Transcript: Mayor Adams, 'ITSALLBLACKMUSIC PRESENTS,' and Hip Hop Legend KRS-One Announce Series of Block Party Concerts Celebrating 50 Years of Hip Hop

July 20, 2023

First Deputy Mayor Sheena Wright: Good afternoon All right. Yes. There he is. I want to start rapping, but I won't. I don't have that talent. My name is Sheena Wright and I'm the first deputy mayor under Mayor Eric Adams. And I'm so excited that we have been celebrating Hip Hop's 50th anniversary this year. Yes. As many of us are, I am a child of hip hop. I happen to have been born and raised in the Boogie Down, right? That's right. That's where it was born, Brooklyn. I know they try to say other things, but it was the Bronx, the birthplace. And I absolutely remember the jams in the park and really hip hop being the soundtrack for our lives and the fact that it is a global phenomenon that has really disrupted fashion, business and everything else. Coming from New York, it makes all the sense in the world. And I also remember the female rappers, right?

Commissioner Cumbo? Roxanne Shante, The Queen, Remy Ma, Salt-N-Pepa, they gave voice to women's confidence and empowerment, and we are grateful for them. 50 years later, hip hop, the global phenomenon that it is, a soundtrack for change and snapshot into the everyday struggles and triumphs for so many. What we're doing today is really kicking off a series of concerts and community activation that are going to be phenomenal, and I'm so grateful for all of the partners and the leaders who have put this together. I'm first going to introduce Jocelyn Cooper, the co-founder of It's All Black Music, to come up and tell us a little bit about what we are going to be doing. Jocelyn?

Jocelyn Cooper, Founder, ITSALLBLACKMUSIC PRESENTS: Hello everybody. On behalf of It's All Black Music, and as a child from Brooklyn, who honestly had The Sugar Hill Gang perform in my elementary school lunchroom, and as someone who has been a part of hip hop, I signed Cash Money Records who have spawned so many global superstars, I cannot believe that we are here at this moment, at this time. I'm so excited to be a part of this incredible event series and these incredible shows. And I just want to give a special shout out to our partners, Universal, particularly Katina Bynum and Vic Reznik, Adidas, Sony Corporation, Certified, and of course the mayor for making all of this happen. Thank you.

First Deputy Mayor Wright: Thank you so much, Jocelyn. Next up I have the immense pleasure of introducing a legend and a leader, KRS One.

KRS One: I'm not going to say that I'm off guard here in that sense. I will say this, take a look at the organization of New York City right now, how ironic it is that it's hip hop that's bringing the city together. If we could get one thing out of this, look at the unity of our city, how we're shining right now on behalf of hip hop. We should do this more often, you guys. Because it seems like it takes sometimes a movement like hip hop to bring us all together to have different factions of New York City talking to one another.

I did a walk out in the Bronx just looking at one of the locations that we're going to announce to you today, and out there you saw Sanitation, Fire, Police, Highway. And when we were coming up, this was unheard of. Hip hop as fire chief? Hip hop as police chief? Hip hop as mayor? Come on, Deputy Mayor a B Girl? This is a literal dream come true, and I'm just proud to be part of this, and we're rocking all mics. We're rocking all microphones. Mayor Eric Adams, y'all.

Mayor Eric Adams: My man, KRS One. He has been a legend for so many years. Listen, did you drop any beats?

KRS One: I was getting ready to kick a freestyle.

Mayor Adams: Sheena, you have to hear how he could put a beat together instant. Come on, can you do a little something for us?

KRS One: I don't know what advertisement. We have to talk. What do you want?

Mayor Adams: Talk about how great I am as a mayor. [Laughter.] You got to get on the mic.

KRS One: Let me tell you what it is. I'm off the top. This is what we call real hip hop off the block. I'm telling you right now, because back in the day there was a mayor called Mayor Koch that didn't know his way. He had us looking, he said 'War on Graffiti.' Had us running all up and down the whole city. But 20 years later, guess who popped up? Real hip hop. And you know what's up.

[Applause.]

Mayor Adams: And going back in time, I don't know if it was, it probably was in the 90s, KRS One did a beat called Black Cops. Black Cops, they don't even pay you a lot. And when people thought we were back, I don't know if it was The Guardians, the 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement, but we really identified with what he was saying. And we reached out to the brother and said, "Can we sit down and hear some ideas?" And we had a good conversation on where he was bringing that music and that song from, that beat from.

And I just watched him over the years. He continued to make the connectivity between the industry and how the real life incidents that our young people are going through. We needed him back then in the 90s, but we need you now more than ever, right now, to really bridge the gap. I want to thank the first hip hop first deputy mayor, Sheena Wright, and the first hip hop Cultural Affairs commissioner, Laurie Cumbo. And the whole crew. We got a couple of firsts up here doing their thing.

And think about it, August 1973, in an apartment at 1520 Sedgwick Avenue in the Bronx, a back to school jam hosted by brother and sister Clive and Cindy Campbell featuring DJ Kool Herc spill outside to the street. That night, hip hop and block party was born. For 50 years, think about it, 50 years, who would've thought hip hop would have brought us this far from partying on the block to standing here at City Hall honoring these legends as the Mayor of the City of New York. We've come a long way. And even as we think about Drake, we started from the bottom, now we're here. Now we're here. From the Boogie Down Bronx to Wu-Tang in Staten Island to The Pioneers in Queens, to the storytellers in Brooklyn and the clubs in Manhattan, it was told the story of New York City and our people in the inner cities.

