New York City isn’t done celebrating the golden anniversary of hip hop. As part of the New York City Wine & Food Festival, chef JJ Johnson is teaming up with Power 105.1 radio host Angela Yee and several other guests to host “The Cookout.”
The event, also co-hosted by talk show host Tamron Hall, will serve as a culinary commemoration of the music genre that has impacted international culture since its early beginnings in The Bronx on Aug. 11, 1973.
For the 16th annual event, James Beard Award-winning chef Johnson has curated an afternoon event organizers say will “connect rhyming and refreshments, flowing and feeding, hip-hop and noshing.”
Rap pioneers Rev Run and Ice-T will be on hand to mix it up with the best Black chefs in New York for cooking demonstrations, tastings and other presentations. DJ Cassidy will provide the soundtrack.
Yee, who is deeply rooted in hip hop culture, said “it’s only right ” that this year’s New York City Wine & Food Festival celebrates hip-hop with a special event.
The Brooklyn native is looking forward to not only sharing the stage with Hall but also offering up a taste of her own creation.
Staff from Yee’s Bedford Stuyvesant-based Coffee Uplifts People (CUP) cafe will be on hand for tastings. Chef Jen has concocted a signature coffee blend that will be served alongside hot chocolate and the shop’s new line of teas.
She also shared said that her coffee brand will be infused into a Mexican mole sauce that will be used on some food samples.
Courtesy of CUP Coffee
CUP Coffee co-founder Angela Yee (Courtesy of CUP Coffee)
“We’re gonna be talking about possibilities of coffee in cuisine, and things like that,” she shared. “The other day I was at a James Beard Foundation event and the chef there infused the chicken rub with some of my coffee. It tastes amazing.”
“You know, coffee does have a nice flavor to add to foods… so these chefs are able to do things like that,” Yee, 47, added.
The iHeart Radio star is no stranger to the New York City Wine & Food Festival. She presented her line of pressed juices a few years back and describes it as “like a really fun shopping mall for food.”
Johnson’s vision for the “cookout” setting plays well into all of Yee’s passion points: food, coffee, New Yorkers and rap music. An added plus: seeing veteran rap icons get some shine at events like this during the golden anniversary of hip hop.
“I feel like I celebrate hip hop all year, every year, but I also love the fact there’s a lot of hip hop icons and legends, who are also being celebrated,” the “Way Up with Angela Yee” hostess said. “I don’t think that we do that enough, to be honest, you know.”
JJ Johnson’s The Cookout: Hip Hop’s 50th Anniversary Celebration takes place Sunday, Oct. 15 from 4:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. at Pier 86 in Hudson River Park
