Diddy, GloRilla, 50 Cent & More Reveal How They Fell In Love With Hip-Hop
By Tony M. Centeno
May 17, 2023
After five decades of timeless classics, there's still one world-renowned song that's still credited for getting OG fans hooked on Hip-Hop for life: "Rapper's Delight."
The Sugarhill Gang is responsible for introducing Hip-Hop to a generation who grew up to be the most powerful minds in the music industry. Since their debut in 1979, the group formed by Sylvia Robinson inspired plenty of talented artists like to make their own contributions to the genre and its culture. Innovative MC's like LL Cool J, Kurtis Blow, Big Daddy Kane, Public Enemy and others went on to inspire some of the greatest voices to contribute their talents to Hip-Hop.
Every loyal fan will always remember the song, album or artist that made them fall in love with Hip-Hop. For the ladies, it may have been pioneers like Salt-N-Pepa, Lauryn Hill or Missy Elliott who's slick rhymes and soothing vocals attracted them to H.E.R. For the '90s babies, it could've been Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, 2Pac, The Notorious B.I.G., JAY-Z or Nas who put them on to the genre.
In honor of Hip-Hop's 50th anniversary, iHeartRadio spoke with some of the biggest names in the rap game about the moments and artists that turned them into rap fans for life. Scroll down to read personal reflections from Diddy, GloRilla, Busta Rhymes, Latto and more.
50 Cent
The album that really made me fall in love with Hip-Hop was Criminal Minded. It was KRS-One. It was Boogie Down Productions. That joint was kind of crazy. It was like the timing. It came up when I was at my life and an environment that I was in. It felt like the environment. The only thing I really didn't agree with was when he was saying 'Manhattan keeps on making it, Brooklyn keeps on taking it/The Bronx creating it and Queens keeps on faking it.' Cuz I'm from Queens and I was like, 'Why he said that?'
Akon
Hip-Hop changed my life, man. It saved it too. My dad was a drummer, so he was a percussionist and that's what brought him here to the United States. Playing African percussion, he ended up working with Disney and composing a lot of the Lion King stuff. He worked with James Brown, the World Saxophone Quartet and many other groups. The beautiful part about it is when I came to the US, I liked every kind of music, but I got attached to Hip-Hop because the drums was super heavy. It was like a drum heavy genre so it automatically attracted me. By the time I learned how to speak English, I started hearing the lyrics and understanding what was going on in the music. It attracted me even more because I realized these guys were struggling. It was so relatable. So it became my way of kind of coping with what was going on with my culture, the shock of coming from Africa and that transition. So that's why I was always around foreigners all the way down to different cultures in the refugee camp. When we all came together, it made a difference and Hip-Hop was the glue.
Angela Yee
I'm from Brooklyn, New York so you already know early on I was a big fan of Hip-hop growing up. I remember Salt-N-Pepa was my favorite group when I was a kid. I feel like I learned a lot from listening to their music. I remember they had this one song called "Tramp" and I used to love that video. I remember having to actually record songs off the radio with a cassette tape so we can play it back because they didn't play Hip-Hop all day on the radio like that. Early on even the battles were a thing like the U.T.F.O crew and Slick Rick and Doug E. Fresh and the show. It was just a fun time. I love to see how today those songs still stand the test of time. They're what you call "a classic" and it definitely always brings me back anytime I see Salt-N-Pepa doing interviews. The fact that they did that movie is amazing. Even the fact that they're still on tour and they're still cool with each other, killing it and they got back together with Spinderella. All of that to me is like.. it's nostalgic. It's amazing. I can't believe sometimes that I get to meet some of these people and actually interview them.
Babyface Ray
I fell in love with Hip-Hop probably when I was in middle school. How music could change my emotions and make me feel better when I was going through something. A specific album that did it for me: Kid Cudi's Man On The Moon. I have to say my favorite verse is JAY-Z's "Allure." The lyrics are so special to me because of how it connects with me and the everyday struggles I went through.
Big Boy
I didn't know what Hip-Hop was. I had started to hear certain things where one of my guys from New York would shoot me these tapes back in the day but my real love was "Rapper's Delight." That was my introduction to Hip-Hop. I was intrigued by this song that went for like 15 minutes. That was the first time I ever heard somebody be vicious on the mic and the turntables. I didn't even know what a turntable was, but me and my buddy Trevor we used to walk to the Boys & Girls Club in Santa Monica and we didn't have a car in my family. We were going through some rough times between Trevor's family and mine. We would just walk and rap "Rapper's Delight" and from rapping "Rapper's Delight" to where Hip-Hop is now, man it's been a journey. Hip-Hop has been around for pretty much my entire life. So I love Hip-Hop. Hip-Hop has loved me. I continue to protect this art form, but my first calling to love Hip-Hop was "Rapper's Delight."
