Want to know what it's like to play behind the tiny desk? If you've got the talent, we've got the desk.

Unsigned artists enter the 2025 Tiny Desk Contest for an opportunity to play your own Tiny Desk

Concert. Our nationwide star search starts now, and the winner will play their own Tiny Desk

concert and a U.S. tour. To learn more, visit npr.org slash Tiny Desk Contest.

Hids up.

This episode contains some salty language.

Hey, everyone.

You're listening to Code Switch.

I'm B.A. Parker.

And for this week's show, we're digging into the history of hip-hop, as Kendrick Lamar headlines the Super Bowl halftime show.

Because, while for some folks, Lamar's performance is something to celebrate,

critics are bulking at the hypocrisy of a very pro-black rapper like Lamar, even performing for the NFL,

an institution not exactly known for its support of Black lives. That contradiction throws me back to an episode we made in

2003, celebrating the 50th anniversary of hip-hop. We're digging into hip-hop as a rebellious art form turned pop culture pillar, turned

U.S. cultural export.

So by now, we all kind of know the so-called origin story of hip-hop, right?

Because it's become something of an American myth.

So this is the way the legend typically goes, right?

It was five decades ago on a hot-ass August day in 1973 in the South Bronx.

A neighborhood full of Black Caribbean and Latino immigrants.

Yep.

And everybody is turning up at this party.

...