*New York is shelling out a $3.75 million grant to help build the Universal Hip Hop Museum.
The museum will be located in the Bronx and is the brainchild of local hip hop aficionados. Bronx-born Executive director Rocky Bucano, who started as a DJ in the early ’70s, describes the 8-year-old museum as an “ambitious, audacious dream.”
“We knew it was important because the Bronx is where hip-hop started,” Bucano said. “It’s crazy to think of how hip-hop — which has such an influence on pop culture, advertising, politics — doesn’t have a place to call home.”
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced the $3.75M grant to the nation’s first museum dedicated to hip-hop.
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(Feb. 8, 2019 – Source: Frazer Harrison/Getty Images North America)
Bucano’s co-founders include hip-hop legends Kurtis Blow and Grand Wizzard Theodore, who pioneered the popular DJ technique known as “scratching.” According to CNN the founding board of directors includes Ice-T and cultural ambassadors include New York natives LL Cool J, Rakim, Big Daddy Kane, Grandmaster Flash, Fab Five Freddy and Nas. cnn.com.
In 2018, the Universal Hip Hop Museum announced that Public Enemy’s Chuck D would serve as the chairman of the museum’s celebrity board.
Thanks to the state funding, the 50,000-square-foot hip-hop museum will have a permanent place to call home in Bronx Point come 2023. The museum’s construction will begin in the summer of 2020. It is currently operating as a pop-up museum in the Bronx Terminal Market.
The museum will showcase all aspects of hip-hop culture — from fashion and breakdancing, as well as the evolution of hip-hop — highlighting artists new and old, from the late ’70s to today. The museum will offer workshops, mentorships and programming to help area youths.
“We want to empower, inspire and engage the community,” said Bucano. “Hip-hop has touched every aspect of modern society and it’s important for the community to know that it was created by people who looked just like them.”
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