To the outsider it can look like hip hop has only one story to tell - guns, gangs and bling.

But the MCs, DJs and dancers at the third Brighton Hip Hop Festival are showcasing an expanding culture and commercial force which has made multi-millionaires of ghetto kids and transcends race, class and age.

The festival's launch was witnessed by hundreds of fans at the Sallis Benney Theatre, Grand Parade, Brighton, on Saturday.

Hip hop is a cultural movement which began in the African American and Latino communities in the Bronx borough of New York in the early Seventies.

Portions of the culture began spreading into the mainstream during the early Eighties, and by the Nineties, hip hop culture had spread all over the world. The movement is said to have begun with the work of DJ Kool Herc, while DJ Afrika Bambaataa is often credited with having invented the term "hip hop" to describe the culture.

The four main aspects of hip hop culture are MCing (rapping), DJing, graffiti, and b-boying - known to most people as breakdancing.

Visitors to the theatre on Saturday were given a chance to tag a graffiti wall, which was popular with children armed with spray cans.

Live acts included DJs Simpson and Tyni and performers Greenkeepers, Surgical Cuts and The Menagerie.

The Brighton Hip Hop Festival began in 2004 as a one-day celebration and attracted more than 100 MCs, DJs, graffiti artists and b-boys.

This year's festival will include a poet versus MC day in May and a "battlejam" in July where teams of dancers compete.

Hove DJ Norman Cook, alias Fatboy Slim, is supporting this year's festival.

One of the most popular events was the Born To Rock Brighton Hip Hop Festival Crew and dancers from the Renegade Theatre Company, performing in a dance off.

The festival is calling for graffiti artists, photographers, illustrators, graphic designers, street artists and artists inspired by hip hop culture for a weeklong exhibition planned from July 3.

Anyone interested should send an email entitled "exhibition" to sri@bhhf.org