Busta Rhymes
I think I first fell in love with hip hop probably around 1979 - 1980 when "Rapper's Delight" came out. That was The Sugarhill Gang and I just think that song, for me, it just struck a nerve in my body in a different way because for the first time I was experiencing them in music, unlike the way that my parents was always playing it in a crib, or unlike the way my parents was playing it in a car when they was taking me to school or picking me up from school or dropping me off at the babysitter or taking me to our family's or they friends' crib. Moving around with your parents, they obviously ain't listening to no Hip-Hop. In my particular upbringing, in my household, everything was Jamaican music and disco music and some R&B or some soul music. This was the first impression that I think that I ever got to hearing this sound and getting this feeling that was unlike anything that I've ever experienced the entire time that I was alive. That's when the moment really happened, that everything changed for me.
Cordae
My step pops used to always just play a whole lot of JAY-Z in the car. It was just, just one song. "R-O-C, Yep! No. 1 clink yep/If you represent us, throw them diamonds up yeah!" I was like three, four years old just rapping that joint word for word. That was like one of the moments I can say I really fell in love with Hip-Hop. I know that wasn't from The Blueprint, but The Blueprint album definitely was the album that made me really fall in love with Hip-Hop. Same with Nas as well. Too many favorite verses, too many favorite lyrics.
Diddy
It was the feeling the first day I heard "Rapper's Delight." I was in Harlem and Frankie Crocker played it like maybe 50 times and it just spoke to my soul. It was free. It was Black. It was young. It was pure, unapologetic expression. And I knew it was gonna be one thing I wanted to be a part of because I knew it was gonna change the world.
DJ Khaled
I fell in love with Hip-Hop when I seen Run-DMC and Jam Master Jay perform "Peter Piper" right in a big arena. I was a little kid and I couldn't believe what I was seeing and what I was hearing. I fell in love immediately. It changed my life as a DJ, as a producer. What I loved about "Peter Piper" with so many breaks. Not just the rhymes and the flows, but just the breaks and the records. The way the MC and the DJ and the producer connected all in one record. It was like unbelievable to me. And it still is.
DJ Scream
I gotta say I fell in love with Hip-Hop around let's say 1992 when I heard this album called The Chronic by Dr. Dre. I mean the beats was banging. That situation was full of nothing but classic Hip-Hop hits and the genius Dr. Dre introduced us to the one and only Snoop Dogg. What a classic album The Chronic was.
French Montana
I fell in love with Hip-Hop when I was young in Africa, Morocco, Casablanca, not knowing no English. It just made me feel a certain way. It made me feel alive. It made me feel like there was a passion for something that I didn't even know existed. I was getting some type of love through my body, some type of vibration that I never felt before. I just kept on chasing it ever since then. The artist and album that did it for me was 2Pac and the song name was "Ambitionz Az a Rider." It was 2Pac when he first came outta jail and he did All Eyez On Me.
Ice Cube
I fell in love with Hip-Hop when I was 10-years-old on my way to the dentist. My uncle was taking me to the dentist and he played "Rapper's Delight" and I made him play it over and over the whole time we was riding. And from that day on I was in love with Hip-Hop.
Ice-T
I fell in love with Hip-Hop when I first actually heard it when I was in the Army and I heard kids from New York playing it. Then I saw the New York City Breakers on TV and then I heard Sugarhill Gang and I'm like, 'I could do that.' That's the beauty of Hip-Hop. With a little practice, everybody can get involved with Hip-Hop. I think the artist that did it for me is the same that did it for a lot of people. It was Sugarhill Gang, "Rapper's Delight." They had a B-side that was instrumental and everybody tried to rap. After they heard that, they were trying their luck rapping. And then, of course, Kurtis Blow in the early days when rap was just coming out. I said, man, 'I want to get involved with this.'
J Cruz
Growing up, radio. television was a major part of my life, and still is. Watching shows like "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" where it necessarily wasn't a Hip-Hop show but he was wearing Jordan's and it was Hip-Hop artists making cameos. And listening to radio, growing up on West coast Hip-Hop. As soon as I heard Hip-Hop on the radio, I thought to myself "Yo not only do I love this music, but I want to be part of it somehow." That "somehow" is now being on the radio at a Hip-Hop radio station. That's something I'll alway be appreciative of is hip-Hop, Hip-Hop introduced me to so much. It introduced me to a world I wasn't aware of. Once I became a fan, I was hooked. I'm in for life.
