Jay-Z & Lil Wayne are still at the table

How two of hip-hop’s vets continue to shape my love for rap music

Growing up Black in the United States, I don’t feel like I ever had an experience of discovering hip-hop; more so, I feel like it happened to me. It was ingrained in the way my people spoke, how we dressed, the way we accessorized our cars, and even how we accessorized ourselves. In celebrating 50 years of hip-hop this month, I find myself thinking about two of the artists who have shaped my love for rap music the most: Jay-Z & Lil Wayne.

With 13 years in age between them, Hov & Weezy’s careers collectively span over half of hip-hop’s lifetime. They also represent two of the regions that have been most influential in rap’s growth: Jay-Z hailing from the U.S.’s East Coast — more specifically, Brooklyn, New York, not far from hip-hop’s birthplace in the Bronx — and Lil Wayne from New Orleans, Louisiana in what many lovingly call the “Dirty South.”

Their regional origins closely mirror mine. While most of my life was spent on the East Coast, I got to experience multiple facets of it. I was born in New York, lived most of my childhood in Maryland, and then my family and I moved down south to North Carolina. During those first few years in N.C., the son of one of my mom’s friends — an older high schooler — introduced me…