Ice-T and KRS-ONE Blast the Current State of Hip-Hop: 'It's Time for This Generation to Get a Hold of Itself'

Hip-hop is turning 50 years old this year, and perhaps no one is more astonished at its staying power than the artists who pioneered the genre.

During the Essence Festival of Culture, taking place in New Orleans through July 3, legendary rappers KRS-One and Ice-T spoke to reporters about the trailblazing genre and how it's transcended to become, arguably, the most influential genre of music.

"Fifty years ago, some of us knew this was going to happen, most of us did not know to the magnitude it would happen," admitted KRS-One. "But 50 years later proves that first of all, you can do anything with your mind and secondly, culture is probably the most magnificent strategy for human development known on the planet."

Hip-hop, which began in KRS-One's hometown of the Bronx in N.Y.C., began as an underground art form, created by Black people for other Black people, before turning into an avenue of protest, then later catapulting into the mainstream. It united African Americans and created a lane for a group of people who, for a long time, were not heard on major platforms.

"We say education, health and medicine are important but culture, community, family and teamwork are also important and hip-hop proved over a 50-year period, that we have the ability to govern ourselves," said KRS-One.

"This [was] a different take on the African American experience. For the last 60 years, African Americans tried the integration thing, African Americans have tried the voting thing, tried the economic thing and we keep winding up in the same position. Hip-hop is a little different. We tried the character thing, where we changed what we were going to express and that seems to have pulled us from sickness, hatred, ignorance and poverty to health, love, awareness and wealth."

For Ice-T, who released his first album Rhyme Pays in 1987, the wonder is in the fact that hip-hop has become so influential, even though the mainstream initially thought it wouldn't get anywhere.

"When we started, hip-hop was supposed to be a fad," the 65-year-old rapper mused. "It's great. Hip-hop has grey hairs. The beauty of it is that it's still here, still flourishing and people still love it. It's gone through a lot of different growing pains and stuff, but for them to say it was a fad — now you have hip-hop billionaires! Hip-hop is a culture. A youth culture, started by kids."

But perhaps because hip-hop is a young person's sport, according to the rappers, and has lost its way in recent years. KRS-One shared that what was once an avenue to speak truth to power and bring awareness to the state of Black America has largely morphed into a cash-grab genre, with some artists prioritizing monetary success over their messaging, a transformation the rapper finds deplorable.

"Real hip-hop is free. We ain't with no corporations, we ain't messing with none of that," the "South Bronx" rapper said. "We built our culture from the center, now we're billionaires. We don't [care] what people think about us."

For Ice-T, the problem seems to be in the regression in the purpose behind the music. Unnecessary drug usage, shootings and incarcerations are all tribulations his generation purposefully attempted to steer away from, but are ever prevalent in some of today's music.

"I think people from my generation are really upset with what's going on with the youngsters because every week somebody's going to jail. People are dying off drugs, killing each other," he told Kia Turner of Okayplayer.

Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from juicy celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.

"My generation, we lost Tupac, we lost Biggie and we got the memo. Everybody calmed down. We all figured this out: We [were] rapping to get out of the streets."

He continued: "But the youngsters who are out here behaving like that, these kids are millionaires so I don't know how many young people gotta get lost, I don't know which one might trigger that message, but I think it's time for this generation to get a hold of itself."