This year marked the 50th anniversary of the Bronx back-to-school party where DJ Kool Herc debuted his never-before-heard break-based DJ style, ushering in one of the most dominant forms of popular music in American history. The National Museum of African American Music celebrated with a yearlong series of rotating exhibits, giving space to four artists and photographers showcasing different regions and eras of hip-hop. What makes NMAAM’s This Is Hip-Hop different from other celebrations is the choice to focus on people who worked in the scene, finding their own voices within hip-hop, like photographers Raymond Boyd (who captured early shots of Ice T in Chicago) and Traci Bartlow (who was on the ground floor of the ’90s Bay Area revolution). Rather than filling their gallery with memorabilia, NMAAM put visitors into the individual perspectives of the people who experienced hip-hop on the come-up.
Best Historical Hip-Hop Celebration
