Your boy was supposed to go to the Hudson Hotel last night to big up my homey from Giant Step for his born day. Pete Rock was going to be on the 1’s and 2’s doing his thing. I was really going to hear T.R.O.Y. which might be Hip-Hop’s greatest tribute song evar.
I usually make a pit stop in this community college across the street from my day job before I go into the city. I use the internets there and check my e-mail and shit. Sometimes I write a column for the X spot, you dudes know the deal. As I was walking through the school to the computer lab I saw a poster advertising Danny Hoch and his new one-man play ‘Taking Over’. The play was going down last night for free and bong I was there in the building.
If you don’t know this cat Danny Hoch then you need to step up your Hip-Hop game. Danny Hoch might be the most Hip-Hop white dude of all time in the history of all time. He is even more Hip-Hop then about 92.375% of Black dudes who are Hip-Hop. One of the main reasons he is so Hip-Hop is that he has this incredible play ‘Taking Over’ and he is performing this shit for like three straight months for free.
Yes bitches, for FREE. I know some of you internets music thieves love that word. ‘Taking Over’ is this masterful piece of storytelling that takes you through the characters that occupy Danny Hoch’s New York City. From the real estate sellers to the slumlords to the disenfranchised Puerto Ricans we see the viewpoints from a cross section of people affected by the real estate boom in New York City. The theme is universal in that all around the country the ghettos are being transformed by the wealthy, while the suburbs are being made into ghettos.
That reminds me of my trip to Paris. I stayed in the center city right across from the Notre Dame chapel and I had to go into the suburbs to see Black people and do my sneaker shopping. This will be the same fate for New York City as it becomes a playground for only the uber-rich and the tourists who hold Euros and Sterlings. Danny Hoch expresses this idea in the play more than once through his incredible ability to instantly change characters. Hoch is a magician at this with way more talent than bullshit David Blaine. You can see he is a white dude, but he speaks so Black!?!
I said Danny Hoch was more Hip-Hop than most because he is actively fighting against the forces that created Hip-Hop. He rails against the prison industrial complex and poverty. He speaks all across the globe about their effects on people. Danny isn’t some half baked communist revolutionary in a Che Guevara shirt. He’s just a poet, ne a griot, who illustrates the world and culture we live in through words. I’m going back to see the play on Thursday night because the story is that good, and its FREE. If you live in NYC, if you grew up in NYC, if you LOVE this place called NYC then you should see this play as well.
When I hear T.R.O.Y. in the club again I will reminisce over my first love, NYC.
Danny Hoch’s ‘Taking Over’ and the Hip-Hop Theater Festival schedule
