Marc Fennell

Off the back of that, hip-hop just grows and it makes its way from the streets into recording studios.

And in 1979, the first commercial hip-hop track is recorded, Rapper's Delight by the Sugarhill Gang.

Interestingly, when it came out, it was seen as a novelty.

Hip hop was something that happened live at parties.

It was a living, breathing thing.

So how could you ever, people wondered, capture that on vinyl?

But Rapper's Delight was a legitimate pop hit and soon record labels saw big dollar signs.

It's wild to think that the full version of Rapper's Delight was actually 15 minutes long.

They did, of course, release a radio-friendly shorter version and, yeah, it became the first rap song to be in the pop charts and really did introduce a lot of people around the world to the sound of hip-hop.

By the time you hit the 1980s, record companies obviously by this point completely realised that this thing's here to stay and there is a lot of money to be made from hip-hop.

Like all of the best art, hip-hop holds up a mirror to society.

It reflects what is going on at a particular time and in a particular place.

And in the 1980s, America was changing.

So Grandmaster Flash and his crew come up with a song, and they call it The Message.

And it starts off, broken glass everywhere.

From there, we get this global movement.

It becomes the voice of generations.

It still dominates charts after all these years.

Why?

What is it about hip-hop that has made it so culturally central after all these years?