New York has awarded a $3.75 million state grant to help build the first museum in the world dedicated to hip-hop music and culture.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced the grant Thursday.
Pegged to cost $80 million, the Universal Hip Hop Museum is scheduled to open in 2023 in South Bronx – the borough otherwise better known as the “Boogie Down” in old school hip-hop circles.
It is considered the birthplace of the genre.
At a temporary location in the Bronx Terminal Market, the Universal Hip Hop Museum, CNN reported is the “brainchild” of New Yorkers who had been on the hip-hop scene since its very inception.
“The museum is part of the renaissance of the Bronx. The Bronx is coming back,” said the museum’s director Rocky Bucano. “But the museum will be of the people and for the people.”
The museum, which has already received support from corporate partners like Microsoft and artistes like LL Cool J and Nas, would occupy 50,000 square feet in Bronx Point, the residential and retail project by L+M Development Partners that will be erected north of the 145th Street bridge along the Harlem River in the Bronx.
The official groundbreaking for the museum is set to happen over the summer, the New York Post reported.
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Photograph: Rollingstone
Source: Face2faceafrica.com
