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NEW YORK — Here’s a sobering thought: if hip-hop were a person, it would be eligible for an AARP card this month.

Unlike most musical genres, hip-hop has a birthday — at least it was assigned one — and the 50th birthday party for New York’s native soundtrack will be whack. Do the kids still say whack? No? How about fly? Off the hook? Never mind. Let’s just say hip-hop is having a sprawling city-wide birthday party this month, and everyone is invited, even those who still use phrases such as “whack,” “fly,” and “off the hook.”

Legend has it that hip-hop was born on Aug. 11, 1973, when Cindy Campbell enlisted her brother, DJ Kool Herc to spin at her back-to-school party in the rec room of a Bronx apartment building. Herc brought two turntables, a massive pair of speakers, and a crate full of funk and soul records. Admission was a quarter for girls, 50 cents for boys.

But Campbell’s party became historic when her brother played two copies of the same record, joined them at the percussive break, and created an extended breakbeat. He worked the mic to get the crowd on the dance floor. You don’t need to worry about technical details here. Just remember 1520 Sedgwick Ave. in the Bronx. That’s where it all began.

It took more than a pair of turntables to birth hip-hop, and this is where I’ll turn the details over to Mighty Mike C, a guide for Hush Tours. On a humid, rainy afternoon last month, I took “The Birthplace of Hip Hop Tour,” which is being offered to celebrate hip-hop’s transition to middle age. I was the only US resident on the tour, which went through Harlem and the Bronx. My fellow rap enthusiasts were from Denmark, Canada, Switzerland, and Italy.

We saw the neighborhoods and venues where hip-hop came of age, plus there was a stop where we could learn breakdance moves. I watched the lessons from afar, fearful that my moves would be more break hip than breakdance.

According to Mike, who was a member of the early and influential rap band the Fearless Four, there are four elements to hip-hop, and I now know them all by heart because, during the tour, we were regularly quizzed.

“You need an MC, the media changed the term to rapper,” he said. “You need turntables. You need breakdancing. There’s one other element, and that’s graffiti. That’s what happened in the summer of 1973. It all came together.”

The music born in a Bronx community room is now the most popular genre in the United States and United Kingdom, according to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry. If you’re a fan of rap, or just curious to learn more, I’d say that 2023 would be the year to visit. New York City Tourism + Conventions has put together an extensive schedule and map on its website (NYCtourism.com/hiphop) with recommendations of where you can soak up essential old-school vibes in your favorite Adidas tracksuit.

If you’re in New York the week of Aug. 7, there are block parties, plus hip-hop week at Lincoln Center, and a big birthday concert at Yankee Stadium on Aug. 11 featuring pioneers of the style, such as Run-DMC, Ice Cube, Eve, Snoop Dogg, and the Sugar Hill Gang.

Even if a summer trip isn’t in your future, there are exhibits continuing into the fall, such as a look at Jay-Z’s Brooklyn roots on display at the Grand Army Plaza in Brooklyn or photographer Janette Beckman’s show “hip-hop at 50″ in New York’s Seaport District. There’s even an immersive “visual mixtape” called “Hip Hop Til Infinity” at the 500,000-square-foot Hall des Lumières.

Or, you can simply stroll through neighborhoods, support Black-owned businesses, and check out the murals. If you’re in the neighborhood, might I suggest brunch at Sweet Brooklyn Bar in Bed-Stuy?

“Hip-hop has touched every corner of the world by this point,” said Rondel Holder of New York City Tourism + Conventions. “A lot of people didn’t think that it would make it this far. Hip-hop wasn’t always generally accepted, but now it’s celebrated almost everywhere.”

One of those people who didn’t think it would last was Prince Charles Alexander, a Grammy Award-winning producer and professor at Berklee College of Music. When he first heard the seminal “Rapper’s Delight” by the Sugar Hill Gang in 1979, he thought it was a novelty record, not far from shtick like “The Monster Mash.”

Eventually, he warmed up to the genre. He became Boston’s first rapper. His band, Prince Charles and the City Beat Band, was signed to a major label, and after the group disbanded in the mid-1980s, he went on to engineer and produce records for Mary J. Blige, Puff Daddy, Usher, Jodeci, X-Clan, Babyface, Aretha Franklin, and Sting. He now teaches advanced production and mixing at Berklee. It’s an impressive journey for someone who started with a funk-rap record called “Tight Jeans.”

“The truth is that the 1973 to 1979 period was the incubation stage,” he said. “So the more research I did, the more I realized that it was not only a New York phenomenon, but that New York was the only city that understood how to take it from its simple beginnings and turn it into a production concept that could be marketed in spaces outside of the rec hall. And so that’s why all the focus and the energy goes to New York.”

Alexander attributes the rise of rap through the 1980s to a combination of factors, including the reduced funding of arts programs in public schools during the Reagan administration. As school kids had less access to instruments and fewer music classes, they turned to hip-hop, where they could make music on turntables and by writing rhymes. Between cuts to school music programs and the rise of artists such as Run-D.M.C., Kurtis Blow, and Grandmaster Flash, the 1980s became a fertile breeding ground for hip-hop’s next generation. The advent of the drum machine and sampler made hip-hop available to even more budding rappers.

Along the way, it rolled in influences from Latino culture and then began its spread to world domination. By 1990, the first rap song topped the Billboard charts. Sadly, that song was “Ice Ice Baby,” by Vanilla Ice.

“At first a lot of rap was about partying, and then it was, ‘Let me enlighten you about where we live.’ And then it was ‘Let’s push back against injustice.’” Alexander said. “In the mid-’90s you had the bling era. Every era tries to find its own voice. You can’t point to one thing and say ‘That’s hip-hop,’ because hip-hop has been evolving and every generation of hip-hop artists wants to say something different than the generation before.”

Those stories are being told across events in all five boroughs through the end of the year, but soon, there will be a permanent place where the complete story of hip-hop can live. The 53,000-square-foot Universal Hip Hop Museum in the Bronx will house artifacts, host shows, and offer exhibitions befitting a 50-year-old art form. It’s slated to open in early 2025.

“Judging by the enthusiasm and the numbers of people who visit our temporary space here at the Bronx Terminal Market, I imagine the museum is going to become one of the city’s top global destinations,” said Rocky Bucano, president and chairman of the board of the Universal Hip Hop Museum. “One of the most satisfying parts of this project is that the museum is going to be an economic catalyst for this part of the Bronx, maybe the entire Bronx. A lot of people who have never been to this part of the city will come to the museum.”

Even without the museum, hip-hop has already brought an influx of visitors to Harlem and the Bronx, such as Tommaso Cafaro from Sicily. The 27-year-old, who was taking the hip-hop tour, said what he was most excited to see in all of New York was 1520 Sedgwick Ave.: The apartment building where Cindy Campbell had her back-to-school party on Aug. 11, 1973.

“Seeing this place made my spine tingle,” he said. “I sensed the energy and I love it. I grew up listening to hip-hop and now I can say I’ve seen where it was born.”

Christopher Muther can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him @Chris_Muther and Instagram @chris_muther.