For years, there has been a drive to make the Universal Hip-Hop Museum a reality. New, the Empire State is providing some significant seven-figure funding to give the Bronx, New York a place where Hip-Hop Heads can celebrate the culture’s origins and heritage.

On Thursday (December 19), New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced a $3.5 million grant to aid the building and development of the museum. The New York Post reported museum director Rocky Bucano as saying, “The museum is part of the renaissance of the Bronx. The Bronx is coming back,” Rocky said. “But the museum will be of the people and for the people.” Planned to open in 2023, the venue at Bronx Point hopes to generate tourism and tax revenue to the borough where Kool Herc, Grandmaster Flash, Afrika Bambaataa, and others DJ’d parties in the 1970s.

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In the meantime, the Universal Hip-Hop Museum is operating out of a temporary space in Bronx Terminal Market.

Per The Post, the museum has also received $6.5 million from New York City. The $10 million is combined fundraising towards the museum’s goal of $80MM. The museum has strategic partners including Hip-Hop stars LL Cool J and Nas, as well as Microsoft and the Massachusetts Institute Of Technology.

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The site north of the 145th Street Bridge is expected to break ground in the summer of 2020.

#BonusBeat: Rocky Bucano’s 2017 conversation with The Cipher (episode #202), about his extensive career and vision for the museum: