Big Daddy Kane isn’t surprised by the profusion of concerts, exhibitions, books and documentaries marking the 50th anniversary of hip-hop’s emergence. The Brooklyn rapper remembers all the skeptics and naysayers, the doubters and haters. And with every dismissal, he knew the art form was destined to shake the world.

“When you listened to people talk about it and describe it, saying it’s not going to last, it’s just a fad, it’s not real music, it was the same terms they used about rock ’n’ roll,” he told the Chronicle by phone from Manhattan. “Hip-hop was new and rebellious, and I could see it was going to last.”

Following last month’s Blue Note Jazz Festival Napa, which Grammy-winning pianist Robert Glasper designed to explore jazz’s influence on hip-hop, San Jose Jazz’s Summer Fest celebrates the genre’s semicentennial with Kane as the headlining act on Friday, Aug. 11, performing with a full band and backup singers.

A seminal MC whose swaggering “playa” style and virtuosic raps helped define the golden age of hip-hop in late 1980s and early ’90s, Kane has lost none of his chesty baritone or trademark lyrical flow. In addition to an impressive catalog of hits like “Ain’t No Half-Steppin’” and “我完成工作,” he collaborated memorably with artists outside of hip-hop, setting off sparks with Patti LaBelle on 1991’s “Burnin’ ” and bringing the street to Quincy Jones’ 1989 album “Back on the Block” (which earned Kane the first Grammy Award for best rap performance in 1991 for his work on the title track).

He says he’s keeping his ear to the ground, so it’s not surprising that he’s quick to praise Glasper, an artist who moves effortlessly between jazz, R&B and hip-hop. “I love what he’s doing,” he said. “I think Robert Glasper has a unique jazz/hip-hop fusion. It’s beautiful.”

San Jose Jazz Executive Director Brendan Rawson doesn’t remember exactly when they realized the festival coincided with the Aug. 11 date cited as the birth of hip-hop, “but we immediately felt like we needed to make something special happen,” he said.

寻找一个主要行为,符合南方Bay festival, performing for an audience “that may not have a lot of background with hip-hop,” Kane made perfect sense, Rawson added, noting that Kane as an artist “harkens to the golden era but is bringing an entire band. The musicality of the performance he wanted to present felt like a perfect fit in the jazz festival context.”

And Kane isn’t the only hip-hop act at the three-day event, which runs through Sunday, Aug. 13, at venues and outdoor stages surrounding downtown’s Plaza de Cesar Chavez. While San Jose Jazz has always presented a wide musical spectrum, with a particular focus on Latin jazz and Latin American idioms, this is the first year the festival has dedicated a stage to hip-hop.

On Friday, the200 Park Stageis set to present influential figures like Murs, a founding member of the Los Angeles hip-hop supergroup Living Legends, and personalities from the South Bay hip-hop podcast “Dad Bod Rap Pod.”

Other elements of hip-hop set to hit that stage also include a Bryce Hill-curated program showcasing a powerhouse group of Bay Area hip-hop dancers featuring San Jose’s Playboyz, Inc., and Oakland’s Turf, as well as the visual artists Gwen and Joey Reyes, who got their start graffiti-bombing sites around the Central Valley. Needle to the Groove producer Allen Johnson, a catalytic force on the San Jose scene via his record shop and label, is scheduled to present the stage’s opening DJs, David Ma and DJ Basura.

像许多hip-hop artists of his generation, 54-year-old Kane first got an inkling of the artform’s potential with the 1982 release of “The Message,” one of rap’s first socially conscious anthems, by Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five.

“Prior to that, I believed hip-hop would last, and I was happy to see all the amazing music, but once ‘The Message’ came out, that’s when I realized the power of hip-hop,” he said. “It showed me how powerful our voices were as artists.”

Which isn’t to say that today’s hip-hop scene has embraced the power of all those voices. Kane said he sees a widening generational gap “that wasn’t like that when I first came out.” While he received invaluable guidance from older artists like Whodini’s Jalil Hutchins, Rick James, Barry White “and so many others trying to give me game about the music industry, with the younger generation there’s often a disconnect,” he said. “There’s this belief that older artists are all bitter, and a lot of the older artists feel we’re irrelevant.”

Kane is working to make sure hip-hop’s legacy is in good hands. He’s in the editing stages of a documentary, “Paragraphs I Manifest,” that puts the focus squarely on the music’s wordsmiths. He’s interviewed dozens of fellow rappers and MCs, including Jay-Z, Snoop Dogg, Lady London, J. Cole, Common and Eminem, “trying to show the importance of lyricism in hip-hop,” he said.

The music’s focus, he believes, has shifted to producers and beat-makers. Kane wants to bring the MCs back to the forefront.

“It’s the artist,” he said, “who has something to say that touches your fan base.”

Andrew Gilbertis a freelance writer.