As soon as shunned by the Recording Academy, hip-hop was honored Sunday at the 2023 Grammy Awards with an homage celebrating 50 years of the genre, with performances by influential artists from its earlier, existing and upcoming.
LL Cool J, who in 1989 boycotted the awards show alongside with other high-profile rappers when the academy didn’t televise its initially rap award, led Sunday night’s all-star salute.
Hip-hop pioneers Grandmaster Flash, Grandmaster Melle Mel and Rahiem of Grandmaster Flash & the Furious 5 burst onto the stage with a punchy snippet of their 1982 one “The Message.”
Becoming a member of them for other performances have been big names from 1980s hip-hop, these kinds of as Operate-DMC, DJ Jazzy Jeff, Community Enemy and Ice-T, the latter of whom is generally deemed “the godfather of gangsta rap.”
Key functions that obtained fame in the 1990s also ended up on hand, with a solid New York Town and East Coastline contingent, which includes Busta Rhymes with Spliff Star, De La Soul, Technique Man of the Wu Tang Clan, Rakim, Salt-N-Pepa, the Lox, and Queen Latifah and Missy Elliott. Also amid the 1990s artists were Houston’s Scarface and the Bay Area’s Way too Limited.
As Technique Man spit bars during the performance, Jay-Z was found in the crowd bobbing his head, smiling and rapping the lyrics. DJ Khaled also nodded approvingly, at a single level lifting and waving a lighter for the duration of Busta Rhymes’ effectiveness, before the Brooklyn legend launched into a single of his signature swift-fire deliveries from the 2011 hit “Look at Me Now.”
Symbolizing the 2000s were artists Nelly, Massive Boi of Outkast and DJ Drama. Symbolizing the 2010s and the current have been Swizz Beatz, Lil Newborn, Lil Uzi Vert and GloRilla.
“At the finish of the night time, I may possibly have Obama-gray hair,” Questlove — whose authentic name is Ahmir Khalib Thompson — jokingly explained to E! correspondent Laverne Cox on the Grammys pink carpet. “This is 14-calendar year-old Ahmir bringing his jukebox of what he was listening to as a kid. But it’s also all-encompassing because it’s from my era, from upcoming generations, from Gen Z. Everybody’s all involved, so this … is a specific second.”
Will Smith, who as a section of DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Contemporary Prince gained the initially rap Grammy in 1989, was intended to accomplish on Sunday evening but was unable to attend because of to a scheduling conflict with the manufacturing of “Bad Boys 4,” Questlove informed Selection on the red carpet. Smith boycotted the 1989 Grammys to protest the Recording Academy’s chilly-shouldering of rap all through the broadcast.
In the lead-up to the overall performance, Questlove, who alongside his band the Roots generated and curated the functionality, named hip-hop “a driving pressure in the songs and the culture” that has experienced “immeasurable impact on our tradition and our planet.”
“The 1st working day of rehearsals, it was very little but a adore fest,” he mentioned in a information launch. “It was DMC gushing in excess of Grandmaster Flash and the Furious 5. … It is a family members reunion.”
The Recording Academy did not often price hip-hop. In 1989, the Grammys did not televise the rap award presentation. “If they never want us, we really do not want them,” Salt-N-Pepa reported that calendar year, boycotting the exhibit. Regardless of the omission, the subsequent calendar year, a rap album spent the most months at No. 1 on the Billboard charts, The Times’ LZ Granderson wrote recently in a column celebrating the genre’s 50th birthday.
“That’s because the audio came from a individuals whose voices could never ever be silenced,” Granderson wrote, tracing hip-hop’s start to DJ Kool Herc’s dwelling events at 1520 Sedgwick Ave. in the Bronx in 1973. “This is why Black songs is explained as acquiring an ‘uncapturable spirit’ in the ‘1619 Project’ docuseries. Hip-hop might be 50, but its lineage stretches back significantly further.”
The importance of the night was not dropped on the genre’s pioneers.
“The Grammys didn’t even respect hip-hop for so lengthy, and now to be in this article, to be honored like this, we’ll consider it, definitely,” Ice-T explained on the crimson carpet to People today correspondents Jeremy Parsons and Janine Rubenstein.
“You believe about it, it’s kinda arrive complete circle, from now remaining recognized at the Grammys, to now variety of receiving our personal second, to celebrate 50 decades of what I like to contact ‘the most effective music on the planet,’” Nelly, who performed Sunday evening, also instructed Persons on the crimson carpet.
“It’s only appropriate,” Queen Latifah advised Cox and E! on the red carpet ahead of joining the general performance. “We had to fight to get on the Grammys pretty a time back, and so it’s good to be here to celebrate this in entrance of the total planet with men and women who had been my mentors.”
General public Enemy’s Flava Flav, who showed up with one of his iconic chains and also carried out Sunday, exclaimed on the crimson carpet, “This is to all people who claimed hip-hop wouldn’t past!”
Here’s the full set listing and roster of expertise for the star-studded salute:
Chapter 1:
- Black Considered (narration)
- Grandmaster Flash with Barshon, Melle Mel, Rahiem & Scorpio: “Flash to the Beat”
- Grandmaster Flash with Barshon, Melle Mel, Rahiem & Scorpio: “The Message”
- Operate-DMC: “King of Rock”
- LL Great J: “I Just cannot Stay Devoid of My Radio”
- DJ Jazzy Jeff: “Rock the Bells”
- Salt-N-Pepa: “My Mic Sounds Nice”
- Rakim: “Eric B Is President”
- Chuck D & Flavor Flav: “Rebel Without the need of a Pause”
Chapter 2:
- Black Thought with LL Awesome J: “El Shabazz Skit”
- De La Soul: “Buddy”
- Scarface: “My Mind’s Taking part in Tricks on Me”
- Ice-T: “New Jack Hustler (Nino’s Topic)”
- Queen Latifah: “U.N.I.T.Y.”
- Approach Male: “Method Man”
- Large Boi: “ATLiens”
- Busta Rhymes & Spliff Star: “Put Your Arms Wherever My Eyes Could See” / “Look at Me Now”
- Missy Elliott: “Lose Control”
Chapter 3:
- Queen Latifah (narration)
- Nelly & Town Spud: “Hot in Herre”
- Also Quick: “Blow the Whistle”
- Swizz Beatz & the Lox: “We Gonna Make It”
- Lil Little one: “Freestyle”
- GloRilla: “F.N.F. (Let’s Go)”
- Lil Uzi Vert: “Just Wanna Rock”
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