The NY Hip Hop Report [LIVE VIDEO SHOW]

Tonight, we broke down EBro’s latest attempt at stirring the NY vs. the world hip-hop pot, talked about Sean Price’s posthumous release and album release event, coming out August 8, plus a rundown of new NY-area hip-hop releases of note, including Tanya Morgan, Wiki, Skyzoo and more.

Episode six of the new format, and The NY Hip Hop Report with Manny Faces keeps pushing the envelope when it comes to smart, passionate discussion about New York-area hip hop music and culture. For this episode, Manny Faces recapped outstanding recent hip hop-related happenings in and around NYC, including the inspiring and innovative #HipHopHacks event held at Spotify (at which Manny was the opening speaker), as well as an album release party for internationally touring, independent artists Illspokinn & ZaJazza.

The meat and potatoes of the episode? An incredibly insightful look at the various entities who purport to be developing/building/opening various incarnations of a hip hop museum or Hall of Fame. Despite recently circulating reports about a new development planned for such an establishment in Harlem, Manny broke it down when it came to the history of the entities, and why, from multiple perspectives, while the idea of a hip hop museum/hall of fame sounds great in theory, the execution of those currently undertaking this monumental task is largely flawed, and such a project is highly unlikely to find success.

This episode brought to you by BirthplaceMag.com and News Beat, an innovative new music+journalism project.

While hip hop museum project announcements are excitedly shared across social media, the main problem as Manny Faces sees it, is that there are nothing more than plans and ideas at the moment, among several unrelated and in some cases, poorly operating entities. While it is a natural reaction to be interested and excited when a regurgitated press release appears on a local blog (or even a major website), the lack of background and fact checking in most hip-hop related journalism ends up allowing the entities to play the public like fools.

The most egregious move by almost all of these entities, Manny explains, is the money grab from the fans. Various crowdfunding campaigns have been run by all of these prospective builders, but nothing of substance ever gets produced. Some of these organizations then fall to the wayside.

It is with this in mind that Manny implores fans and members of the hip hop community who would normally be highly supportive of such a project, to hold off before donating, and investigate the project and its backers to determine if financially supporting the project is in their best interest.

Catch this episode of The NY Hip Hop Report and join Manny LIVE every Wednesday night at 10pm here or on Manny’s Facebook page.

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The NY Hip Hip Report with Manny Faces returned for a fifth episode in its new Facebook Live, video/vodcast/podcast format, recapping several New York City-area hip-hop events, most notably, the Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Honey “Sabor Del Barrio” event held at the swanky Paper Factory, which paid homage to the contributions of several notable Hispanic artists and creatives that hailed from the borough of Queens.

A photo slideshow accompanied Manny’s commentary, highlighting hip-hop group The Beatnuts and renowned visual artist Danny Hastings.

Along with that recap and others, Manny previewed upcoming NY-area hip hop events of note, and then spend a good deal of the show discussing the high prices of certain hip-hop festivals, in particular, the Brooklyn Hip-Hop Festival.

Many viewers added to the discussion in the comments section, having strong opinions on the drastic increase in pricing for tickets to the Brooklyn Hip-Hop Festival, and other large-scale hip-hop-related events that seem to be pricing out some of the very audience that helped them achieve their renowned status throughout the years.

While many lamented the days when these sorts of things were much cheaper — free even — Manny and other viewers made it clear that there shouldn’t be an expectation that hip-hop enterprises can’t thrive and be profitable — only that the caliber of the event much match the cost, and in a rapidly gentrifying place like New York City, jacking up prices to the levels that price out hometown hip-hoppers, is not something that sounds very much #ForTheCulture.

Catch this episode of The NY Hip Hop Report and join Manny LIVE every Wednesday night at 10pm here or on Manny’s Facebook page.

Sign up for the mailing list to receive show alerts and special offers. We won’t give you address to anyone.