At the 1985 presidential inauguration ball, a made-for-TV black-tie affair that was something in between a concert and a roast, an expectant Ronald Reagan looked on from the dais for Jimmy Stewart to bring up the next act. “And now,” a grizzled George Bailey intoned, “to present the excitement of youth, the sights and the sounds of a big city, here are [the] New York City Breakers.”
More than validation for an emerging medium, it was the moment Reagan assumed his final form as America’s god emcee, the cult figure who not only inspired a political movement but also its muscular, musical adversary. “That’s really where it all began,” says Jesse Washington, the writer-director behind the documentary Hip-Hop and the White House. “Daddy-O said it very plainly: ‘Reagan gave us something to rap about.’”