Janelle Monáe
So there were like three albums that really helped me fall in love with Hip-Hop and one was The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill. That album let me know that I could be not just a singer. I didn't have to just choose being a singer over being a rapper. When I listened to Lauryn [Hill], she was doing it both so seamlessly singing, rapping. She was mixing jazz with Hip-Hop with R&B, with gospel and honoring who she was, and then 2Pac. When I listened to Makaveli or Me Against the World, I probably shouldn't have been listening to either of those albums, but those, those albums for me just let me know what was going on in his life and he was such a poet and so much conviction and so much heart and so much just passion behind his voice. It just made me like wanna honor who I was. Then it was OutKast because they were so eclectic and they were so different and they were unique and they didn't dress like anybody else. When I listened to Aquemini and when I listened to Speakerboxx/The Love Below, like those albums made me push myself to figure out like how I could bring something different to the genre too.
JID
I fell in love with Hip-Hop at a tender, young age. It was just like the frequencies and the vibes and seeing people that look like me being able to tell these stories that I was seeing every day in my neighborhood. The album and artist that did it for me... I'm gonna say Channel Orange by Frank Ocean. I wasn't like a total child, but at the same time it was just like, this is amazing body of work.
King Combs
I fell in love with Hip-Hop cuz I was born into it. I always loved it, always been around it and always wanted to do this. So we here. Can't stop, won't stop.
Latto
I fell in love with Hip-Hop when I was a kid. My dad is a Hip-Hop head, so I grew up on a lot of 2Pac and N.W.A. Bone Thugs-N-Harmony is his favorite. I grew up around Hip-Hop. I specifically fell in love with Hip-Hop when I was introduced to Gucci [Mane] though. That's when it hit different. Gucci been my favorite rapper since I was a kid.
Mustard
I gotta say The Chronic because Dr. Dre was who I aspire to be.
Master P
In the '90s Hip-Hop changed my life. I mean it took me out the hood. It took me out the streets. Hip-Hop changed my world. The album and artists that did it for me was Run-DMC. When I first heard Run-DMC.... I mean I used to jam all day to "My Adidas." That was my favorite as as a kid.
SleazyWorld Go
I feel like I fell in love with Hip-Hop when I was going through like my hardest times in life. I feel like music was the only thing that I could like talk to or vent to, or show my true emotions to without being judged or nothing. Rod Wave, I feel like he kind of gave me hope into making it.
Rae Sremmurd
Swae Lee: I fell in love with Hip-Hop like way back in the day like Lil Wayne and all them mixtapes and albums, like the one with "3 Peat" on it. That was my favorite one. They really connected with me, the song "3 Peat." When I was like 11, 12 type stuff and then I fell in love again when I heard that Mike Jones, Slim Thug and Paul Wall joint "Still Tippin'."
Slim Jxmmi: I can say that I fell in love with Hip-Hop as a young man. My mama would play like a lot of old records and it was just one record that really made me wanna rap and it was the one that went, "Don't push me cause I'm close to the edge," you know what I'm saying? I really like the part where it's like "Broken glass everywhere/People smokin' on the stairs, guess they just don't care." I like the old school and I come from an old school and that's why I fell in love with Hip-Hop.
T.I.
I fell in love with Hip-Hop when I heard LL Cool J "I'm Bad" for the first time. It just felt fresh. It felt new. There was an energy attached to it that that that I hadn't experienced with any other music, any other form of expression. I hadn't experienced that until I heard LL Cool J's "I'm Bad."
Ty Dolla $ign
The first album that made me fall in love with Hip-Hop has gotta be The Chronic by Dr. Dre. I think that's like one of the best ones ever to this day.
Wale
When I fell in love with Hip-Hop, I don't even remember for real. I think as far back because I can remember *laughs*. It's always been a part of my life. I don't know a specific album, but there's a lot of albums that kind of.. I guess when I made the leap, you gotta think of Harlem World by Ma$e, Me Against the World I got a couple obscure ones like Fiend's Street Life, Mac's Shell Shocked, Souljah Slim's second album with No Limit. Reasonable Doubt obviously.
Xzibit
I fell in love with Hip-Hop when I was very young. I was about 10, 11-years-old when I first heard the Rappin' Duke, "duh-ha, duh-ha" and then after that I fell in love with everything I heard with that Hip-Hop vibe to it. There was a specific album that I listened to as a kid and it was Fear of a Black Planet by Public Enemy, and that did it. "Welcome to the Terrordome," "Fight the Power," these are all records that I listened to and just couldn't wrap my head around the production. I just didn't know it at the time, but this is gonna be my destiny.
Young Dro