For the love of hip hop.Red carpet event planned in Lehigh Valley to celebrate genre’s 50th anniversary

• A local nonprofit organization will hold a hip-hop 50th anniversary celebration Sunday at the Musikfest Café at Bethlehem’s ArtsQuest Center.
• Hip-hop started in the Bronx, New York, but quickly spread to the Lehigh Valley, organizers say.
• The event will feature live performances, a graffiti contest, breakdancing, and 13 award categories.

BETHLEHEM, Pa. — On Sunday, organizers will roll out the red carpet at the Musikfest Café at ArtsQuest Center in Bethlehem.

The event marks the 50th anniversary of hip-hop, which organizers say has a little-known historical footprint in the Lehigh Valley.

The gala, scheduled for 3 p.m., will present 13 awards including Best Promoter, Best Studio, Best DJ, Lifetime Achievement Award and Best Music Video.

Tickets are $20 and $30 and available at SteelStacks.org. The form to vote for award nominees is similar.

There will also be live graffiti contests, beatbox battles, break dancing, live hip hop performances, and more.

The ceremony follows a series of similar events commemorating hip-hop’s 50th anniversary.

One at the White House.

What makes this event different is that all of the acts and speakers have some connection to the Lehigh Valley’s hip-hop scene — an underrated hip-hop scene, said organizer Michael. A. Frasset said.

“Yeah, we’ve been talking about how hip-hop has improved lives, really all over the world, but especially here in the Lehigh Valley,” Frassetto said.

“That’s why we wanted to do an awards ceremony to recognize people in hip-hop, because in the last 30 or 40 years that they’ve been in this field, they’ve never been recognized for their talent. Because there wasn’t.”

Hip hop and positive change

Frasetto runs Movement Moves Media, a nonprofit organization dedicated to mentoring children through the arts through music genres such as hip-hop.

For him and his team, hip-hop stands out as a great way for people to express themselves because of its authenticity, he said.

“This is a way for people who may have felt like they weren’t part of normal society to do it,” Frassetto said. “So it’s an expressive art form that they gravitate towards to express themselves.

“And that’s what you see with people in hip-hop. Maybe they don’t fit into the norms of normal society, so they were drawn to hip-hop and were able to express themselves artistically through hip-hop. .”

“That’s why you often hear lyrics in hip-hop that are considered vulgar, but for the people who are expressing themselves, it’s a reality, and it’s just another expression they can use. There isn’t.”

He said in the six years he has run the nonprofit Movement Moves, he has seen hip-hop change lives and uplift communities.

One example he cited was when an Allentown group consisting of musicians Sonny George, Oso and Fit Kubu released a song called “Something’s Gotta Give” four years ago. The goal was to curb gun violence.

It was picked up by local media and had over 14,000 views on YouTube.

“Bad rap”

Frassett agreed that, no joke, hip-hop often gets a “bad rap.”

He feels this is unfair and said other genres, such as country music, are not always subject to the same scrutiny.

“Some country songs have lyrics about killing people, killing cops, and you don’t hear that on the news,” Frassetto said.

“I don’t hear, ‘Oh, country is such a sleazy genre.’ That’s maybe one or two percent of country, or one or two percent of hip-hop.

“The vast majority of hip-hop, 98 percent, doesn’t have lyrics like that, but the ones that are always in the news and covered are the more profane ones.

“But when you talk to people who really enjoy hip-hop, they might enjoy some of those songs, but really, that’s not what defines hip-hop at all.”

An example of a hip-hop song with a positive, uplifting message is “Hey Young World” by rapper Slick Rick. Its main message is about the importance of listening to parents, doing well in school and staying out of trouble in order to shape a bright future.

Frasetto said he likes the song and that it’s just one of many subgenres within hip-hop.

lehigh valley hip hop

“Some say hip-hop started in New York City in 1973 and became very popular from there, next spreading to Philadelphia and other East Coast cities, but by the mid-’80s, it was starting in the Lehigh Valley.” said Frasset.

Many of the original Lehigh Valley hip-hop artists are scheduled to perform at Sunday’s ceremony, where several lifetime achievement awards will be presented.

“One of the original names was DJ Tang, and he’s actually part of the show as well,” Frasetto said. “He will be on stage towards the end of the show and will have a few minutes to talk to the audience.”

Hip-hop has spread across generations in the Lehigh Valley, Frassett said, with some people listening to hip-hop while attending local high schools in the ’80s; Some are older than others, and some are children from decades ago. It continued on to Lehigh Valley kids discovering it for the first time.

He also said he believes hip-hop is successful for a good reason.

“So hip-hop is the music genre that has become the highest-grossing, best-selling genre in the history of the world,” Frasetto said. “And it’s only been 50 years, so to think it’s going to be this big in 50 years…

“If people don’t really enjoy hip-hop, that’s a different matter, but we definitely have to respect that, because no genre in the history of the world has been able to bring out what hip-hop has to offer. Because there is nothing else.”