Last week, Sideshow predicted that 2015 will be hip-hop's best year. We stand by our forecast. But, lest we forget, the 1980s was hip-hop's gilded decade –– ten full years of innovation, star power, and style. The Museum of the City of New York agrees, and has curated a photography exhibit, "Hip-Hop Revolution," dedicated to this fertile (and fresh) period.
The show, featuring work by Janette Beckman, Joe Conzo, and Martha Cooper revisits the street style of yore, capturing the infancy of a cultural movement, bucket hats, chains, spandex, and all. Busta Rhymes, a pre-Hollywood Queen Latifah and LL Cool J make appearances, alongside some names that have since fallen into obscurity. The snapshots are like childhood photos of distant family: the forefathers (and mothers) of today's hip-hop, well before they could have imagined the genre's cultural dominance.
This brand of nostalgia isn't going away, as the announcement of a Hip-Hop Hall of Fame, to open in Harlem next year, suggests. If these photos are any indication, hip-hop isn't what it used to be –– even if, sometimes, we wish it were.
