Vice President Kamala Harris sponsored a celebration of hip-hop’s 50th anniversary on Saturday (September 9) with visits by some of the music genre’s pioneers and artists.

Hip-hop stars such as Common, Jeezy, Lil Wayne (a.k.a. Tunechi), MC Lyte, and Roxanne Shante were among those invited to Harris’ party at the vice presidential home.

This year marks the 50th anniversary of hip-hop, which has prompted a slew of commemorative activities. Many credit the genre’s inception to a back-to-school party held on August 11, 1973, at a Bronx apartment building in New York City by 18-year-old Clive Campbell, also known as DJ Kool Herc.

Hip-hop, according to Harris, is “the ultimate American art form” that “shapes every aspect of America’s popular culture.”

“Hip-hop culture is American culture,” she declared to the audience.

Hip-hop has evolved into a worldwide art form, one of the world’s most important cultural forces, an essential component of social and racial justice movements, and a multibillion-dollar enterprise based on generations of rapping, emceeing, deejaying, breaking, and graffiti.

Rap, according to Public Enemy artist Chuck D, is “Black America’s CNN.”

“It has always channeled people’s voices.” “It tells the stories that don’t make the news,” she stated before joining her husband, Doug Emhoff, for a concert.

The event on Saturday was a partnership between the Recording Academy’s Black Music Collective and Live Nation Urban.

“This is a hip-hop household!” Emhoff stated.