Vice President Kamala Harris on Saturday (Sept. 9) hosted a celebration of hip-hop’s fiftieth anniversary with appearances by a number of the music style’s pioneers and stars.
Widespread, Jeezy, MC Lyte and Roxanne Shante had been among the many hip-hop artists invited to affix Harris for the celebration on the vice presidential residence.
Hip-hop’s fiftieth birthday has impressed a bunch of anniversary occasions this yr. Many hint the style’s creation to an Aug. 11, 1973, back-to-school celebration the place 18-year-old Clive Campbell, also called DJ Kool Herc, deejayed at a Bronx condo constructing in New York Metropolis.
Harris stated hip-hop is “the final word American artwork kind” that “shapes each side of America’s fashionable tradition.”
“Hip-hop tradition is American tradition,” she instructed the group.
Hip-hop has grown into a worldwide artform, turning into one of many world’s most influential cultural forces, an integral a part of social and racial justice actions, and a multibillion-dollar trade constructed on generations of rapping, emceeing, deejaying, breaking and graffiti.
Harris famous that Public Enemy rapper Chuck D has described rap as “Black America’s CNN.”
Tasos Katopodis/Getty Photos for The Recording Academy
“It has all the time channeled the voices of the folks. It tells the tales that don’t make the information,” she stated earlier than becoming a member of her husband, Doug Emhoff, to look at musicians’ performances.
Saturday’s celebration was a collaboration with the Recording Academy’s Black Music Collective and Reside Nation City.
“It is a hip-hop family!” Emhoff stated.
