Bbeats (Brooklyn Bodega + Fat Beats Pop-Up Shop) To Open at Dekalb Market

In a joint venture, Brooklyn Bodega, best known as the organizers of the yearly Brooklyn Hip-Hop Festival, have teamed up with iconic New York hip hop label and retail outlet Fat Beats to open Bbeats, a pop-up store situated at the newly created Dekalb Market in downtown Brooklyn.

The Dekalb Market, built at the site of the former Albee Square Mall (shouts to Biz Markie), will contain “an incubator farm, food market, events and performance venue, and a collection of eateries and work-sell spaces,” all in the recently constructed community space. Year-round vendor spaces and eating establishments are enclosed in 22 cleverly converted shipping containers, and the area also contains a beer garden and community farming garden.

Brooklyn Bodega will be running the beer garden, “The Cooler,” and also bringing “Bbeats & Bites,” a partnership with Mazie’s Bites, as one of the site’s eateries.

Due to the closing of their retail locations, Fat Beats had been relegated to selling their unique collection of underground hip hop merchandise online, holding occasional events at their Brooklyn warehouse which were open to the public. The new location will allow Fat Beats to once again have an easily accessible location to stage events, in-store signings, and welcome the legion of faithful consumers who lamented the store’s closing.

As Fat Beats owner Joseph Abajian says, “Hip-Hop fans can expect the return of what they loved about Fat Beats.”

The market will be open from noon-midnight, and the opening weekend, July 23 & 24, will feature DJ sets by DJ Spinna (Saturday, 6-9 p.m.) and Ali Shaheed Muhammad, of A Tribe Called Quest (Sunday, 6-9 p.m.), and is free to the public.

The Dekalb Market is a joint venture of Urban Space and Youngwoo & Associates and will be open seven days a week at Willoughby and Flatbush in downtown Brooklyn.