#cultural #guide #essential #event #Harlem #local #Uptown #culture #NewYork #experienceharlem #experience #NYC #shoplocal #harlemnyc #harlemites #NY

From Executive Producers Riley S. Wilson (Orange Bright) and Lisa Cortés (Precious) comes a live-action sci-fi/drama web series about a claircognizant (all-knowing) little Black girl living and growing up in a rapidly changing Harlem. A finalist for the 2016 Sundance Institute YouTube New Voices Lab, Little Apple is a modern-day coming of age story about a rapidly developing little girl finding her voice and fighting against complicity. Starring 10-year-old actress, Milan Williams, Little Apple is a live-action sci-fi web series and comic book as well as a Behind-The-Scenes podcast where Milan and EP Riley S. Wilson discuss and breakdown each episode’s content and themes. The series follows Apple, a little Black girl, born and raised in Harlem, as she and her family deal with her new abilities, growing consciousness and sheer impatience for a new school year. Little Apple tells the moving and witty story of a young magical Black girl’s transcendence into consciousness—in a society that, for all intents and purposes, is anti-Black and anti-female. Themes explored in the series, comic and podcast include: Gentrification, The Erasure of Native Peoples, Black Feminism, Microaggressions, Black Girl Magic and more. The cast and crew of Little Apple are currently campaigning on Kickstarter for $15,000 for the production of the first five episodes; that includes the cost of equipment, locations, wardrobe and set design. Some of the rewards include exclusive access to the first episodes, a signed copy of Volume I of the limited edition comic book or your own personalized cartoon sketch. “What’s great about the show is that it’s from the perspective of a little girl. And people often forget that kids have direct access to content and media just as much as adults. They know what’s going on in the country and many times the world. People just don’t engage with them,” says Wilson. “I think more than anything, this project–between the series, podcast and comic–helps to open the conversation up and provide useful communication tools to aid in the discussion about the fight for racial justice with young people.” “The first time I read the papers, I was like gentrifi-what? I didn’t know what it meant. I was like, mom what does gentrification mean? And I said it wrong. I pronounced it really wrong,” Williams says. “It probably sounded like gentr-ti-ta-tion. I don’t even know. At first I didn’t know what it was and then I started looking into it and now I’m like ohhhh. Now I can’t get it out of my mind.” Lisa Cortés added “The marriage of entertainment for young people coupled with discourse around social justice is especially timely. Little Apple’s production team and story speaks to my commitment in empowering expansive representation in front of and behind the camera while giving light to visionary stories. I’m excited to see this series come to fruition.” Kickstarter: Little Apple Twitter: @LilAppleSeries Facebook: @LilAppleSeries Instagram: @LilAppleSeries Podcast: Making Apple Podcast www.littleappletheseries.com #cultural #guide #essential #event #Harlem #local #Uptown #culture #NewYork #experienceharlem #experience #NYC #shoplocal #harlemnyc #harlemites #NY

Join MMPCIA for The 27th Annual Neighborhood House Tour Sunday, June 11th, from 11 AM to 4 PM Our theme this year is Living Legacy! The Mount Morris Park area is known for its close knit community and historic brownstones that bring you back in time. This year’s tour will feature some of the people that are the roots of the Mount Morris Park Historic District.  They will invite you inside their homes: from cutting edge contemporaries and creative updates to classic elegance that retains the glamour of a bygone era and eclectic combinations that meld bits of all the best. In short, the Living Legacy that we call home — Mount Morris Park! This year’s tour around the Mount Morris Park section of Harlem will feature homes, gardens, churches and hidden treasures.  Refreshments will be available at key locations on Lenox Avenue. Come join us for this very special event 11 AM to 4 PM: Follow the “Living Legacy” Self-Guided Tour of Homes at your leisure. Visit more than 10 venues including a marvelous neighborhood treasure in mid-restoration, brownstone homes in a range of styles with period details, and captivating backyard gardens showcasing how culture and neighborhood resonate, and opportunities to talk with life long residents as they reflect on their own history and embrace of Harlem. 12 PM to 1 PM: Join renowned historian Michael Henry Adams, author of Harlem Lost & Found, an architectural and social history, 1765-1915, for an hour long walk, exploring resilient St Martin’s Episcopal Church and the homes and haunts of Mount Morris Park notables from the past including industrialist John Dwight (Arm & Hammer), composers Richard Rogers (The Sound of Music) and Lorenz Hart (My Funny Valentine), as well as the Rev. Dr. George Wilson Becton of the World Gospel Feast Party, and his wife the Rev. Louise Becton, plus Dr. Maya Angelou and others. Reserve your tickets today We are still in need of volunteers to help make the House Tour a success. If you are interested in being a Volunteer Greeter for this year’s  House Tour, please sign up here. The success of the house tour depends on volunteers who help us present ourselves at our best to outside guests and neighbors alike. The 27th Annual Mount Morris Park House Tour Sunday, June 11, from 11 AM to 4 PM Shine or rain, everything begins at the Tour Start: Pelham Fritz Community Center Mount Morris Park West & West 122 Street, Harlem Subways: A, B, C, D, 2, 3, and 4, 5, & 6 to 125th Street. Buses: M1, M7 and M102 #cultural #guide #essential #event #Harlem #local #Uptown #culture #NewYork #experienceharlem #experience #NYC #shoplocal #harlemnyc #harlemites #NY

