GenX and the Love of Hip Hop

Let’s talk about hip hop.  I absolutely love this genre of music especially having grown up in the 1980’s and 1990’s.  I know.  I know.  Some of the newer generation would consider us born in the 1900’s to be ancient.  Crazy right!?  But hey, our music selection was top tier.  Unlike most of what is played on the radio today, which to me sounds like gibberish, hip hop back in the day was lively, and made you think.

I grew up listening to icons such as MC Lyte, Run DMC, Eric B & Rakim, Big Daddy Kane, Salt N Pepa, Heavy D, and Doug E. Fresh, just to name a few.  Even now when I hear their songs, which are in high rotation in my playlist, it takes me back to a simpler time.  I remember the movie Brown Sugar starring Sanaa Lathan and Taye Diggs, and in the movie she asked, “When did you fall in love with hip hop?”  As I think about that question, it reminds me of playing double dutch outside in the summer, hopscotch, and watching the boys on the basketball court.  You could always count on someone having a radio playing hip hop.  Nostalgia.  The smells.  The sounds.

For me, hip hop is about transcendence.  Transcendence of a culture expressing its realities lyrically over a dope beat.  It often tells the story of love and life.  The love of money, the love of the streets, the love of family, the love of everything.  Life experiences and realities.  Hip hop draws you in like a good book.  It consumes you. 

Hip hop has even catapulted some companies into the billion-dollar companies that we see today.  That’s not to say that these companies would not be successful had it not been for hip hop, especially considering that many of these companies had been around before hip hop truly hit the scene.  But let’s be real, we would be re-missed to ignore the fact that hip hop did in fact save and increase the net worth of some of these companies.  

I have been blessed to travel around the world, and one cannot go to a corner of the world where they do not love and appreciate hip hop because it is a culture that embraces and embodies you.  So, to answer the question, “when did you fall in love with hip hop?”  I fell in love with hip hop back in 1988.  What about you?