Rocky Bucano, Founder & Executive Director Of The Universal Hip Hop Museum

Our Building Black Biz Podcast features Helen Little in conversation with Rocky Bucano, the Founder of The Universal Hip Hop Musuem, the world's first Hip Hop Musuem in the Bronx!
In partnership with @DriveToyota

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Welcome to another episode of the BuildingBlack BISZS podcast. I'm your host today,
Helen Little, and we are buildingwith Rocky Bucano. He is the
founder of the Universal Hip Hop Museum. So good to be on with you
today. Thank you, Helen.Good to see you. So there's so
much I want to ask you aboutthis project that I know of that's been

(00:22):
in the works for such a longtime. How did you first become involved
with the creation of the Universal HipHop Museum. Well, my background goes
way back. I started as ateenage DJ in the early seventies. My
cousin, Pete DJ Jones was oneof the top mobile disc jockeys, and

(00:45):
you know, he was always playingat different clubs around New York City and
I always used to hear his nameon the radio. So I wanted to
be a DJ myself. So Istarted DJ and at the age of fifteen,
I became one of New York City'stop disc jockeys, just like him,

(01:07):
and then I got into concert promotionand club promotion in the seventies.
That's how I met Frankie Cropper,and long story short, I've been involved
in hip hop from the very beginning. So opportunity came to me when I
was not in the music business.I was running a youth basketball program called
the New York Gauchos, and acouple of real estate developers wanted to expand

(01:34):
my basketball program to another part ofthe Bronx. So I teamed up with
some real estate developers trying to expandmy basketball program and they ended up failing
in city of New York. Teamme up with another developer who was trying
to acquire this space called Kings forDarman, which is one of the largest

(01:59):
armers in the world, and hewanted to add a music component in addition
to having the Galacho basketball program.So he asked me about, you know,
what kind of music project could headd to his proposal. And I
told him that he should consider addinga hip hop museum because many people have

(02:20):
tried to start it hip hop museumin New York and he had the resources
to do it. So he thoughtit was a great idea, and it's
like, if you can get thepeople together to you know, explore this
hip hop music project, I'll putup the money for you guys. So
we teamed up with him. Hisname is Young Rup and he ended up

(02:43):
losing his bid to acquire this King'sPajama facility. But I was so fascinated
by the community response to a potentialhip hop museum being established at the King's
Pajama I said, I got tokeep this project going. So that was
back in twenty eleven. I've beenwith the project ever since. What were

(03:07):
some of the artists or people inthe business who are working with you to
create this museum and how did theybecome connected with you regarding it? So
the first the founding members of themuseum is Curtis Blow grand Master, Mellie

(03:29):
mel Myself, cut Man, LG. Mickey Benson who worked with Ice Team
Africa, Ban Bardo and Joe Kontoand Graham was the theater of the inventor
of the scratch. And then onceI got the project going, I brought
on Tom Silverman who was the founderof Tommy Boy Records, and then later

(03:53):
on reboard on people like elokol Jand nas and and now we have so
many other cultural ambassadors that from EastCoast and West Coast. Caris Wenbrig Daddy
Kane, Clientele who's part of theworld class rector crew out on the West
Coast, We have a lot ofdifferent people that are working with us to

(04:15):
bring this project in the finish line. What's it been like curating for this
museum? I mean actually gathering thethings that you want to preserve as a
part of this amazing history, whetherit's digital or physical. What has it
been like curating for this Well,fortunately, I have a great curatorial team,

(04:44):
Paradise Grades, who is in thegroup X Clan. He's our chief
curator and his partner, Prime Minister, Pete Knights from the group Third Base.
Those are our curators and they havean amazing collection of photos and artifacts
that they've collected over the years,and they have relationships with other folks.

(05:08):
So we're getting donations from all acrossthe world. People are donating records,
CDs, magazines, bicycles. Wejust got a bicycle donated to us by
Coolio Wow, right before he passedaway. A month before he passed away,
we got a bicycle donated to us. So you know, we have

(05:32):
an original artifact for his legacy that'spart of our collection. Now, well,
I've got some stuff you'll have.I was just telling I'm working with
another project and I was just tellingthem of like, you know, they're
looking for items security and like,yeah, I got so much. I've
saved everything. And you know,if you want to come get some of

(05:53):
the things that I got on mywall in my basement. Helped me get
rid of some of this stuff,you're more than welcome to Hey, hell
is do you hear that person knockingon your door? Right now? Come
on in? What do you expectto be the public reception of this museum?

