The MTA is selling limited edition MetroCards honoring some of New York’s most iconic rappers as celebrations get underway for hip hop’s 50th anniversary.
The transit agency is currently selling a limited stock of 40,000 MetroCards featuring Queens’ own LL Cool J, a pioneer of the genre in the 80s, and Brooklyn’s Pop Smoke, a nascent star of the borough’s drill scene in recent years before being tragically gunned down in his prime.
LL Cool J cards are available at the Forest Hills-71st Avenue stop on the E, F, M, and R lines while Pop Smoke cards can be procured at the New Lots Avenue 3 stop and Canarsie-Rockaway Parkway station.
Later this month, an additional 40,000 MetroCards will be made available honoring two other hometown heroes, Rakim and Cam’ron, which will be sold across the transit system.
The MTA is currently phasing out the MetroCard in favor of the contactless payment system OMNY.
Hip hop is generally acknowledged to have been born in August 1973 at 1520 Sedgwick Ave. in the Bronx. During a party in the building’s rec room, DJ Kool Herc started spinning records on the turntable to generate the percussive breakbeat that forms the basis of hip hop, something he called the “Merry-Go-Round.” Amid a series of parties at the building, other attendees began rapping over the novel beat, and thus hip hop was born.
The MetroCards are just one part of the celebrations planned this month to commemorate a half-century of hip hop. Mayor Eric Adams has announced a series of free block parties throughout the boroughs and on Monday unveiled an art installation at City Hall honoring DJ Kool Herc, Run DMC, Grandmaster Flash, and Salt-N-Pepa.
On Friday, Aug. 11, for the 50th anniversary of Kool Herc’s party, Yankee Stadium will host a star-studded concert featuring rap luminaries like Snoop Dogg, Ice Cube, Fat Joe, Lil Kim, Lil Wayne, Ghostface Killah, and Lupe Fiasco, plus Big Apple pioneers like Kool Herc, Run DMC, Kurtis Blow, and the Sugarhill Gang.
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