Rap City was proof.

By the time the show made its BET debut on Aug. 11, 1989, hip-hop was the rallying cry of Black America, reduced to a catchy whisper throughout mainstream America. The Grammys wouldn’t air our awards. Radio rarely played our music. MTV birthed Yo! MTV Raps in 1988, years after music titans like Rick James and David Bowie questioned the network’s apparent erasure of Black artists.

To many, hip-hop was a fad. Rap City was proof that hip-hop was more.

When Rap City co-founder Hans “Prime” Dobson was on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, dissing Arizona for not recognizing Martin Luther King Jr. Day as a national holiday, Rap City was proof that hip-hop was a rebellion. When Will Smith told Rap City producers its inaugural host, Chris “The Mayor” Thomas, didn’t need a teleprompter telling him how to speak hip-hop because he was already a representation of the culture, Rap City was proof that hip-hop was a language. When host Joe Clair’s interview with Notorious B.I.G. — one of the last of Biggie’s life — aired three days after the rapper’s untimely death, Rap City was proof that hip-hop was forever. And Rap City never felt like it was concerned with showing all of that to anyone else but its own people.

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