How Hip-HopConqueredthe World

By Wesley Morris

A crowd in Harlem watching Doug E. Fresh, 1995. David Corio

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How Hip-Hop Conquered the World

Fifty years ago, a party in the Bronx jumpstarted an essential American artform. For decades the genre has thrived by explaining the country to itself.

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By Wesley Morris

Aug. 10, 2023, 5:00 a.m. ET

We’ve gathered here today to raise a glass to hip-hop. It’s 50, baby! Half a century of effrontery, dexterity, elasticity, rambunctiousness, ridiculousness, bleakness, spunk, swagger, juice, jiggle and wit, of defiant arrogance, devastating humor, consumptive lust and violent distress, of innovation, danger, doubt and drip. Salud! I’ll be honest, though. I knew the magazine covers and concerts and TV specials were coming, but I wasn’t feeling it. Seemed too arbitrary a date. Or maybe just impossible to ascertain. What I did feel was that hip-hop has so thoroughly infused the atmosphere of American life (we’ll just start with this country), that it has pushed so much forward — who cares that it’s pushing 50?