What started as a niche movement in New York in the early 1970s is now the world’s biggest genre of music and permeates almost every aspect of modern music and pop culture.
ADVERTISEMENTSnoop Dogg, Lauryn Hill, Run D.M.C., Nas, Wu Tang Clan and Lil Wayne were among the performers at a star-studded concert in New York celebrating 50 years of hip-hop.
Tens of thousands of people attended the event at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx - the area hip-hop was born.
The founders of hip-hop - DJ Kool Herc and his sister, Cindy Campbell, were present with DJ Kool Herc receiving a Cultural Impact award at the event.
11 August 1973 was the date a young Clive Campbell, known as DJ Kool Herc around his Bronx stomping grounds, deejayed a back-to-school party for his younger sister in the community room of an apartment building on Sedgwick Avenue.
Campbell, who was born and spent his early years in Jamaica before his family moved to the Bronx, was still a teen himself at that time, just 18, when he began extending the musical breaks of the records he was playing to create a different kind of dancing opportunity.
He'd started speaking over the beat, reminiscent of the “toasting” style heard in Jamaica.
It wasn’t long before the style could be heard all over the city — and began to spread around the New York City metro region.
Now, 50 years later, hip-hop is popular globally.
To honour the anniversary, we curated a list of the genre's most essential albums through the years.
Check out the video above for a look at how New York celebrated the 50th anniversary.
