The Hip Hop Museum is a museum dedicated to the celebration and preservation of Hip hop music, dance, art and culture and "permanent place to celebrate the music that has made the Bronx famous around the world". [1] [2] [3] The museum will be located on Exterior Street in the Lower Concourse neighborhood of The Bronx when construction is complete.
The museum was founded in 2015 as the Universal Hip Hop Museum, by a group of hip hop pioneers Rocky Bucano, Kurtis Blow, Grandwizzard Theodore, Joe Conzo, Jr. and Grandmaster Melle Mel, [4] to document, preserve, and celebrate the culture of Hip Hop. [5]
The museum rebranded as The Hip Hop Museum in September 2023.
The 52,000-square-foot museum will be part of a South Bronx multi-use development project at 610 Exterior Street called Bronx Point. Not far from the so-called birthplace of hip hop on Sedgwick Avenue, it will include a 300-seat theatre in addition to gallery and community space. [6] [7] The official groundbreaking was held on May 20, 2021, and involved a number of hip hop notables including Grandmaster Flash and LL Cool J. [1] [8] The museum was initially scheduled to open in 2023 in connection with the genre's fiftieth anniversary. [9] [10] Due to delays in construction caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the museum is now scheduled to open in 2025. [7] [11] [12] [13]
The [R]Evolution of Hip Hop Experience opened at the Bronx Terminal Market on December 6, 2019, as the museum's first public exhibit in its temporary home until construction finishes. [10] The 2,350 square-foot exhibit was free to the public and served as a preview to what will be on display in the permanent home of the Universal Hip Hop Museum. The exhibit featured artifacts of Hip Hop culture, music, photographs kiosks with content and experiences, as well as interactive elements including a DJ stand where visitors can test out their skills. [14] [15] Following a closure due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the space reopened in November 2020 with an exhibit focusing on 1980s hip hop. [16] The [R]Evolution of Hip Hop exhibit has since closed. [17]
Fred Brathwaite, more popularly known as Fab 5 Freddy, is an American visual artist, filmmaker, and hip hop pioneer. He is considered one of the architects of the street art movement. Freddy emerged in New York's downtown underground creative scene in the late 1970s as a graffiti artist. He was the bridge between the burgeoning uptown rap scene and the downtown No Wave art scene. He gained wider recognition in 1981 when Debbie Harry rapped on the Blondie song "Rapture" that "Fab 5 Freddy told me everybody's fly." In the late 1980s, Freddy became the first host of the groundbreaking hip-hop music video show Yo! MTV Raps.
The Universal Zulu Nation is an international hip hop awareness group formed by electro/hip hop artist Afrika Bambaataa.
Morrisania is a residential neighborhood in the southwestern Bronx, New York City, New York. Its boundaries are the Cross-Bronx Expressway to the north, Crotona-Prospect Avenue to the east, East 163rd Street to the south, and Webster Avenue to the west. Third Avenue is the primary thoroughfare through Morrisania.
Wild Style is a 1983 American hip hop film directed and produced by Charlie Ahearn. Regarded as the first hip hop motion picture, it includes appearances by seminal figures such as Fab Five Freddy, Lee Quiñones, Lady Pink, The Rock Steady Crew, The Cold Crush Brothers, Rammellzee with Shockdell, Queen Lisa Lee of Zulu Nation, Grandmaster Flash, and ZEPHYR.
The Cold Crush Brothers are an American hip hop group that formed in 1978 in the Bronx, New York City. They were especially known for their memorable routines which included harmonies, melodies and stage-stomping performances. The Cold Crush Brothers still perform in the United States as of 2023. "A snapshot from hip-hop's 50th summer: A live mixtape"..
Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five were an American hip hop group formed in the South Bronx of New York City in 1978. The group's members were Grandmaster Flash, Kidd Creole, Keef Cowboy, Melle Mel, Scorpio, and Rahiem. The group's use of turntablism, breakbeat DJing, and conscious lyricism were significant in the early development of hip hop music.
John Byas, also known as The Original Jazzy Jay or DJ Jazzy Jay, is an American hip hop DJ and producer.
