Salt N' Pepa display the awards they won for Best Rap Duo or Group Performance at the 37th annual Grammy Awards at the Shrine Auditorium, Los Angeles, in March 1995. Women have fought to establish their footing in the hip-hop movement and demand recognition. (AP Photo)
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Hip-hop pioneers RUN-DMC create handprints in cement in February 2002, as they are inducted into Hollywood's RockWalk. The company had noticed an unusual spike in sales of its Superstar shoes in the Northeast in 1986, it didn't attribute the same to Run-D.M.C. and their hit “My Adidas.” However, when company officials saw the group ask fans to show off their Adidas and thousands removed their shoes and waved them in the air at a Madison Square Garden performance, they were sold. The rap group was signed in a $1-million deal that gave birth to their exclusive shoe line in 1988. (AP Photo)
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Kendrick Lamar performs at Power 106's 'Cali Christmas' in Inglewood, California in December 2015. Hip-hop has been an integral part of social and racial justice movements. Free speech advocates see the ongoing persecution of rappers as a proxy war primarily waged against Black and Latino people who are the early pioneers of the culture. In 2016, following the fatal police shootings of Philando Castile and Alton Sterling, rap music and protests came together. It was rare to attend a demonstration and not hear Kendrick Lamar’s 2015 song “Alright,” a celebration of triumph over adversity in the face of systemic oppression and injustice. (AP Photo)
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Breakdancer Victor Montalvo performs in New York City on June 22, 2021. In the five decades since hip-hop emerged out of New York City, it has spread around the country and the world. And at each step there's been change and adaptation, as new, different voices came in and made it their own. Its foundations are steeped in the Black communities where it first made itself known but it's spread out until there’s no corner of the world that hasn’t been touched by it. (AP Photo)
Drake performs in concert as part of the Summer Sixteen Tour at Madison Square Garden on August 5, 2016, in New York. In its five decades, Hip-hop has touched every movement across the globe - art, culture, fashion, community, social justice, politics, sports, business. (AP Photo)
