Back in the 80’s when Hip Hop was still young, there were a couple of boys hanging out in one of the many South Bronx projects standing around a beat box, rapping to the beat. Little did they know that what they were doing would influence many generations to come. Little did they know that they would inspire millions of children (many African American), to look within and bring out their own beat. The children of Hip Hop are more then just the household names that we hear today. They are the designers of our clothes. The authors of our books. The doctors that save our lives everyday. The children that didn’t have a hope or a prayer, until they heard the smooth flow of Grandmaster Flash and the Furious 5. The kids consumed with self-hatred until they heard Public Enemy rapping about how proud they were to be black. Hip Hop has effected the world almost in the same aspects as Do-op, Country, and Rock and Roll. All with sub cultures of their own. But unlike the others Hip Hop has not only changed the way we walk, talk and think, it has moved and motivated a whole entire race. It has unified many different ethnicities to find a common ground in which we call Hip Hop.
In the movie “Brown Sugar” Sanaa Lathan asks, “When did you first fall in love with Hip Hop?” When did I first fall in love with Hip Hop? Maybe it was the first time I heard Biz Markie sing “Just A Friend”. Or maybe it was while singing along with Salt n’ Pepper about how bad I needed a good man. Or it could even be possible that I fell in love with Hip Hop when the Fresh Prince showed me that I wasn’t the only one who thought that “Parents Just Don’t Understand”. So maybe I don’t know when was the exact time that I fell in love with Hip Hop. However, I do know that I fell in love. Growing up as a kid Hip Hop was life for me. It was a rhythm, a beat that soothes the soul. Even if you didn’t quite understand what Slick Rick was saying, you knew he was saying something important, because music speaks to you, and you could tell that his words were coming straight from his heart. Yeah, in those days Hip Hop was everything, not the hypocrisy that it has grown to be today. Over the years Hip Hop has changed, it is no longer the drum, the voice that carried the sounds of the struggle to any and everyone, listening, or not. Hip Hop died with Biggie and Tupac, and has now transformed into the profane commercial enterprise, in which we call Rap.
Now a days Rap isn’t my music of choice. But I will always appreciate being born into one of the last generations that was able to experience Hip Hop at its prime. The metamorphosis that Hip Hop has made throughout the years has been incredible. Watching the unifications of one genre with another to create this one symphonic beat has been breathtaking. Hip Hop has not only influenced me, but it has influenced the world. It has grown to a point when Jay Z is making albums with Linkin Park, and Nelly’s latest single is featuring Tim McGraw. But then again who would have thought that by combining Aerosmith and Run DMC, we would make the whole world want to walk this way.