A CELEBRATION AND RENEWAL OF GREAT 20th CENTURY DANCE Interpreted and created by legendary modern dance artists with the DVP company and neighborhood seniors In collaboration with Summer on the Hudson and the Prospect Park Alliance CHOREOGRAPHERS Ellen Graff George Faison Naomi Goldberg Haas Stuart Hodes Marnie Thomas Wood Elizabeth Keen Ramona Candy GUEST ARTISTS Alice Teirstein Laura Glenn Chet Walker Shirley Black-Brown Myna Majors Rita Carrington SAT, JUNE 17  |  6 pm & 7:30 pm Grant’s Tomb, West Harlem 122nd and Riverside Drive (#1 train; M5 bus; or M4 or M104 bus to 122nd St, walk 2 blocks west) ALSO: WED, JUNE 14, 7 pm – open dress rehearsal SAT, JUNE 24  |  6 pm Lincoln Statue in Prospect Park, Brooklyn Lakeside by Lefrak Ice Skating Rink (Q train to Parkside Ave; Walk into park, turn right along East Dr, go north of the ice skating rink) #cultural #guide #essential #event #Harlem #local #Uptown #culture #NewYork #experienceharlem #experience #NYC #shoplocal #harlemnyc #harlemites #NY

—By Miles Marshall Lewis. Follow MML on Snapchat, Instagram and Twitter at @furthermucker. A staple of the season since 2005, the Apollo Spring Gala stands as one of Harlem’s hottest tickets. A fundraising benefit for the Apollo Theater, the night always begins with a scintillating set of live performances on its legendary stage and ends with a tented spectacle of dance, high fashion and high spirits stretching ’til midnight. (Tonight’s 12th annual gala features superstars Sheila E and Charlie Wilson alongside newcomers Wé McDonald and Trombone Shorty.) Apollo CEO/president Jonelle Procope spoke with Experience Harlem to discuss the gala and take us through the theater’s 2017-18 programming season. Everyone’s excited over Sheila E taking the stage at the Apollo Spring Gala. Did Prince ever perform at the Apollo? Oh God. Prince played the Apollo in 1993 for a special VH1 concert, and then he made several appearances at the theater throughout the years. Most recently he made a surprise visit for the Apollo’s 75th anniversary spring gala in 2009. And he came because he wanted to help induct Patti LaBelle into the Walk of Fame. He held a press conference at the theater in 2012 for his Welcome 2 America tour, and then he would come to see performances from time to time. I have to say, my only regret is that we didn’t get him for one of his late night jam sessions at the Apollo. He’s such a genius. Really really really miss him. But he did leave behind such incredible music, so he’ll never be forgotten. Tell us about the programs funded by the annual gala. The funds from the gala fund a number of things. Basically, it funds everything that we do on our stage. First of all, it benefits the Apollo’s education and community programs, which extend the theater’s commitment to serving as a resource and a gathering place for our community. Our education programs include events for schoolchildren and families, career development for teens and adults. The Apollo has always been a gathering place. So in current times, we focus on that through something that we call our Uptown Hall series. These are sessions on culturally specific issues integral to the Harlem community and history. Funds raised from the gala also support our signature programs. Iconic events such as our amateur night at the Apollo, which has been going since we opened our doors in 1934 every Wednesday night; our Apollo Music Café; our Apollo Comedy Club. These are things that take place on our side soundstage. You know, I want the people to think, “Wow, it’s a Thursday night. I wanna go out. I think I’m gonna go to the Apollo Comedy Club.” Or, “It’s Friday night or Saturday night. What’s going on? I’m going up to the Apollo and I’m gonna catch the music.” The Apollo Music Café focuses on artists who are sort of under the radar. These are artists who have their own following, and they can be from the New York vicinity or places like New Orleans or Atlanta. But we’re giving them an opportunity to showcase their talent, and that’s very much connected to the Apollo’s legacy of creating opportunities for emerging artists. Last year, the Apollo brought aboard Kamilah Forbes as executive producer. What’s she been cooking up? The funds we raise from the gala also support our rich programming. This will be our sixth full season of programming at the Apollo, the first year from our new executive producer Kamilah Forbes. There’s a