Editor
Birthed by DJ Kool Herc on August 11, 1973, at a basement party in the Bronx, Hip-Hop is now 50 years old. To celebrate, EBONY has teamed up with entertainment company Mass Appeal for a history-making print issue that honors five-decades of creative excellence. Through moving stories penned by leading voices, we’re highlighting the moments that made history. We’re also bringing some of the culture’s leading disruptors to the fore and giving them their flowers. In a whirlwind three-city cover shoot, we bring you 50 Cent, Busta Rhymes, Lil’ Kim, Rick Ross and Swizz Beatz. This is our love letter to the culture that raised us. Get your copy of this limited-edition print issue from now through December 19, 2023. Plus, see exclusive videos and related content below.
There are striking similarities between 50 Cent and the genre of hip-hop. Both start from humble beginnings, representing communities marred by disenfranchisement and neglect. Existing in spaces where opportunities are few but the will to defeat the odds is greater. The savviness learned on street corners became vital in infiltrating blue-chip corporations and capturing mainstream success. Doing it their own way—with no apology.
Although dressed casually in a crisp white T-shirt, black LA Dodgers baseball cap, and G-Unit jogging pants, there’s nothing simple about 50—especially his journey. “Hip-hop has completely changed my life and opened up doors that I didn’t even know I wanted to enter,” says 50 during our lengthy conversation as he prepared for “The Final Lap Tour,” a celebration of the twentieth anniversary of Get Rich or Die Tryin’.
“Extreme focus is ruthless. When a person has extreme focus, they become ruthless. You make adjustments and sacrifices to have a different legacy.”
On a crisp spring day, a Brooklyn studio is bustling with around 30 people, all here for the star at its center, 50 Cent. The mogul took a brief brief break from filming a forthcoming project and flew in for the day just to make this shoot happen. “It feels really great to be on the cover of EBONY magazine,” he shares. “It would have been ten times better for me if my grandmother were here to see it.” This was a career highlight that he could not miss. In a gritty alleyway, 50 moves through tailored looks styled by Rachel Johnson with ease, a process captured by lensman Keith Major. Draped in elegant fall suiting and luxe accessories, 50 cuts a mean silhouette. Check out the behind-the-scenes action in this exclusive video.
You don’t make the ground shake with business as usual. A seismic shift in the culture requires a quality or gift that burns like molten lava. Your ideas and subsequent creations must move the Earth—as Swizz Beatz does.
What makes renowned renaissance man Kasseem “Swizz Beatz” Dean’s moves powerful, prominent, and fearless? Of course, he makes the answer sound very simple. “I don’t do anything that I’m not into, you know, those days are gone,” he reveals. “I have to really feel something. I must really be excited. People have to get something from it.”
There is a starting point when creative spirits like Swizz begin a new project. I wonder: Is the goal to shift the landscape or just do the best work? “I would say it’s a little bit of both. I mean, I’m attracted to doing things that one may be scared to do or don’t even know that there’s the opportunity to do, but I go into those places, wanting to be my best.”
On July 4th weekend, the EBONY team remained hard at work, creating magic with producer, rapper, DJ and songwriter Kasseem ‘Swizz Beatz’ Dean in Littlerock, California’s famed Desert Cyc location. The otherworldly, 7,000 sq. ft. outdoor studio with a moat and waterfall felt like the perfect setting for the visionary’s first EBONY cover. “This is a dream come true,” he shares. “I always thought I was going to be on the cover with my family, but to be on here on some solo zone, I’m not mad at it.” Stylist McKay Loving supplied a range of looks from Amiri, Tom Ford, Casablanca and more. Beatz added some extra swag to his Timberland, Louis Vuitton and Adidas kicks with his sock line, Saudi Bronx. Watch what happened behind the scenes of his cinematic cover shoot.
Swizz Beatz, one of five icons featured on our Hip-Hop 50th anniversary commemorative covers, shares how drive has played a significant role in his ascension from Bronx DJ and rapper to cultural revolutionist.
Suppose the words of Beyoncé Giselle Knowles-Carter matter (we all know they do). In that case, Brooklynite and longtime friend of her husband, Jay-Z, Lil’ Kim, should have a big smile on her face because, as the other Queen Bee declared a few years ago on her culture-bending single “Formation”: “You know you that b**** when you cause all of this conversation.”
Well Lil’ Kim is that b****.
Rivaled only by Lauryn Hill, Lil’ Kim is arguably the most widely discussed and dissected female rapper of the twentieth century. In the media—from Right On! and The New York Times to Essence and Out—and in academia—Professor Greg Thomas of Syracuse University taught the accredited course “Hip-Hop Eshu: Queen B@#$h 101—the Life & Times of Lil’ Kim.” “Her lyrical artistry is nothing short of revolutionary,” Thomas told ABC Radio. “It’s the art with the most profound sexual politics I’ve ever seen anywhere.”
“When I think of cultural disruption I think of innovators, I think of people who check game, and I’ve been told that about myself.”
