Closing Bell: Brooklyn Hip-Hop Festival Showcases Film, Art, Music

They promise “the dopest cultural festival New York has ever seen.” That would be the 11th annual Brooklyn Hip-Hop Festival, which kicks off tomorrow and runs through Saturday, when it culminates with a daylong hip-hop show in Williamsburg.

The festival, “a celebration of hip hop culture and the borough of Brooklyn,” includes film, food, art, and panel discussions as well as music. Tomorrow’s event is a daylong program of lectures and panel discussions exploring “macro issues facing the hip-hop community” and how hip-hop can help.

Titled “Hip-Hop, Technology and Reforming and Reinvesting in Our Community,” it runs from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Medgar Evers College in Crown Heights. Thursday’s main event is the Dummy Clap Film Festival, with a lineup of hip-hop-related shorts, documentaries and features, at the HOA Gallery in Bed Stuy.

Friday brings a curated food crawl through Brooklyn, sponsored by Brooklyn Brewery. Then Friday evening there’s the JUICE Hip-Hop Exhibit at Littlefield in Gowanus, a gathering of dancers, DJs, MCs, “sneaker heads,” visual artists and others.

It will feature a DJ Battle and a Dance Off, among other things.

Finally, Saturday is “The Big Show,” a daylong concert headlined by legendary Chicago MC Common (pictured above), and featuring hip-hop titans Mobb Deep, Lion Babe, Freeway, Consequence, Charles Hamilton, and others.

It runs from 1 p.m. to 8 p.m. at 50 Kent in Williamsburg. For more information and tickets, see the festival website here.

Photo via Brooklyn Hip-Hop Festival