Hip-Hop Is 50 Years Old

To speak of hip-hop’s 50th anniversary this past Friday is to somewhat undersell the momentousness of this milestone. Hip-hop hasn’t simply endured for half a century, no—hip-hop has commercially grown bigger every decade, and in the past five years, it has eclipsed pop to become the most popular music genre in the U.S. This is a subculture that was once so small, so hyperlocal, so New York that we can trace its origin to a particular house party in the Bronx. And yet hip-hop quickly proliferated all across the country and claimed a few de facto capitals: originally NYC, but then also L.A., along with Southern strongholds in Memphis, Houston, New Orleans, Baton Rouge, and the current capital, Atlanta. Hip-hop is now perhaps better understood as a federation of regional scenes, some more renowned than others, but each at some point played a crucial role in the larger success story of the genre. This success story spans several formats—from vinyl to cassettes to CDs to downloads to streams—and multiple music industry transformations. Hip-hop has flourished, in large part, by adapting to these shifts more confidently and creatively than other genres. It’s become the great, global soundboard.