It had everything a traditional family reunion would have: sizzling meat on the grill, an air of excitement of who was arriving with who and when, and a few uncles who put on their Sunday best a day early and started hitting the Grandad OG and Henny at noon.

Make no mistake, the Rock The Bells festival had all the pomp and circumstance of a big budget tour: pyro, dancers, and too many Cuban link chains to count. But somehow, it had this special feeling of a truly symbiotic relationship; the performers gave, the crowd gave back, and the rally kept going back and forth from 12 PM to 12 AM.

It seems rather fitting, then, that the festival took place on an actual tennis grounds. At one point, if you ventured deep enough into the back of the house, there were actually people in crisp, tennis whites volleying on a manicured grass court while Jadakiss tore it down on stage.

It was funny, not just because of the optics of someone I imagined named Muffy and Thad having their tennis lesson interrupted by the sounds of classic Hip-Hop, but because I thought it represented what a chunk society has tried to do with classic Hip-Hop in general.

They want to forget about it, block it out, and hope that the “old heads” will eventually tire themselves out and get back to the regularly scheduled program. They thought the Super Bowl Halftime show would shut us all up. But they were wrong. The Rock The Bells Festival didn’t lay down a foundation, they unlocked the doors to the penthouse where all the legends belong.

There was a moment during LL COOL J’s hour-plus set when he settled on the stage steps and took a moment to speak to the why of it all. The music is “timeless,” he stated, sweat blooming through his red, Dolce & Gabbana suit. He reiterated the word to let it sink in for the 13,000 in attendance. For me, it was like Uncle L was speaking to the grandmothers, grandfathers, brothers, sisters, cousins, and grandchildren of Hip-Hop culture. It was his way of saying, “When you’re gone, the family lives on through everyone around you.”