The Legend of Cornbread

by Monica Duboski

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Ask any friend or stranger where graffiti and hip hop culture began and you will most likely receive a confident and knowing answer—"New York, of course!” However, Darryl “Cornbread” McCray wants you to know, “It started somewhere. It didn’t start in New York, that’s for sure.” Now in his late 60s, McCray conveys an urgency in his tone and message. He tells me, “I want the world to know that I gave birth to both hip hop and graffiti.” Bold and daring claims no doubt, but for McCray, it is vitally important that his story is told so that “this generation and that generations to come know the origins of how hip hop culture took shape.” He says plainly, “It started somewhere. It started in reform school,” in Philadelphia, 1965.