OHIO — It’s the sound of a generation using rhythm and rhyme to rise up and be heard, now the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame is honoring some of the voices behind the musical movement known as hip hop.
“This is just amazing,” said Ruby Gamble, a music fan. “Amazing. I’m just getting chills being in here.”
What You Need To Know
- The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame is celebrating five decades of hip hop with the new exhibit Hip Hop at 50: Holla If Ya Hear Me
- Hundreds of fans joined hip hop legends like Chuck D, Flavor Flav, Darryl McDaniels and Roxanne Shante for the dedication
- The exhibit chronicles the progression of the youth culture movement and sound of a generation, from pioneers to present-day artists
Hip hop is the soundtrack to the Cleveland native’s life.
“People don’t realize the poetry of these raps and what it said about a generation and where they were growing up and what they were going through,” she said.
Rock Hall CEO Greg Harris at the exhibit dedication. (Spectrum News 1/ Jenna Jordan)
The items on display in the Rock Hall’s Hip Hop at 50: Holla If Ya Hear Me exhibit help tell that story from the pioneers to the present.
“We all blinked, and it’s 50-years-old,” said Rock Hall CEO Greg Harris.
Harris said hip hop is one of the most relevant musical art forms ever created.
“Hip hop takes everything before it, blues, gospel, country, punk, soul, everything, and it spits it all back at ya in a powerful way that inspires so many,” Harris said. “And it’s just wildly popular.”
That popularity was evident in the hundreds of fans like Gamble filling the exhibit for its opening night.
“I remember when hip hop started, 7-years-old, you know, Kurtis Blow comes out and changes the game of music,” Gamble said.
But her first album was Public Enemy.
“Music is universal,” said Chuck D of Public Enemy. “It’s a universal language across the world, and the fact that it is sight, sound, story and style.”
Fans gathered for opening night performances. (Spectrum News 1/ Jenna Jordan)
The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inducted Public Enemy in 2013. Chuck D and fellow group member Flavor Flav joined artists like Roxanne Shante at the museum to celebrate the cultural impact of the art form at the exhibit dedication.
“It’s always been the music of the next generation,” Shante said. “That’s the reason why it’s always gonna have longevity and it’s always gonna continue.”
The rapper and radio host said females are at the foundation of hip hop.
“It was a woman’s house that the electricity came from in order to do it. It was somebody’s mom who purchased the turntables, it was somebody’s mother who allowed you to go to the park,” Shante said. “Nothing can be done without a woman. Definitely not hip hop. Because somebody’s mama had to say OK.”
Rapper/radio host Roxanne Shante at the exhibit dedication. (Spectrum News 1/ Jenna Jordan)
Run-D.M.C.’s Darryl McDaniels said the first half century of the genre is leaving a legacy.
“Inspiration, motivation, education, participation and transformation,” he said. “Music and the arts succeeds where politics and religion fails.”
He said hip hop allowed his rock and roll dreams to come true.
“Blues is the roots, everything else is the fruits,” he said.
Run-D.M.C. was inducted into the Rock Hall in 2009 and McDaniels said it’s an honor to help break barriers between genres, like with Run-D.M.C.’s 1986 collaboration with Aerosmith.
“People tell me, ‘DMC, when Stephen Tyler took the mic stand and knocked down the walls that separated us, that didn’t just happen in the video, that happened for real,’” McDaniels said.
That’s a moment that still stands out in Gamble’s mind.
“It’s important that you know your history and your musical history is just as important,” she said.
She takes the music seriously and even dressed for the occasion.
“You can’t come to the hip hop 50th anniversary and we’re having the museum opening and not have your hip hop gear on,” she said. “No, no. I grew up with hip hop. I know how to do it.”
She said she’s proud to see the music of her generation getting some attention.
“It’s what Cleveland’s about,” she said. “If you wanna say we’re the heart of rock and roll, well, then you gotta have all of it. So now we’re the heart of hip hop. And that’s how it should be.”
The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame’s Hip Hop at 50 exhibit will be displayed through the end of the year with no end date scheduled.
