It’s Beginning With a Jam: Bronxlyn Productions is Making a Splash on the NYC Underground Hip-Hop Scene

After her sold out show at Brooklyn’s King Theater on December 2, Erykah Badu shot upborough to DJ an afterparty at the restaurant Diviera Drive. The new, up and coming production company Bronxlyn Productions hosted the event. It was their first event, jumping a week ahead of their long-planned debut on this Friday, December 11. It Began With a Jam. I talked to Sky Cohen, one of the company’s two founding members, over the phone this weekend.

Cohen and I have been friends since we were students at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington. We both ended up in New York after graduation at different times, although the period overlapped before I moved upstate.

Cohen reflected on his time in Olympia. “Throwing fundraisers [in Olympia] showed me how we could build momentum while being super broke,” he said, “We could raise over $1,000 in a night and have fun, enjoy ourselves.”

And that’s what happened — groups like Blue Scholars came down to Olympia for events that raised funding for organizations like Gateways for Incarcerated Youth and made for good memories and experiences for those who attended.

In 2010, Cohen threw an event called “Rock the Belles.” The concept was an all female lineup of MCs and DJs. It was easy to find the talent, Cohen said, because the “best MC set up Seattle had… happened to be women.”

The concert (which was not a fundraiser) was a success, not the least because it created a space for women to enjoy hip-hop without the pressure of an onslaught of predatory men. “It’s nice to see women come out and get as drunk as they want, have fun, dance, because they know that they’re not going to be overwhelmed with gross dudes hitting on them.”

Two years later, Cohen was volunteering at the Lower Manhattan bookstore Bluestockings. The store is run entirely by volunteers, and focuses on providing left wing literature to the public.

Cohen saw a need for funding and proposed a concert- a “Rock the Belles” for NYC. After a lot of time and energy, the event went down in September of 2012. The concert had a high turnout and the revenue helped a bookstore that regularly struggles to keep the lights on.

Bluestockings also hosted Bronx hip-hop duo Rebel Diaz at a fundraiser for prisoners’ art. Cohen contacted the group to see if they would perform an acapella set, and, to his delight, they accepted the offer. Rebel Diaz have performed at every event he has thrown since. Band-member Rodrigo Starz is the other founding member of Bronxlyn Productions.

In May of 2014, Cohen threw another Rock the Belles event with headliner Jean Grae. He saw that there was an appetite for left-leaning hip-hop in the city — the event sold out. But it was more than that. The majority of the crowd were women. This was, and is, important to Cohen.

“The hip-hop scene in NYC is super machismo, misogynistic, in general,” he said. “Masculinity is mad fragile. And when you’re spending all day ragging on women, it hurts to see them succeed. You spend all your time and energy on your craft and then a woman comes in and [does well], it hurts.”

After the Jean Grae show, Cohen left NYC for ten months. He traveled back home to Hawaii and bounced around the West Coast. Eventually, New York pulled him back in and by June of 2015 he was talking to Rebel Diaz about throwing another event.

The trio bounced ideas around for a while and one took root — dead prez on 9/11. This wasn’t the first time Cohen had hosted that group on that day. He had done it four years earlier in Olympia. That concert, in 2010, was a homecoming of sorts for the group. dead prez’s last appearance in Olympia, on February 14, 2008 at Evergreen, ended in a riot and the duo hadn’t returned to the area since the incident.

Once the headliner was agreed on, the rest of the lineup formed around the duo. Rebel Diaz, of course, would provide support. So would Tef Poe, a firebreathing MC from Saint Louis. Cohen and Rebel Diaz were able to get the Flipmode Squad alum and female MC Rah Digga as the co-headliner.

The show was a success. Held at Be Electric Studios in Brooklyn, an open space with phenomenal acoustics, the event drew a substantial crowd and was a moderate financial success.

Of course, the idea of financial success in the music industry is different from other businesses. After five years of events, Cohen has learned that lesson.

“[Today], unless you’re throwing EDM shows and selling ex to kids, you’re not making money,” he told me, “That’s not what I want to do. [Hypothetically] breaking even and giving an experience to people is more important to me than that.”

Starz felt that it was better to remove their names from the events they were throwing. Depersonalizing the production company, Cohen believes, allows the events to be enjoyed and seen for what they are. “I’m not looking for celebrity,” he said.

The inaugural Bronxlyn Productions production was planned for December 11, but the Badu event superseded that plan. Cohen described the process of getting the show off the ground as intense, chaotic, and exhilarating.

“They hit us up last minute,” he said. “On Saturday, she decided she wanted to do a DJ set after the concert at King’s Theater. They approached us Sunday evening, we had contracts Monday evening, and the event was on Wednesday. If it hadn’t been Badu, I’d advise never doing that.”

Cohen said his anxiety was gone completely within the first few minutes of Badu’s show at King’s Theater. He said it was one of, if not the, best live performances he has seen to this date.

The show hit capacity and Badu spun for hours. Reaction on the ground and on social media was overwhelmingly positive.

The key now for Cohen and Starz is to keep that momentum going. Their show on December 11 is the first step.

That event, It Began With a Jam, will feature hip-hop godfather Afrika Bambaata, DJ Kool Herc, DJ Evil Dee, Smif & Wessun, Rebel Diaz, The Reminders, and Tef Poe.

This lineup has historic significance for hip-hop and the city of New York, as Robert Gordon points out in his excellent breakdown over at Brotherhood Mag.

Doors open at 8 at LightSpace Studios in Brooklyn on 1115 Flushing Ave. The event is all ages.

Click here for tickets.