Nas and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani discuss the past, present and future of hip-hop with the opening of Bronx School of Hip-Hop.
On Wednesday (Sept. 30), New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani premiered a short documentary on the city’s YouTube channel featuring his conversation with Queensbridge native Nas about cultivating a thriving hip-hop culture in the genre’s birthplace. “We can’t be content with having been the birthplace of hip-hop. We wanted to still be the home,” he said in the video, which can be viewed below.
The clip also features the mayor’s visit to the Bronx School of Hip-Hop, a first-of-its-kind public high school, which opened in early September in the Claremont section of the Bronx. The school’s curriculum uses hip-hop culture as a guide to teach traditional academic subjects including math, science, history, and literature.
“What it does, it validates that our culture is great and that our culture means something,” said founding school principal Jason Reyes. “It’s like surreal. And New York City Mayor’s office, the Chancellor’s Office, this is their school. They said, ‘We are going to back this,’ who would ever thought that hip-hop would make it this far?”
According to Nas, the school offers young people a path toward success and helps them avoid the pitfalls of the inner city.
“It’s all about the youth and how do we get them to avoid the mistakes that so many people made,” he said. “I know so many people from this neighborhood that has so much potential, but there was nothing showing them a different way.”
Mayor Mamdani, who once rapped under the alias Mr. Cardamom, cites Nas as one of his top 5 favorite rappers of all time.
Watch Nas and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani Discuss the future of Hip-Hop in NYC
