Ice-T, 65, and KRS-One, 57, spoke at this year’s Essence Fest, discussing how hip-hop has arguably become the most influential music genre of our time. Essence Fest took place in New Orleans from Thursday, June 29 through Monday, July 3.
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“Fifty years ago, some of us knew this was going to happen, most of us did not know to the magnitude it would happen,” KRS-One said at the festival. “But 50 years later proves that first of all, you can do anything with your mind and secondly, culture is probably the most magnificent strategy for human development known on the planet.”
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The hip-hop genre originated in KRS-One’s hometown of Bronx, New York. At the festival, the rapper continued, speaking on how members of black communities were able to have their voices heard through rap and hip-hop music in a way that they never had before. “This [was] a different take on the African-American experience,” KRS-One stated.
“For the last 60 years, African-Americans tried the integration thing, African-Americans have tried the voting thing, tried the economic thing and we keep winding up in the same position,” KRS continued. “Hip-hop is a little different. We tried the character thing, where we changed what we were going to express and that seems to have pulled us from sickness, hatred, ignorance and poverty to health, love, awareness and wealth.”
When Ice-T delivered his own words of wisdom, he revealed that he never expected hip-hip to take off in the way that it did. “When we started, hip-hop was supposed to be a fad,” Ice-T said. “It’s great. Hip-hop has grey hairs.
“The beauty of it is that it’s still here, still flourishing and people still love it,” Ice-T further explained. “It’s gone through a lot of different growing pains and stuff, but for them to say it was a fad — now you have hip-hop billionaires! Hip-hop is a culture. A youth culture, started by kids.”
Ice-T added, “Real hip-hop is free. We ain’t with no corporations, we ain’t messing with none of that. We built our culture from the center, now we’re billionaires. We don’t [care] what people think about us.”
The “Mind Over Matter” rapper also discussed the discouraging deaths in the rap and hip-hop industry. He said, “I think people from my generation are really upset with what’s going on with the youngsters because every week somebody’s going to jail. People are dying off drugs, killing each other.
“My generation, we lost Tupac, we lost Biggie and we got the memo. Everybody calmed down. We all figured this out: We [were] rapping to get out of the streets,” he continued. “But the youngsters who are out here behaving like that, these kids are millionaires so I don’t know how many young people gotta get lost, I don’t know which one might trigger that message, but I think it’s time for this generation to get a hold of itself.”
Ice-T Photo by Erika Goldring/Getty Images/KRS-ONEPhoto by Paras Griffin/Getty Images
