Hip-hop is a rose that grew from concrete. And there’s no other place it could have grown than the fertile soil of the South Bronx. At the beginning of the 20th Century, urban planning destroyed neighborhoods and led to white flight, and tall high-density towers re-arranged the landscape of the borough. Around the same time, a massive wave of Caribbean immigrants and Black Southerners were migrating to the South Bronx, leading to a convergence of cultures that would light a spark for the birth of hip-hop in the summer of 1973.

Hip-hop is turning 50 this year. So, for Black History Month, Into America is presenting “Street Disciples: Politics, Power, and the Rise of Hip-Hop.” Trymaine Lee is looking back on the political conditions and policies that have inspired half a century of hip-hop, and how over time, hip-hop began to shape America. 

On part one of “Street Disciples,” how the concrete jungle of New York in the 1970s led to the birth and spread of hip-hop. Trymaine is joined by: Kool DJ Red Alert, DJ Grandwizzard Theodore, historian Mark Anthony Neal, sociologist Tricia Rose, and journalist Davey D.

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For a transcript, please visit our homepage.

Check out our previous Black History series here: 

• Reconstructed: Birth of a Black Nation
• Harlem on My Mind: Jacob Lawrence