(06:15):
Because hip hop is such an amazinglifeblood, not only just musically but
culturally for this country. Yeah,listen, people have said, and I
say as well, hip hop isAmerica's greatest export. Now, you can't

(06:36):
go anywhere in the world and notsee hip hop. It's everywhere. It's
in the clubs, it's in theway people dress, it's in television,
it's in films, it's in advertisement, it's in country music. It's in
country music, it's in ed m, it's in K pop, it's all

(07:00):
over the place. You can't goanywhere and not have a hip hop experience.
So to answer your question, wheredo I expect I expect this to
be the world's most important museum?I think that you know, an art
form that was created by black andbrown teenagers who had no idea what they

(07:23):
were creating. They were just outthere trying to have fun and entertain people.
That quickly became the most popular artform and music in the entire world.
That was really something that people triedto suppress and thought it was going
to be a fag turned out tobe the most popular music in the world.

(07:46):
So, you know, people,it doesn't matter where you live.
Hip hop unites people. It bringspeople together. I get people just to
this exhibit that we have here inthe Bronx at the Bronx Charmen of Mark
from all around the world, France, Germany, Japan, China, Russia,
Norway, Africa, Brazil, Canada. They come from all corners of

(08:11):
the world because they love hip hopand they want us to know what a
hip hop museum experience actually is.I remember when I was younger, and
I you know, I'm probably thesame with you, Helen. When we
were younger and the school used totake us on trips to museums. It
took us to the Museum of NaturalHistory to look at old dinosaurs. That's

(08:33):
not what kids want to see today. They want to see stuff that they
can relate to and a hip hopmuseum experience is something that appeals to every
age group, no matter if you'reyoung or old. They love it.
So where you are located now inthe Bronx Terminal Market, that is a
temporary holding space. Tell us aboutthe long term plan for the universal hip

(08:58):
hop music Glad you asked. Sowe are in the revolution of hip hop.
This is our temporary space where weget to test out different experiences just
to see what our audience really likes. So we're celebrating the golden era of
the nineteen eighty six nineteen ninety inthis current exhibit, but when we move

(09:22):
across the street, it's going tobe one of the most state of the
art museum experiences. Microsoft is ourtech partner, Wow, you know,
So we're testing all types of thingsfrom holograms to metaverse experiences. We're going
to not just be the traditional brickand mortar museum experience when you go inside.

(09:48):
The technology will kind of like shapeand mold your museum experience so that
each person comes into it gets acustom experience. And obviously we'll have all
of the artifacts, you know,like you see behind me album covers,
fashion from DAPPI Dan, do wehave biz markies go rope Chaine sitting right,

(10:13):
sitting in front of me. Youknow, so we have a lot
of stuff that we're collected and wewill continue to collect. You talked about
kids and museums and then wanting somethingto relate to Are you doing anything in
schools too, I guess involve kidsor expose them at this point to your

(10:37):
museum, we certainly are. Weteamed up with the Simons Foundation, uh
huh, which funds math and sciencerelated projects at the university level and at
the nonprofit level, and at oneof our board members his name was doctor
Stephan Alexander and he's one of theleading astrophysicists, and he teamed us up

(11:05):
with the Simons Foundation to create ahip hop science project. So we are
showing the intersection between hip hop andphysics, believe it or not. And
we've got schools to participate with,pairing scientists with hip hop artists to have

(11:26):
one on one discussions about the relationshipbetween you know, lyrics and the study
of the galaxies. And as youalready know, one of the most used
terms in hip hop is dropping science. So you know, we want to
know what dropping science really means andthis is a great project to be working

(11:50):
with. That's really cool. Andalso, you know, I can see
the correlation with math because I rememberthe first time someone was teaching me how
to mix on turntables and that youhave to know the number of beats per
minute in order to be able tomix the two songs together of a similar
VPM. And and you know,it was like sitting there counting beats.

(12:13):
Now. I know it's all differentnow with Serrato, but earlier days it
was about counting. Yep. Well, you know, I come from the
old day of blending, not scratching, and you know, so you had
to you had to know that beatcount you know what I'm saying. So
yeah, but you know it's morethan that. It's the evolution of sonics

(12:35):
and frequencies and you know how touse electronics to manipulate sound, and you
know the speed of sampling and themixture of different genres. That's what science
is. It takes and brings thingstogether to explore solutions to too large problems.

(13:00):
And hip hop is at the backboneof that, which is very interesting.
This has had to be a challengingendeavor on your part. What are
some of the roadblocks that you facedin creating this museum and how have you
overcome them? So, you know, the biggest challenge wasn't really it was

(13:24):
really just you know, people notbelieve it. Oh yeah, many many
folks were non believers. You know. It's it's like Jesus going in and
trying to preach the gospel and thenI get out of here with that stuff.
And it was the same for thismuseum. People like, all right,

(13:46):
another hip hop museum project. Letme know when it's real. And
it took several years to get peopleto believe that this project was going to
happen. And now here we arewith an eighty million dollar project being built
right across the street, and nowpeople are starting to jump on board.
Obviously, it's all the people thatdidn't believe. Now they're coming around,

