The Day Hip-Hop Died

The long-reaching effects of The 1995 Source Awards

“None of us were the same after that day.”

- Questlove (of The Roots)

In 1995, hip-hop music was at its pinnacle. It was in the midst of a second golden age that saw incredibly talented new artists burst onto the scene and create some of the best music the genre had ever produced. The pioneers were legends and the generation that grew up listening to them had grabbed the torch and continued to march further.

No longer dismissed as a “fad,” hip-hop was becoming one of the most popular and most profitable musical genres in America. At the time, there was really only one hip-hop publication that mattered: The Source. Before the Internet, before Twitter, before XXL, before Benzino’s hijacking, The Source really was The Hip-Hop Bible. Yes, Vibe had come onto the scene in 1993 but it had more of an R&B slant and was still trying to gain its foothold. The Source was the be all and end all. Their album ratings — based on a scale of 1–5 mics — was everything. Receiving a 5-mic review in The Source was the equivalent of a comedian being asked by Johnny Carson to come over and sit on the couch. It meant that you produced a classic and if The Source gave its stamp of approval, no one would argue with it.