“Hip-Hop Won’t Stop: The Beat, The Rhymes, The Life,” a major collecting initiative by the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History was announced today at the Hilton Hotel. The museum’s multi-year project will trace hip-hop from its origins in the 1970s, as an expression of urban black and Latino youth culture, to its status today.
I was there, with the Supervillana.
Pioneers from the hip-hop community donated a first bacth of objects: Russell Simmons, Grandmaster Flash, Afrika Bambaataa, Kool Herc, Ice T, Fab 5 Freddy and Crazy Legs were in the house and they brought their tongues.
And they put on a helluva show. I swear I've never seen so many white execs sweat so much and giggle so histerically to hide their panic - particularly after Bambaataa and Kool Herc dropped the rap on boycotting commercial hip-hop radio and IceT broke the prophanity record set by the Aristocrats.
There were also incredibly inspiring moments, for instance when Grandmaster Flash described how a little kid who wasn't allowed to touch his Dad's stereo learned to rewire it and lately to assemble pieces of rusty junk into finely-engineered turntables and pick-a-boo systems (hey djs from the 80s, how would you have known in advance the next track to mix if it hadn't been for him?)
Hate it or love it - we can discuss at length on the pros and cons of putting hip hop in a glass case (Russell Simmons, "When they told me i first thought 'Shit it's over! The party is over!') and we WILL - it is goddamn recognition, it was about time, hopefully something good will come out of it and people who actually uderstand something about hip hop will be in charge of curating the collection (chief curator was there, she actually seemed well versed in the uni-verse of verse spitting).
It will be knowledge, passed on to generations in bad need of a reason and a background and a motivation.
Hip-hop, just like jazz, defines what it means to be American: to know it, to understand it, is to know something about the house we live in.
This, notice, all said by an Italian.
Ice T: "Next time someone asks me about my music, I'ma say 'Take your fucking ass to the museum!"
Stay tuned for a podcast - it was a show, the finest asskicking bombdropping un-pc poetic raggedy shit. You can't miss it.
Until then, enjoy the pics (Russell Simmons and Grandmaster Flash courtesy of la Supervillana)
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