50 Years of Hip-Hop

Five decades ago this month, Hip-Hop was born, launching a musical revolution that became a cultural one, transforming the way we think about art, activism, creativity, success, and style. Here, we look back on its legendary legacy.

- By Stephen Mooallem

Sue Kwon didn't set out to chronicle the evolution of hip-hop. In the late 1980s, Kwon, who had grown up in Connecticut and studied photography at New York University, was living in lower Manhattan. For a while, she wanted to become a war photographer, but the birth of her eldest son, Kainoa, changed that calculus.

She also became immersed in the city's blossoming second-wave hip-hop scene, going to shows around the city. At the time, New York was teeming with new acts like A Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul, Mobb Deep, and Wu-Tang Clan, with a powerful group of female MCs like Roxanne Shanté and Salt-N-Pepa taking the mic. Kwon began to document it all, scoring assignments for The Village Voice and The Source.

But what she captured wasn't just the explosive energy of a musical genre finding its footing-it was a culture coming of age. There's an intimacy and immediacy in Kwon's images that somehow managed to bottle the creativity, community, camaraderie, and joy that have always been at the center of hip-hop. There are the members of De La Soul crammed into the back of a car. There's Yo-Yo enjoying a Popsicle on a playground. There's a young Pharrell, with his turn-of-the-century outfit N.E.R.D, toiling away in a studio, dreaming up new things.