multimedia production of Ta-Nehisi Coates’s award-winning Between the World and Me. It’s actually directed by Kamilah and features music commissioned by Jason Moran, who’s a MacArthur Genius. We’ve worked with him before; he did the soundtrack for Selma and 13th, the documentary. We’re gonna feature the New York premiere of a genre-defying opera, We Shall Not Be Moved, which looks back at the 1985 bombing of the MOVE organization headquarters in Philadelphia. Then we have the multimedia live music performance Soundtrack of ’63, which really takes us back in time to a cultural, artistic retrospective from 1963 to present-day Black Lives Matter movement. Could you break down this year’s Apollo gala musical performances? This year we have CeeLo Green. Just a few weeks before, we had a reading on the stage of Ladykiller’s Love Story, a play based on the CeeLo album The Lady Killer. It’s something we think is an exciting project and may have a future. It’ll be workshopped, it may come back, and hopefully go on to regional theater or off-Broadway. We have Sheila E. She’s just an amazing talent, and certainly she brings notoriety with her association with Prince. I had the pleasure of seeing her perform last year and just thought she was really amazing. The thing that’s so interesting about the Apollo is the Apollo audience. They participate in it, so when they come to a concert, they’re up on their feet really having a great time and embracing the artist’s performance. So we hope Sheila E. will do that. The thing about Prince was, there were also really cool women in his band. There was Wendy [Melvoin] and there was Sheila E. So I’m excited to have her. And then there’s Charlie Wilson. That’ll hopefully whip us into a frenzy with a lot of the hits from the Gap Band and things that we still dance to, like “Outstanding.” And we have Trombone Shorty, who is a really great performer, another one who’s gonna get people hyped up. He’s actually gonna lead the crowd out at the end into a second line, for folks who understand the traditions of New Orleans, that’ll lead us to where our party is following the gala. We always focus on an emerging talent, that’s very much a part of the Apollo DNA. Wé McDonald is a young performer who’s performed on amateur night. She was also a contestant on The Voice, and she is an alumna from the Harlem School of the Arts—another renowned institution in the Harlem community. We’re all cultural organizations who are supportive of one another, and we love having very talented students from Harlem School of the Arts. She’s amazing, a real talent. She’s a force and you’re gonna be hearing from her. And Cedric the Entertainer’s our MC, so what can I say? It’s gonna be a fabulous night. #cultural #guide #essential #event #Harlem #local #Uptown #culture #NewYork #experienceharlem #experience #NYC #shoplocal #harlemnyc #harlemites #NY

Razor Bar 2254 5th Avenue, New York, NY 10037 646‐726‐4933 Facebook: @RazorBarHarlem Every great day for a guy begins with a fresh haircut! Let him feel invincible after a trip to Harlem’s newest barbershop; Razor Bar. Frederick Benjamin shop.frederickbenjamin.com 646‐417‐8128 Keep the confidence going with Frederick Benjamin grooming products; specifically designed tolet him keep the closest shave, free of razor bumps. NiLu Gift Shop shopnilu.com 191 Lenox Avenue New York, NY 10026 646‐702‐4074 Embedded into the fabric of Harlem, is its unique style. Keep him on top of the newest trends with The Sneaker Heads’ Reference Guide or the Empire State Novelty Set found at NiLu Gift Shop! Flamekeepers Hat Club flamekeepershatclub.com 273 W 121st Street, New York, NY 10027 212‐531‐3542 Top the night off with one of Flamekeepers Hat Club’s sophisticated hats for men. Offering an array of different styles, any Dad can end his Father’s Day in his own bit of flare! #cultural #guide #essential #event #Harlem #local #Uptown #culture #NewYork #experienceharlem #experience #NYC #shoplocal #harlemnyc #harlemites #NY

A very generous anonymous donor has committed to match every contribution made this week to the BGCHarlem Summer Camp Fund $2 to $1  A gift of $50 buys not just one day of summer fun, but three! Help Harlem’s kids have a safe and enriching summer. Make your gift TODAY!DONATE NOW #cultural #guide #essential #event #Harlem #local #Uptown #culture #NewYork #experienceharlem #experience #NYC #shoplocal #harlemnyc #harlemites #NY

