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The Bronx's Universal Hip Hop Museum Is Slated To Open In 2023
By
Paula Mejía
Published Feb 14, 2019
Modified Feb 14, 2019
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By
Paula Mejía
Published Feb 14, 2019
Modified Feb 14, 2019
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A museum dedicated to hip-hop's history has long been overdue in its birthplace, the Bronx. In August 1973, Cindy Campbell threw an infamous back-to-school party at 1520 Sedgwick Avenue with her brother, Kool Herc, DJing—this legendary event has long been regarded as hip-hop's birth. And after years of deliberation, the Universal Hip Hop Museum is officially coming to the borough.
Plans are underway to break ground later this year in the south Bronx at 65 E. 149th St., along the Harlem River waterfront, amNewYork reports. The museum will likely be in the first two floors of the forthcoming Bronx Point complex (a mixed-use housing development) as S9 Architecture, the firm that is designing the space, confirmed to Gothamist in an email statement. Along with the museum, Bronx Point will house 1,045 units, 600 of which will be permanent affordable housing units, according to NY Yimby.
Kurtis Blow, one of hip-hop's preeminent luminaries, is the co-chairman of the forthcoming museum. Blow, the first rapper to have a gold record to and be signed to a major label, told Pix 11 that the goal of the museum is to celebrate hip-hop's past and present through contemporary technology: "I'm talking avatars and holograms and VR," he said. Part of the museum experience will also focus the interactive elements, and visitors will be able to record music and make graffiti art on-site. "As time winds down on a lot of our careers... we think that it’s an important plea that our legacies and our histories can be in one place for the whole world to see," he told Forbes.
The Universal Hip-Hop Museum did not immediately reply to a request for comment from Gothamist.
The museum is slated to open in 2023, to coincide with the 50th anniversary of hip-hop's inception.
Tagged
bronx point
hip hop
history
kurtis blow
tech
the bronx
universal hip hop museum
Paula Mejía
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