Kansas City Hip-Hop 50 At Retrospective

Recently, we found a note has an upbeat and inspiring spin about an art from on the decline. 

Remember . . . This year marked the first time that a hip-hop song FAILED to hit #1 during the entire year in more than a generation.

Also . . .

The article notes the bay area but omits a well-documented tragic music underworld beef that involved some Kansas City players which claimed the life of Fat Tone & Mac Dre. 

Meanwhile . . . 

Here's a passage that might set off a few of our old codger readers and offers an idealized perspective on an art form that has produced BILLIONAIRES and created an industry around the world . . .

"Hip hop, like other Black art forms, is born of perseverance in the face of poverty and resilience in the face of rejection. In the absence of access to musical instruments, early hip hop artists used everything from aluminum garbage cans, bottles, soda cans, discarded pallets, dinnerware, and even their mouths to imitate percussion instruments in the artistic form called “beatboxing.” This ingenuity in the production of music and presentation of content has created a subculture that, like soul food taking unwanted scraps and creating masterpieces, is a cultural masterpiece complete with its own vocabulary and coded language."

Read more via www.TonysKansasCity.com link . . .

Harold Smith on the Art of Blackness | The Art of HipHop: 'The celebration and storytelling of Black culture through music' - KC STUDIO

A look at Kansas City's contribution to the art form in conjunction with its 50th anniversary