On a 102-degree Saturday afternoon in July, the EBONY team took a 2-hour sojourn from West Hollywood to the California desert, for a history-making cover shoot that would become one for the books. The mission: to bring to life rap icon Lil’ Kim’s epic vision for a regal cover shoot that rightfully celebrates her as the rap queen that she is. Plans for the collaboration began months ago, with Kim’s team bringing a bevy of ideas to the table regarding creative direction, styling, and location. The moment was long overdue as the trailblazer’s influence can be seen in practically every femcee to follow. Stylist Paris Chea supplied a range of runway and custom avant-garde looks from Gucci, Laurel DeWitt, and Rey Ortiz.
Rick Ross has amassed a sizable fortune through hip-hop. His voice, persona, and confidence (rooted in Black South Florida culture) create a vibe so potent that his signature grunt— “unngh”—can stop worlds, start parties, and even reset minds. Rick Ross is a visionary. “I think the core of hip-hop was about having a voice for where you was from,” Ross recalls. “When you saw Puerto Ricans breakdancing—you know, I’m somewhere halfway across the world, and I know where they from.”
Raised in Carol City, Florida, William Leonard Roberts II remembers his early experiences as a rap consumer as an opportunity to learn about other places. “Yeah, this is Brooklyn. Wow, this is Queens. When I began loving music and writing music, I wanted to do that. ”After Def Jam Recordings proved victorious in the bidding war to sign Ross, his 2006 album Port of Miami debuted with 187,000 units sold in its first week. From its first bar, his single “Hustlin” established him as a hip-hop force.
The EBONY team headed to Miami for an epic cover shoot with Rick Ross at the Vizcaya Museum & Gardens in Coconut Grove. Founded in 1916, the luxe setting is the former villa and estate of businessman James Deering, of the Deering McCormick-International Harvester fortune. Photographer Shamaal Bloodman captured Rozay in various setups throughout on the Mediterranean-style estate, including the property’s limestone staircases and Secret Garden. The historical setting nods to a distant era of ‘old money’ and gatekeepers while Rozay represents the new generation of hip-hop moguls and financial heavyweights. Take an inside look.
In a culturally disruptive career over three decades, Busta Rhymes has rocked many stages worldwide since Leaders of the New School’s “Mt. Airy Groove” introduced him in 1990. But never a setting quite like this one. Imagine two enormous jumbotrons bracketing a raised platform in the middle of an abandoned airfield in the Saudi Arabian desert, and there he is: purple and lime-green jacket covered in Louis Vuitton’s LV logos, iced-out links, and that signature smile. Picture him rhyming quadruple-time to his 2011 feature on Chris Brown’s “Look at Me Now” for 600,000-plus Middle Eastern fans at the MDLBEAST Soundstorm music festival last December.
Busta’s rapid-fire verse, undoubtedly one of the fastest of all time, commanded all attention away from the other hip-hop greats onstage. The 51-year-old MC’s legendary scene-stealing is never-ending and infamous, starting with the A Tribe Called Quest classic, “Scenario,” in 1991 (“rawr! rawr! like a dungeon dragon…”). In Riyadh, Saudi Arabia—arms crossed in a B-boy stance alongside his longtime hype man-slash-bestie, Spliff Star—he stood as the embodiment of hip-hop, one of the most significant cultural exports in America’s history.
“As long as you can still produce great [music], you can’t put a timeline on it.The fire and the passion still burn in my soul to wanna do it. I’m still a fan of the culture, of the art. I still love it.”
The EBONY team descended upon a Manhattan high rise to bring Busta Rhymes’ vision for his epic inaugural EBONY cover shoot to fruition. As rap royalty, it was only right we give the icon his flowers with a regal cover shoot that pulled out all the stops. Style Director Ugo Mozie assembled a bi-coastal team to assemble a bevy of kingly looks from a range of designers including Dolce & Gabbana, Helen Yarmak, On Aura Tout Vu, Neige and Tender Persons. Prop stylist Wendy Correa and floral designer Mike McManus created a cinematic backdrop of fantastical florals and the pièce de résistance–a majestic throne. Shot on soaring rooftop, the Manhattan skyline nodded to the icon’s New York roots.
Birthed by DJ Kool Herc on August 11, 1973, at a basement party in the Bronx, Hip-Hop is now 50 years old. To celebrate, EBONY has teamed up with entertainment company Mass Appeal for a history-making print issue that honors five-decades of creative excellence. Through moving stories penned by leading voices, we’re highlighting the moments that made history. We’re also bringing some of the culture’s leading disruptors to the fore and giving them their flowers. In a whirlwind three-city cover shoot, we bring you 50 Cent, Busta Rhymes, Lil’ Kim, Rick Ross and Swizz Beatz. This is our love letter to the culture that raised us. Get your copy of this limited-edition print issue from now through December 19, 2023. Plus, see exclusive videos and related content below.
Covers
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