(14:09):
like, you know what, Ididn't think you could do it, but
you did it, and I'm sohappy that it got done. Okay,
I'm not mad. You know,better late than never. It happens when
it's supposed to happen, exactly.So you've got experience as a DJ,

(14:30):
you've got experience in nightclubs, andthen you've got radio under your belt and
you got your SCC license and youwent into TV and then you started a
record company, you did marketing andpromotions in the music business. You did,
you did, or you still dofinancial advisor? I still am So
where did you? First of all? How did you come to learn this

(14:54):
endeavor? I mean running a musicno, running a museum. It's like
is is do you have mentors?You have people? Did you contact someone
at the Rock and Roll Hall ofFame and say, you know, give
me some feedback or advice, oryou just cookod by the horns and did
it? You know? So Ihave an MBA Okay. So I've always

(15:16):
been good at studying and researching differentthings, and I know the culture,
I know the coach inside out.So but what we did, Helen,
we hired an architect. His nameis Michael Ford, and early on we
did what's called inclusive design charetts,and we invited different people from different parts

(15:41):
of the community to come sit downwith us and like a focus group,
and we asked him, what doyou think a museum experience should be?
Should it be a whole bunch ofpictures on the wall, Should it be
clothing? Should it be live DJsand performances people you know. So we

(16:02):
took people from students as young asmiddle school, as old, you know,
graduate students. We took people whoknew hip hop, we took people
who didn't know hip hop, andwe took feedback from everyone, and then
we took all the different feedback anddata points to think about what it was

(16:23):
the best ideas that came out ofthat group. And we did that all
around the country. We did itin Los Angeles, we did it in
Detroit, we did it in Lanta, in New York, so that we
can get different parts of the regionbecause you know, people in Detroit don't
think like people in New York becausethey don't think like us, and vice

(16:45):
versas. So it was quite interestingto take all that feedback to really understand
when a young person comes to themuseum, what type of experience do they
expect, or when you know,a grandparent comes with their grand Jordan,
what kind of museum experience. Sowe are really creating what we think is

(17:07):
a smart museum because we did allthat research early on, that makes a
big difference. And of course afteryou get to that point, the next
thing is funding. How are youfinding the people or organizations to help you
make this not only your dream,but this is my dream too, And
this is the dream of so manyof us who grew up in hip hop

(17:30):
that it be revered in such away that this is cemented in American history.
So I'm sure that's got a prettyhefty price tag, and how can
people support you in that regard?Well, So, okay, the first

(17:51):
part of it is museums, youknow, are critical to preserving history and
culture and empowering community and this museumis no different, you know. So
people that have invested into this museumreally started at the city and the state

(18:14):
level. So New York City,the governor, the local elected officials really
were the first ones to step upto the plate and put a lot of
money behind this project. And thenMicrosoft, our tech partner, put in
a lot of money and they continueto fund and support this project. But

(18:34):
now it's time for the hip hopcommunity to do its part. So NAS
and l kooj are committed to helpingus raise money. But we need others.
We need doctor Dre, we needjay Z, we need all of
the big guys who have benefited greatlyfrom you know, their careers and their

(18:57):
you know, life from hip hopas knowing that this museum is preserving not
just the generation that started hip hop, but their generation as well. You
know. So this is the museumthat represents everybody. And we're now doing

(19:19):
outreach to corporations that have made agazillion dollars off of hip hop, getting
them to understand that they have togive back as well. So the outreach
has now begun. The city andthe state have done their part, and
now we're going to ask everyone elseto do their part. Is this a

(19:40):
situation where like just someone who's passionateabout hip hop can also be a part
of helping or funding or whatever.Just in terms of like I want to
make if someone wants like a donation, or do you sell tickets and merger

(20:00):
and things like that. There's alsohelped. So one of our biggest individual
donors is not even in hip hop, and he just loves the culture and
believes in this project and he hasmade a significant contribution. But we get
small donations through our website. Somepeople donate fifty dollars, some people donate

(20:23):
one hundred dollars, some people donateone thousand dollars. And it comes from
all different backgrounds, all different people, and these people understand the cultural significance
of this museum. So we havea campaign called One for All. Okay,
we recently launched and it's very simple, One for All. If we

(20:47):
get fifty million people to donate onedollar, we've raised fifty million dollars,
So we're asking people to donate aslittle as one dollars. I love that.
So a lot of people that listento this podcast are also, you
know, in business for themselves andtrying to learn how to improve or expand

(21:15):
their own business. I know you'rea financial advisor. You mentioned that earlier.
What advice would you give to someonewho is looking to do those things
or even start their own business,whether that is a for profit or a
nonprofit business. And the one thingI keep hearing you say which resonates with
me is belief first. But afterthat, what does it take? It

(21:40):
takes patience. You know, somany people run into a brick wall and
they throw in the towel, sothe first sign of adversity, they're ready
to give up. I can't tellyou how many nights, sleepless nights I've
had with this project, but Iknew that if I took my foot off

(22:02):
the gas pedal that this project wouldnever happen and there would never be a
hip hop museum. Not to saythat I'm the savior of hip hop now,
but you know, most people,you know, don't understand what it
takes to actually build a museum.My friend, one of my childhood friends,
says, you know, building amuseum is akin to building the pyramids.

