DJ Cassidy is bringing his Pass The Mic Live! franchise to Radio City Music Hall in New York. The special will feature 25 Hip-Hop icons including Big Daddy Kane, Doug E. Fresh, Rakim, Roxanne Shanté and Slick Rick.
The one-night-only event will take place on July 21 in celebration of HIp-Hop's 50th anniversary, in partnership with the Black Promoters Collective (BPC) and presented by Martell Cognac. The star-studded event will also feature The Sugarhill Gang, Monie Love, Kurtis Blow and Kid ‘N Play along with surprise guests.
“As a 10-year-old DJ, I grew up idolizing every single one of these legendary hip-hop heavyweights,” DJ Cassidy told Billboard. “Their records were my first pieces of vinyl. Their posters were on my wall. Their tapes were in my Walkman. Together, they laid the foundation for what was to transform the world musically, culturally and beyond. I am truly grateful to be celebrating them and their profound impact on the culture, just days from the 50th birthday of hip-hop [Aug. 11] and minutes away from where Kool Herc DJ’d the first hip-hop party in 1973. Uniting 25 native New York icons of hip-hop’s golden age on one stage for one night in the birthplace of hip-hop, also my hometown, will be the greatest honor of my life.”
The grand finale of Pass The Mic in its original video form ended last year, with a special BET Awards edition. “I’ve celebrated 220 legendary artists and 166 iconic songs in these 10 episodes,” Cassidy said at the time, per Variety. “I’ve always admired people like Michael Jordan who went out on top, and I feel like 10 is a nice, round number with which to conclude an epic run of musical celebration. And this episode being the final dream episode that I envisioned from the beginning, it seemed like the right time to close the curtain on the first generation of ‘Pass the Mic’ before I continue to expand the brand into new endeavors of celebration.”
DJ Cassidy previously spoke with Rock The Bells about why expanding Pass the Mic, which started during the pandemic in 2020 as a way of bringing together Hip-Hop and R&B stars, was so important.
“I wanted to expand what ‘Pass The Mic’ was," he said. "I wanted to expand the [audience] who watched it and I wanted to give that emotional feeling to other people and I wanted to celebrate another era of incredible music that touched me and changed my life. So it was clear to me that I wanted to do it [with] Hip-Hop. I wanted to celebrate my Hip-Hop heroes and unite my Hip-Hop heroes and celebrate the heroes around the world again.”
Pass The Mic Live! at Radio City Music Hall will be the second in Cassidy’s series of live one-night-only events taking place this year. The first show is set for May 12 at the Prudential Center arena in Newark, New Jersey with Ashanti, Fabolous, Ja Rule, Lil Kim, Ma$e, Ne-Yo, Robin Thicke, 112 and surprise guests.
