ABOUT THE EVENT
This month MTV celebrates the 20th anniversary of Yo! MTV Raps, one of the best and most influential music shows in television history. Join us as we take a trip back in time to the golden age of hip-hop. We've got everything from rare photos of your favorite 'Yo!' artists to vintage video playlists to exclusive interviews with hosts Fab 5 Freddy, Ed Lover and Doctor Dre, plus classic video clips from the show.
The Hosts
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Ed Lover and Doctor Dre Doctor Dre and Ed Lover are true hip-hop veterans. In the early days of hip-hop, the Long Island-born Doctor Dre cofounded the rap group Original Concept, whose 1986 Def Jam single "Can You Feel It" became one of the most sampled songs in hip-hop history.
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Fab 5 Freddy Born in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, Fab 5 Freddy began his journey as a young visual artist, executing graffiti pieces throughout New York City. His 1980 homage to Andy Warhol -- a subway car covered in Campbell's soup cans -- is considered one of the all-time classics of subway graffiti.
ABOUT YO! MTV RAPS
ABOUT THE EVENT
Yo! MTV Raps 20th Anniversary
You may not realize it, but the world changed on August 8th 1988. That was the day that Yo! MTV Raps premiered on "MTV," a young upstart cable network dedicated to music videos. The moment that pilot aired hip-hop transcended the 'hood and dived head-first into the mainstream.
You see the inner-city kids already knew what time it was. Hip-hop informed the way they walked, talked and dressed. Their superstars had names like Rakim, Big Daddy Kane, and Run-DMC. It didn't matter if you lived in New York City, Philadelphia, Houston, Miami or L.A. if you were from the 'hood hip hop was your way of life.
When Yo! MTV Raps hit the airwaves the rest of the world was invited to the party. Featuring on location artist interviews, in-studio performances and most importantly, the best music videos Yo! gave rap fans the music and culture at its most concentrated.
Everyone from a kid living in a Detroit trailer park to the preppy kid in the Hollywood Hills got an unprecedented look inside hip-hop. Rap enthusiasts from around the country and the world were now able to see how their counterparts lived. Guided by the personification of cool, Fab 5 Freddy, and two irreverent brothers from Long Island named Ed Lover and Doctor Dre, Yo! took us where no other show had gone before. This wasn't some instructional, hip-hop-by-numbers program; this was the viewer getting an insider's access to the most important youth movement in decades. When MTV hollered "Yo!" the world listened.