In Get Out, a speculative thriller from the mind of Jordan Peele, a young African-American man visits his white girlfriend’s family estate, and becomes ensnared in the more sinister real reason for the invitation. Music: Hip-hop, House and Soul by DJ Brittofied. Live Band: V Ferg presents Creative Public Offering. #cultural #guide #essential #event #Harlem #local #Uptown #culture #NewYork #experienceharlem #experience #NYC #shoplocal #harlemnyc #harlemites #NY

#cultural #guide #essential #event #Harlem #local #Uptown #culture #NewYork #experienceharlem #experience #NYC #shoplocal #harlemnyc #harlemites #NY

By Darryl Robertson Manhattan is one of the most affluent, densely populated hotspots in the world, known more for its financial-world prestige and its cultural cachet than its homegrown hip-hop culture. The most significant New York City-native rappers arguably originate from Brooklyn or Queens. But while there are way less MCs hailing from the neighborhood of Harlem than other NYC boroughs, Uptown has birthed its fair share of gifted wordsmiths over the years. With that, we put together a list of top five rappers from the Black mecca. (Shoutout to Harlem’s own Kurtis Blow, without whom the vast majority on this list would never have been known at all.) 1. Kool Moe Dee Kool Moe Dee, né Mohandas Dewese, made his name as a standout performer in The Get Down-era 1970s with the legendary Treacherous Three. Moe Dee’s clever, rapid-fire wordplay (see “The New Rap Language”) paved the way for his solo career after the group split in 1984. The West Harlem MC started releasing solo singles in 1985, which led to his self-titled debut album in ’86. KMD would later drop his most well-known single, “How Ya Like Me Now,” still a catchphrase meme to this day. The album of the same name sold over a million copies and solidified his status as one of the most popular rap pioneers to achieve success during hip-hop’s first golden age, alongside upstart legends like Run-D.M.C. and LL Cool J. Old school hip-hop heads witnessed an infamous battle between Kool Moe Dee and LL back in the late 1980s. Allegedly, the beef began after Moe Dee accused Uncle L of stealing his style and not paying enough homage to the MCs before him. 2. Big L Despite releasing only one album in his lifetime (1995’s Lifestylez ov da Poor & Dangerous), the late Big L is generally regarded as one of hip-hop’s most adept lyricists of all time. The Harlemite was killed in a drive-by shooing back in 1999 at 24 years old. On the microphone, Big L (born Lamont Coleman) was intricate, intriguing and clever. His rap career begin in the early ’90s, when he teamed with fellow Harlem natives Cam’ron, Mase, McGruff and the late Bloodshed—collectively known as Children of the Corn. The rapper, who once emceed alongside Jay Z on The Stretch and Bobbito Show, made his first solo appearance on Showbiz & A.G.’s “Represent,” a song off their 1992 debut, Runaway Slave. L’s most noteworthy songs include “Ebonics (Criminal Slang),” “ ’98 Freestyle” and “Deadly Combination” featuring 2Pac, all from the 2000 posthumous album, The Big Picture. Even today, Big L remains a celebrated hip-hop artist, not just in Harlem, but worldwide. 3. Cam’ron Cameron Giles, a.k.a. Cam’ron, is probably the most colorfully exciting MC from Uptown. If you’re old enough, you may remember Killa Cam as a member of Children of the Corn—alongside Mase, the late Big L, McGruff and his late cousin, Bloodshed. At the height of the physical mixtape/CD/DVD era, Cam’ron and his Diplomats crew rose to become some of the most popular rappers in hip-hop thanks to Cam’s witty wordplay. In fact, it can be argued that for a brief period (2007-2008), Cam’ron was one of the better MCs in New York City. But not only was the former basketball player a fierce rhymer, he transcended rap to fashion and film. Cam was so popular that renowned political commentators Bill O’Reilly and Anderson Cooper tapped the Harlem kid to appear as a talking head on their programs. 4. A$AP Rocky Harlem’s Rakim Mayers—a.k.a. A$AP Rocky—is a rapper who valued style over substance on his breakthrough mixtape, Live. Love. ASAP., as well as his debut studio album, Long. Live. ASAP. But Rocky’s style isn’t typical New York. The 28-year-old rapper has a thoughtful kaleidoscope of styles that he borrows from Southern screw music and California haze trends, which is ironic, because his parents named him after the NYC boom-bap legend, Rakim. While Rocky might not be saying anything new, he always sounds (and looks) pretty damn cool saying it. He also has feet firmly planted in the world of fashion, as a flip through any GQ magazine of the past few years will tell you. 5. Mase His weird latter-day U-turn—an international ministry, a largely ignored comeback attempt, and an even-more-ignored second comeback attempt—has obscured just how much of an impact Mason Betha made in the wake of the Notorious BIG’s passing. Harlem World (1997), a Billboard chart-topping, quadruple-platinum record, made Sean “Diddy” Combs’ second fiddle the Bad Boy Entertainment label’s golden boy, thanks to across-the-board hits like “Feel So Good.” Though nowhere near close to the lyricist Biggie was, the kid could always style on a track. #cultural #guide #essential #event #Harlem #local #Uptown #culture #NewYork #experienceharlem #experience #NYC #shoplocal #harlemnyc #harlemites #NY

