The Brooklyn Hip-Hop Festival launches Kickstarter campaign
Crowd funding revolution helps return Hip-Hop to The People.
Brooklyn Bodega, the brains & muscle behind the annual Brooklyn Hip-Hop Festival have launched their first ever Kickstarter campaign. This marks one of the first times a Hip-Hop event and organization of this size has looked to crowd funding as a source of revenue.
“This has been an interesting year. After what we pulled off last year with Q-Tip [bringing out Kanye West, Black Thought, 2012 headliner Busta Rhymes and others] the bar has been set high. Almost immediately we were faced with the prospect of growing vertically and get bigger and bigger. Problem with that is bigger means more expensive and no matter how I looked at it that meant sharing that expense with the ticket buyer. Hip-Hop is big business and corporate America and its ethos have become incestuously intertwined with it. Our event is not so amenable to the typical corporate system. That being the case, we can’t depend on corporate dollars like Jay [Z] can depend on Budweiser and American Express. We have and always will depend on The People. The Hip-Hop community is who we are, who runs this organization and ultimately the ones who keep the lights on. Kickstarter is genius because it provides us a direct link to our consumers. It will re-democratize the financial landscape of Hip-Hop and art in general.”
– Wes Jackson
Executive Director, The Brooklyn Hip-Hop Festival
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We need your help. As Wes said, a combination of factors are threatening the Festival’s mission statement of keeping ticketing affordable for all. To combat these problems the obvious thing for us to do would be to raise the ticket price and pass the cost along to our patrons.
Unfortunately, that would price out the local community and work counter to our mission. Young families, our youth and a wide swath of folks from Red Hook to Flatbush will be locked out. And that is simply not what we’re about.
We are about pushing the art form forward and creating a word class event where all can participate. White, Black, Latino, Asian and every combination thereof. Rich, poor, from East New York to Brooklyn Heights and beyond.
Give to our Kickstarter campaign
Our Kickstarter campaign is filled with great one of a kind premiums including a chance to co-host the Festival with the legendary Ralph McDaniels, special VIP passes, access to unique content, and more.
Your part in this: Brooklyn Bodega is calling on like-minded Bodega Soldiers to put their money where their mouth is and get some skin in the game. We also ask that you share our message or maybe donate a bit of time.
To become a backer and donate click here.
