WASHINGTON (AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris on Saturday 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 have been among the many hip-hop artists invited to hitch Harris for the get together on the vice presidential residence.
Hip-hop’s fiftieth birthday has impressed a bunch of anniversary occasions this 12 months. Many hint the style’s creation to an Aug. 11, 1973, back-to-school get together the place 18-year-old Clive Campbell, also called DJ Kool Herc, deejayed at a Bronx house constructing in New York Metropolis.
Harris mentioned hip-hop is “the final word American artwork type” that “shapes each facet of America’s well-liked tradition.”
“Hip-hop tradition is American tradition,” she informed 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.”
“It has at all times channeled the voices of the folks. It tells the tales that don’t make the information,” she mentioned earlier than becoming a member of her husband, Doug Emhoff, to observe musicians’ performances.
Saturday’s celebration was a collaboration with Recording Academy’s Black Music Collective and Reside Nation City.
“This can be a hip-hop family!” Emhoff mentioned.