Disco Fever was a New York City dance club located in the South Bronx on Jerome Avenue and 167th street that operated from 1976 to 1986. After initially failing to draw many customers, Sal Abbatiello convinced his father, the owner, to hand over the reins. Abbatiello quickly began featuring hip hop artists including a young Grandmaster Flash, and the club greatly increased in popularity and fame. Hip hop group Run-D.M.C. performed their first show at the club.
Luis Cedeño, more commonly known as DJ Disco Wiz is an American DJ.
Clive Campbell, better known by his stage name DJ Kool Herc, is a Jamaican American DJ who is credited with being one of the founders of hip hop music in the Bronx, New York City, in 1973. Nicknamed the Father of Hip-Hop, Campbell began playing hard funk records of the sort typified by James Brown. Campbell began to isolate the instrumental portion of the record which emphasized the drum beat—the "break"—and switch from one break to another. Using the same two-turntable set-up of disco DJs, he used two copies of the same record to elongate the break. This breakbeat DJing, using funky drum solos, formed the basis of hip hop music. Campbell's announcements and exhortations to dancers helped lead to the syncopated, rhythmically spoken accompaniment now known as rapping.
Lance Taylor, also known as Afrika Bambaataa, is an American DJ, rapper, and record producer from South Bronx, New York City. He is notable for releasing a series of genre-defining electro tracks in the 1980s that influenced the development of hip hop culture. Afrika Bambaataa is one of the originators of breakbeat DJing.
Janette Beckman is a British documentary photographer who has worked in London, New York and Los Angeles. Beckman describes herself as a documentary photographer. While she produces a lot of work on location, she is also a studio portrait photographer. Her work has appeared on records for the major labels, and in magazines including Esquire,Rolling Stone,Glamour,Italian Vogue,The Times,Newsweek,Jalouse,Mojo and others.
Joseph Robert Saddler, known by his stage name Grandmaster Flash, is an American musician and DJ. He created a DJ technique called the Quick Mix Theory. This technique serviced the break-dancer and the rapper by elongating the drum breaks through the use of duplicate copies of vinyl. This technique gave birth to cutting and scratching. It also gave rappers better music with a seamless elongated bed of beats to speak on. He also invented the slipmat.
1520 Sedgwick Avenue is a 102-unit apartment building in the Morris Heights neighborhood of the Bronx in New York City. Described in The New York Times as a long-time "haven for working class families", it has been historically accepted as the birthplace of hip hop.
Bronx Terminal Market, also known as Gateway Center at Bronx Terminal Market, is a shopping mall along the Major Deegan Expressway in Concourse, Bronx, New York. The center encompasses just under one million square feet of retail space built on a 17-acre (69,000 m2) site that formerly held a wholesale fruit and vegetable market as well as the former Bronx House of Detention for Men, south of Yankee Stadium.
Empire Outlets New York City is a 350,000-square-foot (33,000 m2) retail complex in the St. George neighborhood of Staten Island in New York City. Construction on Empire Outlets started in 2015, and the complex opened on May 15, 2019. Tentative plans called for 100 stores, but there is only space for about 70 stores, less than half of which are currently occupied. It is the first outlet mall in New York City. The mall is located next to the St. George Terminal, a major ferry, train, and bus hub.
The following is a timeline of the history of the borough of the Bronx in New York City, New York, United States.
Mill Pond Park is a public park in the New York City borough of the Bronx. It was built to compensate for the loss of parkland resulting from the construction of new Yankee Stadium between 2006 and 2009. The park's name was inspired by a dam near the site of a creek that emptied into the Harlem River.
Concourse is a neighborhood in the southwestern section of the New York City borough of the Bronx which includes the Bronx County Courthouse, the Bronx Museum of the Arts, and Yankee Stadium. Its boundaries, starting from the north and moving clockwise, are East 169th Street to the north, Webster Avenue to the east, East 149th Street to the south, and Jerome Avenue and Harlem River to the west. The neighborhood is divided into three subsections: West Concourse, East Concourse, and Concourse Village with the Grand Concourse being its main thoroughfare.
The South Bronx is an area of the New York City borough of the Bronx. The area comprises neighborhoods in the southern part of the Bronx, such as Concourse, Mott Haven, Melrose, and Port Morris.