Hey everyone, it's MSNBC's Tremaine Lee, host of the podcast Into America.

This Black History Month, I'm excited to share a special series that celebrates the 50th anniversary of hip-hop.

The series explores how our country's political and economic forces shaped half a century of hip-hop,

and how over time hip-hop shaped America.

I talk with industry trailblazers

as we travel back through the last five decades,

diving into key moments from each era

as the genre emerges and takes over the American landscape.

In our series, Street Disciples, Politics, Power, and the Rise of Hip-Hop.

You can stay right here and listen to a special preview

and search for Into America wherever you're listening and follow the series.

After decades of white flight, disinvestment, fires, and abject neglect, the South Bronx was at a breaking point.

Then, in 1982, one song took the realities of life broken by the system and put it to music.

The tone of it, it was not celebratory.

It was not something that I imagined even as a 16-year-old that would want to go to a party to dance to.

It just felt like it was doing something different.

That's when everything started to get really, really, really raw.

It started with a new sound.

It started with a new sound. The beat is slowed down, but still kind of funky.

Still electric, but pulsating.

Something you got a bob to.

And that song was The Message by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five.

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