on a mainstream platform. It can show the struggles of black youth and the success they come to gain. It can share complex ideas and emotions on racial issues, or just be fun and playful. From the Sugarhill Gang, to Tupac, to Kanye West, hip hop is always evolving. It’s extremely complex, thought out, and original. But yet it is usually not regarded as great music or even music at all. You, the reader, might even have these stereotypes about it. Hip hop needs to stop being misunderstood and vilified as music but instead be seen as a respected form of artistic expression in a flourishing culture.

Hip hop is a culture that started in the South Bronx in the summer of 1973. The early 70s in the Bronx was filled with gangs, poverty, and an arson epidemic that left 40% of the borough burned down or abandoned between 1970 and 1980. Gangs were on every corner until 20 of these gangs met together and made a treaty to stop the violence. This opened the door for hip hop music to be created. It started with deejaying, emceeing, breakdancing, and graffiti art. These elements were established by the Zulu Nation which was started by former gang member, Afrika Bambaataa, who pushed hip hop instead of drugs and violence.

Afrika Bambaataa was one of the key figures in the creation of hip hop. He used to be a big gang leader of the Black Spades with the nickname “freight train”. In 1973, he entered a citywide essay contest for a trip to Africa and surprisingly won. He spoke with Zulu chiefs in Africa, and they told him about how damaging the gang violence is and how it’s ruining their lives and their city. When he got back to the Bronx with his newfound knowledge of African roots, he went by the name Afrika Bambaataa and started the Zulu Nation. The Zulu Nation actually worked and stopped gang violence in New York City for a number of years.

Hip hop started off as a replacement to the violence and drug problems in the Bronx. It started off with just break beats and dancing in parks and community centers and turned into a form of expression. It started with very poor people who had almost nothing. The rhyming rap we recognize now as hip hop didn’t come until 1976 when Keith Cowboy and Melle Mel of Grandmaster Flash and The Furious Five put lyrics and more nuanced rhymes together. It was more fluffy and simple while still reflecting the environment around them.  Since then Hip Hop has only expanded.

When Rappers Delight by the Sugarhill Gang hit the top 20 in 1980, nobody thought this kind of music would last long. Some trends in music come into the spotlight but then fade away and can die completely. People saw hip hop music as a fad in the 80s. The 80s had fun hip hop and more upbeat songs that were almost always positive. The artists saw the impact hip hop had on people and how it connected them. It brought people together just like how it started in the community centers in the South Bronx.

A decade later in 1990 is cited as the hip hop mainstream breakthrough. “The year that rap exploded,” said Billboard in a 1990 article. At the time of this article, hip hop music was a third of the entire top 100 charts, and two of the previous years best selling singles were also hip hop. The 90s are seen by many today as the “golden era” of hip hop.  Poverty became worse in the black community with the crack epidemic, a rise in crime and gang violence, and more tension between the police; their reality changed and so did the lyrics. This brought harsher lyrics that painted pictures of gang violence, drugs, and poverty. They saw the impact hip hop had to reach people and used it to bring light and cope with the life they were living. There were also great protest songs that talked about racism and civil rights issues which were holding them back in their community.

The lyrics advanced here too. They got more complex and conceptual. It was all about the words in the 90s. Hip hop never went away like they all said in the 80s. It became stronger. The importance it had to the communities made it even more relevant to them in the 90s with the growing problems.  It created incredible artists and groups like Tupac, Biggie, Nas, Lauryn Hill, Dr Dre, and Public Enemy.

However, hip hop was also met at the time with a backlash. Once the establishment and the public saw the power and impact hip hop was having on so many, they fought back. One of the first instances was when the FBI shut down an NWA concert in 1990 for the anti police brutality song “F*** the Police”. Later that year, Florida declared 2 Live Crew’s record As Nasty as They Wanna Be legally obscene. This made it illegal for retailers to sell it as well as illegal to perform it. This caused multiple arrests. It took two entire years to overturn this. Though these are an extreme form of government censorship, hip hop is dismissed as violent, unintelligent and irrelevant by everyday people.

The misunderstood nature of hip hop has not stopped its progression and presence through the last thirty years.  Hip hop has withstood the test of time. From its beginnings of hip hop in the South Bronx to now, hip hop has always brought people together. It’s had its ups and down but has stuck despite all its challenges. I wonder where hip hop will evolve from here.