Happy birthday hip-hop: The country's favorite music genre is halfway to 100
If you needed a reason to throw a party this week, your excuse is ready-made as it's hip-hop’s birthday. Indeed, August 11th marks the 50th anniversary of the disco-rap genre — with celebrations including free street concerts in NYC and a series of cultural events fronted by hip-hop’s very own Ice-T.
To the hip, hip-hop, you don’t stop…
In August 1973, a party in the Bronx saw DJ Kool Herc pioneer the predecessor to modern-day hip-hop sampling: a technique of playing a vocal-less break from one record while queuing up the next percussion break on another turntable.
Since then, hip-hop has moved from the underground to the mainstream. Off the back of trailblazers such as Jay-Z, Tupac, and Nas, hip-hop has hustled to become the most popular music genre in the US, with nearly one third of Americans counting themselves as fans. In fact, according to MRC Data, 2021 saw R&B / hip-hop account for 28% of the total volume of music listened to globally.
While hip-hop has mastered digital audio streaming, rock fans like to keep things a little more old school. If you zoom in on just physical albums, rock remains the largest genre by some distance — accounting for nearly 50% of all sales, more than triple the 15% that R&B / hip-hop recorded.
**Note from the editor**: This is what we believe to be the only acceptable use of a pie chart: when it depicts something round (like a CD or vinyl)!