It just really amplified the voices of everyday young people, that artistic energy of taking what they were experiencing and turning it into an international phenomenon. And just standing here with my brother now and talking about it just really brings chills to those of us who use those songs to inspire us. I can remember over and over again, as I prepared to study for an exam, I would play Fight the Power, Fight the Power. And to paraphrase A Tribe Called Quest, we are going to check the rhyme this summer with the ultimate block parties to celebrate 50 years of hip hop. In partnership with ITSALLBLACKMUSIC PRESENTS and LISA Project NYC, we're going to host free block parties and activations and create hip hop murals across the city.

New York should be celebrating a genre that we created. It gave birth here, we raised it on the streets of New York, and it has gone out to cascade throughout the entire globe. Again, these free events, they are also free to the city because I'll take my hat off to Universal, Adidas, Sony, Certified, The Recording Academy. They have donated talent to support all the parties and activation. These events will bring important DJs and artists to our neighborhoods to make our blocks hot, artists such as legendary, legendary, legendary KRS One, who I am just really proud to have him here with us today, and other great pioneers in this industry. These were unbelievable leaders and we really want to lift them up.

And finally, there will be a free drone light show showing the iconic images of hip hop thanks to Pixis Drones. Now, many people didn't realize that on 4th of July for the first time we had drones. And when Macy came to me and said that they told them that we can't have drones in the city of New York, I said, "This is not a city of no. This is a city of yes." And we had drones, and we will continue to have drones. We have become so boring, brother. Know what I'm saying? We have our swag back, and we don't say no to everything. We look to find ways of saying yes. And this is going to be amazing hip hop drone show, first of its kind in our city. And I'll say it over and again if you don't know, now you know.

New York City is the city of hip hop. Before hip hop, black and brown music was not out in front the way it is now. It was hidden. And in many cases like jazz, it was forbidden. Right from the start, it was about more than just music. It was a call for change, giving voice to the black and brown experience. And when the music changed, New York City changed. I am, and I'm proud to say, the first time in history, not LaGuardia, not Beame, not Koch, not de Blasio, not Bloomberg. I am the hip hop mayor. I am the hip hop mayor. You got to figure out the rap because I say it all the time. I'm dyslexic, I was arrested, I was rejected, now I'm elected.

And this summer, we're going to do more than reminisce on hip hop. We're going to celebrate it and elevate it. I encourage New Yorkers to step into the world where hip hop is on our blocks this summer, because this is New York. It's like it's a jungle sometimes, but this is New York City, the greatest city on the globe. Thank you, team. Let's make this happen. 50 years of hip hop. This is a hip hop. That's a hip hop. News, news, news person. He got a couple of hip hop. Dean is hip hop. Don't let them kid you. You know what I'm saying?

We got a couple of hip hop folks here.

[Inaudible.]

Mayor Adams: Listen, one of the originators in Sugar Hill Gang, the whole crew, man. Lot of history, and we need to bring that history out into the open, and we have to go back to those pioneers so they can make paper from the industry that they created in the real way.

[Inaudible.]

Mayor Adams: Listen, you know that. I was about to pull out my medallion. Yeah, you want to come on the mic, Eric B?

Eric B: Eric, thank you. Thank you. But you know what, Eric? More than anything I'll be remiss, Fred Bugs is sitting here. Fred Bugs is really responsible for us being here. We had the great record of Sugar Hill, which became a hit that everybody in radio played. But Fred Buggs played a Run-DMC record and really broke through for us. And everybody, please give my brother Fred Bugs a hand. My brother Peter Gunz is here. We argue. We argue every day. No, don't clap for him. He's from the Bronx. We don't clap for Peter. He might get too hyped up. But thanks again, Eric Adams, for having us here. You know I got your back 110 percent. Everybody, thank you for coming out.

Mayor Adams: I just want to wear [inaudible] medallion.

Eric B: You can have them all.

Mayor Adams: Any questions on the block parties before we bounce? That's where I got that from, bounce. Thank you.

Question: Why was it so passionate for you, the block parties?

Mayor Adams: Well, one, when you're out there, people are normally indoors, but back in those days, if you wanted to see and meet a shorty, you had to be on the block outside. And St. Albans Parks, we used to have the live music there. St Albans Parks, you'll go and do a block party right in the block. Folks would come out and just enjoy themselves, and you'll have the DJs. That was back when you carried crates of records. And the DJs would come and play, and the energy was just unreal.

And it was our Hamptons. It was our Martha's Vineyards. It was our way of… The corner is the poor man's lounge. If we didn't have those block parties, and to just rarely get out and engage, that was our summer retreat and we would look forward to it. Folks would come out and play on the block. And it was just a real way for us to just enjoy a summer.

I had people say all the time, "We didn't even realize we were poor because we were so rich with our interaction and with the music that made us who they are." And we all could identify, all of us. Forget about where we are now and what we're doing right now. We go back to our roots. Those block parties made us who we are, and I'm hoping that we can re-energize some of that energy with our young people in the days ahead. Thank you. Appreciate it. Come on out.