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Bronx Hip-Hop Museum Proposal Moves Closer With Support From Stars

By Katie Honan | March 13, 2014 2:29pm
 Afrika Bambaataa, center, is throwing his support behind a hip-hop museum in the Kingsbridge Armory.
Afrika Bambaataa, center, is throwing his support behind a hip-hop museum in the Kingsbridge Armory.
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KINGSBRIDGE HEIGHTS — Some of the founding fathers of hip-hop are moving ahead with their plan to put a museum in the borough where they say it all began — the Bronx.

Artists including Afrika Bambaataa and Melle Mel announced plans for a 52,000-square-foot museum focused on hip-hop in the Kingsbridge Armory, while they were being honored in the City Council on Wednesday, according to the New York Post.

The museum project also has the support of Councilman Fernando Cabrera, and the group has created a nonprofit to raise money.

Bambaataa first expressed his support for the museum in 2012 when it was part of another proposal for the 575,000-square-foot building.

“Hip-hop has gone from the 'hoods of the United States to the rest of the whole world,” Bambaataa said at the time.

While that plan — which called for a six-screen movie theater, food court, weekend market, rock-climbing wall and gym — was passed over in favor of the current plan to build the world's largest ice rink, the rap legend has stuck to his plan to build a museum.

He envisioned that the museum would be interactive and trace the history of hip-hop from its early days in the Bronx to its current global popularity. 

Bambaataa told the Post on Wednesday that the museum would school a younger generation who had "lost sight" of what the genre is, and the deep history behind it.

“By having this museum, it’s something for many nationalities and religious backgrounds," he said.