(22:26):
Wow, it actually is. Youknow, It's it's not an easy
task. And most museums are notbuilt by people of colored you know,
they're built by people who have alot of money behind. So what I
would say, what I would sayto people who are getting into business,

(22:47):
and you know, you have tobelieve in yourself. You have to have
something that is worthy of your timeand energy. Don't just up with an
idea that you know doesn't solve today'sproblems. Look beyond your immediate box that
you're in and see how you cancreate something that's going to be impactful and

(23:12):
meaningful. And if you think thatyou have something that's going to have an
impact, then that's where you shouldput all your energy at. I love
that answer. Are you all planningany big celebrations anytime? Soon celebrating,
you know, hip hop from itsorigin to today. Do you have any

(23:34):
of those things coming up that thepublic can actually tend get involved with support.
It's funny that you asked that question, because on November twenty second,
we're going to be announcing with MayAdams the fiftieth the plans to celebrate New

(23:56):
York cities fifty years of hip hophistory. I Love It, which is
going to be a celebration that beginsin New Year's Eve here in New York
City to usher in the fiftieth anniversaryof hip hop, and we'll go all
the way through next December, soa full year of different programs and events

(24:19):
and activities celebrating New York's fiftieth anniversaryof hip hop. That's going to be
amazing. That is going to beamazing. I kind of got chills thinking
about it. It's going to beIt's going to be one of the biggest
celebrations in all of music's history.I agree because I don't think that there's

(24:42):
ever been a time when an artforms, a musical art form such as
this has been celebrated for what it'sbrought to so many people, you know,
over the course of a year,So that's I mean, I'm excited.
I want to be there. I'mgonna be a part of it.

(25:03):
So if people want to find yourwebsite or if they want to support you,
I know you mentioned the one forall, but how do they what's
the website address that people could goto if they want to be a part
of that or spend more. Yeah, so our website is u h h
M dot o r g u hh M for Universal Hip Hop Museum dot

(25:32):
org dot org. Correct. Okay? And are you also on social can
they find you and follow you andkeep up with things that way as well?
Yep? So our tag is atu h H Museum on Instagram,
Twitter, Facebook, and we alsoon LinkedIn I believe as well. But

(25:56):
Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter uHH museum, got it? No TikTok
No, we also have TikTok too. Okay, great, I'm not the
social media person, no, Iknow, I'm just messing with you.
But you know, it's like it'sit's everywhere. So that's that's where the
followers or hip hop are because youknow, they are on TikTok and their

(26:18):
own LinkedIn too. So this hasbeen wonderful. Thank you. For taking
time to come on the podcast andtalk to us about this. And you
know, are there any other waysbefore we go that listeners or anyone listening
can support the Universal Hip Hop Museum. I was on social media. Okay,

(26:41):
go to our website, sign upfor our newsletter, and if you
have stuff in your garage, weshould talk. I definitely got some interesting
things I came across, for example, a cassette with an interview that I
did with at the time, hewas Puff Daddy. So, uh,

(27:03):
you know what somebody just donated tous the other day, Dave German.
I don't know if you remember DaveGermany. I do, yep. He
was over at Arista. Uh.And I had grand Master d from Houdini
DJing here a week ago, andDave German bought with him four cassette tapes.
Three of them were Red Alerts firstshows Wow on chi FM Wow.

(27:32):
The first three shows Red Alert andI got him on cassette. That's crazy,
That is crazy. Yeah. I'vegot like an open box sets of
of all kinds of vinyl because Ididn't really play them, but like just
interesting things along that I've collected alongthe way. This was this is one

(27:57):
of the funniest things. Shat dida hip hop album that was that was
interesting and yes, and so Ihave a shack fo shoe that he signed
that's been sitting in my basement foryears. I'm like, what am I
gonna do with this? So allkinds of great stuff, you know,

(28:21):
come clean out the basement. We'reshutting the truck over. Now. This
has been a wonderful conversation and youknow, it's it's funny as I'm talking
to you. And we talked alittle early before we started about you know,
having the come a denominator of FrankieCrocker, and I'm sure he's very

(28:41):
proud of what you're doing with thiswork because he was a passionate supporter as
well. Absolutely, and I thankyou for being a part of the Building
Black Biz podcast Again, if youwant to reach out to Rocky and find
out more what they're doing, theirwebsite is u h h M dot org.

(29:03):
And thank you again so much forbeing on the show. Thank you
for having me