In a black-and-white photograph from 1993 presented at the exhibition “Hip-hop: Conscious, Unconscious” (conscious, unconscious), three rappers from De la Soul pose laughing for David Corio, a few steps from the legendary Apollo Theater, the ark of black musical culture – jazz, swing, bebop, gospel, blues and R&B .

By that time, the group had already written a successful course on rap and was nominated for a Grammy Award, while the music hall still had its historic marquee, which announced concerts by Duke Ellington, Sarah Vaughan, Billie Holiday, James Brown and many other great musicians with inlaid plastic letters.

Walking through Upper Manhattan today, we descend towards Harlem. The Apollo remains where it is at 253 West 125th Street, but the marquee has gone digital. Of the three De la Soul rappers, Dove Trygoi recently died at the age of 53.

However, in the windows of the surrounding jewelry stores, huge gold-plated chains, a trademark of rappers, with giant ornaments and symbols – crosses, hearts, crowns, a dollar sign, the words boss, love, money, hanging like pendants, still shine. The region still sends out messages and demands the expression of its special identity. And if the musician and businessman Jay-Z can rightly be called a “rap mogul” now, blonde Iggy Azalea successfully raps from Australia, and a vintage Chanel gold chain with a massive house logo costs about 4000 euros, hip-hop, after half a century of life, stays alive.

In New York, they are preparing a museum dedicated to this particular musical genre, which originated in the slums of Brooklyn.

This year the whole world, but especially NYcelebrating the 50th anniversary of his birth. The city is preparing to create a museum dedicated to a particular genre of music that originated in the slums of Brooklyn, the Bronx, Queens, and central Manhattan, to eventually become part of mainstream international culture. She accepted him and appropriated him, but did she manage to completely subdue him?

“We often forget that there was a time when hip-hop didn’t become an industry and didn’t bring in so much money,” says Sasha Jenkins, co-curator of the major exhibition “Hip-hop: Conscious, Unconscious” at the Fotografiska Museum. Jenkins grew up observing the hip-hop scene of the 1980s, and with over 200 photographs from 1972 to 2022, she tells a typical American story. The exhibition traces the birth, rise and evolution of this particular genre from the street gangs of the Bronx in the 70s to its rise as a global phenomenon.

“The soul of the exhibition is the period before hip-hop knew what it was,” notes Jenkins, “when he was not aware of himself. It just existed when young people lived their lives, dressed the way they dressed, and tried to have fun with limited resources, creating an aesthetic that they recognized among themselves.”

In fact, it took no more than two decades for hip-hop to transform from a social and artistic movement that spoke of the lifestyle of African, Latino and Caribbean Americans in New York to a billion dollar fashion and style. The exhibition also features the “four elements of hip-hop” (rap, DJ, breakdance and graffiti) as well as some of its constituent forms such as fashion and beatboxing. It is also important that the creators of the exhibition make sure that there are female creators who are accurately represented, but do not stand out in any way.

They are clearly outnumbered by hip-hop men, but their presence is “electrifying”, as one of the texts on the wall in this section notes.

Leaving the elegant contemporary museum on Park Avenue, I wonder if the pioneers of the movement will ever visit. Probably yes, and they would be proud. The outcasts of the metropolis had ambition, ingenuity and a talent for imposing their aesthetics. Exaggerated in everything, repudiating decorum and so-called good taste, they expressed a culture that continues to thrive inside and outside the commercial industry.