New York Metropolis was popping over the weekend with #HipHop50 live shows and events celebrating the NYC-spawned artwork type that started at DIY events in housing initiatives and has grown into the most well-liked style of music in America.
Whereas Friday (Aug. 11) night time’s Yankee Stadium live performance that includes A-listers and uncared for style pioneers understandably obtained probably the most shine, ITSALLBLACKMUSIC’s 5X5 Block Celebration collection ensured that every borough’s position in hip-hop’s evolution was honored, too. On Saturday (Aug. 12) at 1520 Sedgwick Avenue within the Bronx, luminaries from Public Enemy to KRS-One to Talib Kweli made rattling positive the birthplace of hip-hop was rocking for the style’s fiftieth anniversary.
Chuck D was listed on flyers as one of many Bronx live performance’s headliners, however with Taste Flav becoming a member of him on stage, Public Enemy was in full impact exterior the residential constructing that hosted a storied breakbeat-heavy set in a rec room by DJ Kool Herc on Aug. 11, 1973. (That social gathering, placed on by Herc and his sister Cindy Campbell, is certainly one of many key occasions within the style’s genesis, however for functions of the worldwide #HipHop50 celebrations, their social gathering at 1520 Sedgwick is the rationale Aug. 11 is well known as birthday of hip-hop.)
Unapologetic as all the time, Chuck D stated Public Enemy was provided a spot on the all-star Yankee Stadium live performance however turned it down when KRS-One requested the group to verify the Bronx birthplace obtained its dues on the anniversary. “F—okay Yankee Stadium,” Chuck D concluded.
In between basic cuts like “Carry the Noise,” “911 Is a Joke” and “Combat the Energy” (which nonetheless pack a wallop due to Chuck and Flav’s runaway-train vitality), Chuck D demonstrated to the viewers — a cross-generational swath of present residents, former locals buying and selling tales of the not-necessarily-so-good-old-days and youthful followers who wanted Google Maps simply to search out the spot — that PE stays as politically outspoken as ever.
Chuck requested folks to take out their telephones, then reminded everybody that telephones can be utilized to trace your location and retailer knowledge about you. He additionally shouted out imprisoned hip-hop pioneer Kidd Creole of Grandmaster Flash & the Livid 5 (to not be confused with the lead singer of Child Creole and the Coconuts, one other Bronx legend) and claimed the retired rapper, whose actual identify is Nathaniel Glover, was “railroaded” by the system.
“Free Kidd Creole,” Chuck stated, including that “somebody wants to speak to [NYC Mayor] Eric Adams” in regards to the scenario.
In April 2022, Glover was discovered responsible of manslaughter and sentenced to 16 years in jail for stabbing a homeless man, who later died in a hospital, in 2017. Glover’s lawyer argued the stabbing was in self-defense, alleging Glover felt threatened after the person approached him round midnight in midtown Manhattan.
