# @myvpm on Instagram

- **Type:** Image
- **Original URL:** https://www.instagram.com/p/Cv0CJBsO6l4
- **Gondola URL:** https://gondola.cc/posts/8218755-myvpm-instagram
- **Thumbnail:** https://img.gondola.cc/tr:w-,h-,fo-auto/thumbnails/dbd412c5a3.jpg
- **Posted:** 2023-08-11T17:40:13.000+00:00
- **Account Owner:** VPM (@myVPM) — https://gondola.cc/myVPM

## Caption

Happy Birthday, Hip Hop! “When did you fall in love with Hip Hop?” This is the question we asked local Hip Hop artists and Hip Hop influencers as we countdown to the birthday of Hip Hop. Here is what skillzva had to say: “It was at the beginning, early eighties, I guess around the beginning of it, when I started hearing Run D.M.C, that was probably the first group that I heard that was a thing.  When I saw Run D.M.C. on Soul Train, that was probably what did it for me. I had already heard them, but to see them and then I saw the guy Run and he reminded me of myself. 
He was skinny, he was lanky and at that point I was tuned in. Hip Hop spoke to me directly. I didn't feel as though I needed special talent, or I wasn't, you know, able to do it. 
I felt like what they were doing was something that wasn't simple but wasn't that complex. I knew I couldn't sing, and I couldn't hit notes. I was aware that I wasn't a singer. I knew I didn't know how to play any instruments, but to be able to talk and rhyme and get my point across, I felt like that was something that spoke to me directly. We would listen to the radio and make up our own little songs off of the songs that we heard. I started to write down my own ideas, my own thoughts, and then after that, it just stayed with me. Hip Hop changed my life. I don't know where I would be without it. I don't know how I would have ever been able to express myself and my feelings and my thoughts without this art form and this culture. I fell in love with all elements of it. I got a better response from rapping than I did from the other elements, but I practiced everything. I was a break dancer. I used to write graffiti. When I rapped, I got a response. That was to me, the lightbulb clicking in my head like, Oh, this is the part of it that I should be doing then. And yeah, I don't know where I would be without it. Maybe it just helped me to express myself. It changed my life, it changed my family's life. And yeah, I'm forever indebted to this music and what it did for me.” #50thanniversaryofhiphop #hiphop #myvpm #richmondva #richmond #virginia

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## Tags

richmondva, myvpm, hiphop, richmond, 50thanniversaryofhiphop, virginia

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