In June of 2003 I was asked to curate and design Yes Yes Y'all — the inaugural exhibition at The Hospital, a new arts and media centre in London's Covent Garden.

Yes Yes Y'all celebrated the first decade of Hip Hop, as it grew from its roots in New York's South Bronx to become the world-wide phenomenon it is today.

Using the photographs of, among others, Charlie Ahearn (the director of seminal hip hop movie Wild Style) and the words of hip hop's prime movers — Grandmaster Flash, Afrika Bambaataa, Kool DJ Herc and many others — Yes Yes Y'all revisited the music, the graffiti and the B-boy culture that, together, formed hip hop.

Starting with the bleak reality that was the South Bronx in 1973 — a cityscape of abandoned and burnt-out buildings, and a long-suffering populace attempting to exist amidst vicious gang wars and a heroin epidemic — the exhibition chronicled the emergence of the music that was to dominate our culture through to the present day.

From the pioneering work of DJ Kool Herc, and through the revolutionary techniques of Grandmaster Flash and Grand Wizard Theodore, the exhibition reveald the evolution of mixing and scratching, the emergence of rapping MCs, and on to the breakout of the form into the public’s consciousness following the release of the Sugarhill Gang’s ‘Rapper’s Delight’. Along the way, it took in the adoption of hip hop by the downtown ‘art punk’ scene via Blondie’s Debbie Harry and Chris Stein, and the making of Wild Style.

Hip hop, however, is not simply another form of music but an entire culture, much of which predated the music itself. Yes Yes Y’all examined the work of the graffiti artists, the flyer designers, and the lightning moves of the b-boys, and showed how the movement emerged from the existing gang culture.

Finally, the exhibition took a look at how hip hop techniques and attitudes affect the music we both make and listen to in the UK, 2003.

The exhibition included a 90 minute video, made by Jim Fricke of Seattle’s Experience Music Project, containing interviews with all the major players, film of them in action, and rare video footage of club performances.

Alongside the exhibition, a series of interactive events took place, embracing all aspects of the culture, from graffiti workshops to live performances by DJs and MCs.