By Miles Marshall Lewis Poet Kevin Young, latest director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, titled Pulitzer-winning author Colson Whitehead’s first book, 1999’s The Intuitionist. The association with Whitehead (stemming from college-buddy days at Harvard) was the first I’d ever heard of Kevin Young, but certainly wouldn’t be the last. With 11 books of his own spanning the past 19 years— including Most Way Home, the Jean-Michel Basquiat-influenced To Repel Ghosts and The Book of Hours—he’s made his mark as the most impactful black male poet of his generation this side of Saul Williams. As the newly appointed Schomburg director, as well as (starting November) poetry editor of The New Yorker magazine, Young’s career continues its upward mobility. The 46-year-young (no pun intended) poet recently spoke with Experience Harlem about his new artistic duties, favorite Harlem haunts and more. What interested you in taking over the Schomburg? The Schomburg has always held a central place in all of our cultural vision I would say. It’s so central to African-American culture and the African diaspora culture the world over. So I was always aware of it. I’ve read here before, and I’d worked in the library for many years. And when there was a chance to be able to helm it and think about its future and its illustrious past, I really was excited to do so. Tell me about your new role at The New Yorker. I haven’t started yet, I’ll start in November. But I’ll be poetry editor and selecting the poems for the issue. But I’ll still be here at Schomburg. I really see those two missions as similar. One is thinking about the culture and making decisions that I hope help the culture along, and thinking about connections between writing and our broader moment. I’m normally interested in the way that there seems to be a black renaissance again happening. The Schomburg is at the center of that, and certainly some of those folks already are in The New Yorker. And it’s a pleasure to be there doing that. Explain the center’s current Black Power! exhibit, running through December 2017. Our curator Sylviane Diouf has done a wonderful job of pulling together the many strands of what she rightly called the Youth Movement. One that she sees as tied to the Civil Rights Movement, one that of course is in dialogue with it in many ways. And I’m always struck by the way that Black Power—both the phrase and the images of the black power, which sort of becomes central to the Black Panther Party—arise from the South, or at least they come out of SNCC. I’m really interested in that myself. And just in terms of why folks should come, it’s just a beautiful, well-organized show with the international aspects of Black Power, the cultural black arts movement part. I wasn’t aware there were Australian aboriginal Black Panthers, that there were Israeli Black Panther Party members. All of this kind of broad movement is captured there, both visually and in terms of the material. You’re gonna see a volume 1, number 1 very first issue of The Black Panther newspaper, which is incredibly rare. And I think it’s a great sign that it’s a copy from one of our volunteers who was a Panther, so it’s sort of in the family. And it’s a lovely show. What are some of your favorite Harlem spots we should all try? Well, if I tell you the spots, then other people might go there. [laughter] I really love the Harlem Bar- B-Q joint. It’s good, I had some chicken and waffles from there 10 minutes ago. And there’s always Harlem Tavern, which is a good spot for the game or to get a beer. There’s many, so I hate to leave people out. #cultural #guide #essential #event #Harlem #local #Uptown #culture #NewYork #experienceharlem #experience #NYC #shoplocal #harlemnyc #harlemites #NY

The Soul Train Tribute — arguably the hottest Jam in the park for six consecutive years — celebrates the soundtrack of American social movements with a tribute to Freedom Songs from the Soul Train Era! With Music spun by DJ Stormin’ Norman of Sundae Sermon, this tribute will feature music from Soul Train artists: James Brown, Marvin Gaye, Curtis Mayfield, Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder and others interpreted by an all-star cast of independent artists including: Aiyana Smash, Abiah, Asa Lovechild, Bruce “Big Daddy” Wayne, Keith Anthony Fluitt, Petawayne, Lorinda Robinson, Shelly Nicole and others! MUSIC: House Music by DJ Stormin Norman of Sundae Sermon and live Soul Train tribute curated by InJoy Enterprises #cultural #guide #essential #event #Harlem #local #Uptown #culture #NewYork #experienceharlem #experience #NYC #shoplocal #harlemnyc #harlemites #NY