FIFTY DEEP: YouTube to celebrate 50 years of hip hop

The campaign, dubbed FIFTY DEEP, kicks off on 11 August and will honour the stars who have defined the genre through a spotlight of 2 000 videos across various YouTube Music playlists and other features across Google.

The programme will feature different activations including plans for a Yoodle – YouTube’s equivalent of Google’s customised homepage logo – inspired by the world of ‘type beats’, and a livestreamed concert from Yankee Stadium on 11 August featuring Run DMC, Lil Wayne, Nas, Snoop Dogg and Lil' Kim, among others.

The Hip Hop 50 live-stream will be broadcast on the official Mass Appeal YouTube channel, the New York-based music magazine and brand co-owned by Nas.

YouTube Music will also introduce several new playlists, including a 50-song selection of nearly four hours of music, described by YouTube’s director of black music and culture, Tuma Basa, as a celebration of rappers “from Ice-T to Ice Spice.”

“If you’re like me, you watched your favourite music videos on Yo! MTV Raps or BET’s Rap City over and over again,” Basa said. “Fast forward to today and YouTube allows us to watch almost any video at any time, in almost any place.

“This year marks a whole half a century of hip hop’s existence. YouTube’s only been around about a third of that time, but no matter what era of hip hop you’re looking for, one thing’s for sure – it lives on YouTube.”

He added: “I also want to give respect to the late Sidhu Moose Wala of India for his unique sound. We see hip hop artists from places like Turkey, Germany, France, Korea, Canada, Brazil, and so many more around the world sharing their take on the music and climbing the charts everywhere. I also can’t talk about the world and not mention Africa – shout out to Cassper Nyovest and Nasty C in South Africa.”