If you have not already, join the celebration of hip-hop music in New York City going on all summer.
Maybe you don’t know Drake, Kid Cudi, or Ne-Yo. Don’t worry. The films, festivals, and free shows organized in reverence of this locally born music possess a more old school flavor.
SummerStage went to great lengths this summer to organize free shows in all of the boroughs to celebrate over 30 years of hip-hop culture in New York. DJ and mix-tape guru Funkmaster Flex hosted a series of “Salute to Hip-Hop” shows that included a night with EPMD at Betsy Head Park, Talib Kweli in Red Hook, N.O.R.E. in Queensbridge, and the final installment tonight, August 9, at Marcus Garvey Park in Harlem with Rob Base. SummerStage also organized additional free shows involving the legendary Sugar Hill Gang, Kool Moe Dee, and Slick Rick. The climax of this series hits the Main Stage in Central Park August 21 with Rakim, EPMD, and Funkmaster Flex.
For those with a little more paper in their pockets, the city also featured festivals in honor of hip-hop. In July, Q-Tip headlined the Brooklyn Hip Hop Festival, featuring an immense lineup of MCs and DJs that included fellow Tribesman Ali Shaheed Muhammad and the renowned DJ Marley Marl.
The more expensive, yet more comprehensive, option is to hit up Rock the Bells on Governor’s Island September 3. This year, the traveling festival will feature mostly prominent 1990s acts such as Ms. Lauryn Hill, Nas, Erykah Badu, Cypress Hill, Black Star (Mos Def and Talib Kweli), Common, Raekwon & Ghostface, Mobb Deep, and GZA among others. Many artists will be performing some of the most influential LPs in hip-hop history, such as The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, Illmatic, Only Built 4 Cuban Linx, The Infamous, and Liquid Swords.
Frame your live hip-hop experience with more historical context this summer by seeing Beats, Rhymes, & Life: The Travels of A Tribe Called Quest. Actor Michael Rapaport followed his favorite group as they reunited for the 2008 Rock the Bells Festival. While on tour, Rapaport got the scoop on how Tribe formed and forever put their mark on the city and hip-hop. Q-Tip, Phife, Ali Shaheed Muhammad, and Jarobi opened up about Tribe’s creative process during the “Golden Age” of hip-hop in the late 1980s and early 90s, a dynamic that would eventually cause their break-up in 1998. A segment covering the group’s creative and philosophical friendship with De La Soul served as the film’s most engaging moments. Beats, Rhymes, & Life is still showing at Landmark Sunshine on the Lower East Side and BAM in Brooklyn.
There are numerous opportunities this summer to celebrate or even learn about some of the founding contributors, alternative minds, and later generations of New York’s most influential artistic culture in the last 30 years. Don’t miss out.
