Twenty years ago, hyphy, a music and cultural movement that came out of Oakland and the Bay Area, exploded nationally. It had its own slang, fashion, dance style, car culture, and much more.

This year, The Oaklandside published two stories looking back at that moment and at what has happened since, both reported by Eric K. Arnold. Eric has covered the Bay Area’s hip hop scene since the ’90s and chronicled hyphy’s rise and fall as it happened.

Eric joined me to talk about the summer of 2006, when the movement broke nationally, and to what happened when the spotlight faded. He also picks up the story today, as a new generation of Bay Area artists reaches back to reclaim that sound, and some of the people who lived through it start talking openly about what happened behind the music.

READ ON AT OAKLANDSIDE