the Universal Hip-Hop Museum hasn’t even opened yet, and it’s already showing just how cutting-edge it will be.
This spring, it will launch its own metaverse, an immersive digital world where you can access 3D objects and performances, accessible via VR and smartphones, according to the New York Post.
The museum, which is backed by rappers Kurtis Blow, Afrika Bambaataa, Grandmaster Melly Mel, Nas, Ice-T, LL Cool J and others, is still slated to open in 2023 with 60,000 square feet of space in the south of the Bronx (the birthplace of hip hop), but it looks like we won’t have to wait that long to feel like we’re in space.
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According to the Post’s interview with Mike Carnevale of Carnevale Interactive, who is designing the online space with Microsoft and MIT, his metaverse will show fliers, graffiti, stock footage, images and even b-boys. of breakdancing.
“You’re not in the audience watching this on screen, your brain believes you’re really there,” he said.
“You can have Naughty by Nature live in the metaverse and it won’t be the traditional avatars, it would be the actual band,” museum founder Rocky Bucano also told The Post. “We’re seeing a metaverse where you can transport people to different times and places, so not only are they witnessing history, but they’re being immersed in hip hop culture.”
The museum also hopes to see Grandmaster Flash smash records at block parties in the 1970s and Notorious BIG rapping on a Bed-Stuy street corner in 1989 inside the Metaverse, the pole this.
In the meantime, the museum hosts exhibits at the Bronx Terminal Market on the evolution of hip hop, including an upcoming one covering 1986-1990. You can also see interviews with hip hop industry leaders on his Instagram Lives.
When completed, the Universal Hip Hop Museum will accurately preserve the history of local and global hip hop music and culture through stories, performances, film screenings, and state-of-the-art virtual and augmented reality technologies. It will also be part of a $349 million mixed-use development called Bronx Point that will include the construction of 500 permanent affordable housing units (in one million square feet of space!), a playground, a public use green and a plaza along the Harlem River.
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