NEW YORK — Wildest dreams really do come true. But headlining Radio City Music Hall with a star-studded concert celebrating the 50th anniversary of hip-hop was beyond DJ Cassidy’s scope of belief.
“I would like to say it was a dream of mine, but I don’t know that I ever dreamt this big,” the DJ and producer told the Daily News. “It’s very surreal seeing my name on the marquee of Radio City Music Hall. In my opinion, it’s the most iconic and the most renowned concert venue on the planet.”
While away in Los Angeles, family members — including his father, music agent Jonny Podell — sent him snapshots of his name emblazoned on the front of the venue. “I’d be lying if I said it didn’t have a tear in my eye. It was emotional.”
For the July 21 extravaganza, Cassidy is curating a once-in-a-lifetime lineup featuring 25 of New York’s most venerated rap acts — like Roxanne Shante, Doug E. Fresh and Rakim.
OG acts like The Sugar Hill Gang, Slick Rick and Monie Love are all scheduled to partake in the “Pass The Mic’' tradition Cassidy started during the pandemic lockdown.
The web series became a 2020 viral sensation when veteran R&B and hip hop acts sang along to their popular hits on Twitch.com. Cassidy explained that during the pandemic, he was FaceTiming with friend and mentor Verdine White of Earth, Wind & Fire, who started singing their classic song “That’s the Way of the World” when he heard it in the background.
“I don’t even think he realized he was doing it,” he continued. “He just heard his record and started singing along to a song that [regularly] gives me chills. But here we are at the beginning of COVID and the world is in flux and I’m looking at one of my musical heroes, who’s sitting on his couch in black silk pajamas, singing along to their most prolific record, and I got goosebumps.”
Cassidy added: " And I just immediately thought about how fortunate I was to have relationships with a massive majority of my musical heroes, and how lucky I was to be able to experience their songs in this personal intimate way. And I immediately asked myself, if there might be some way I could give other people the feeling I had at that moment. And a light bulb went off, and I immediately envisioned ‘Pass The Mic.’”
Ten installments featuring more than 200 artists — such as Chaka Khan, Run DMC and Missy Elliott — and a reported 200 million views led BET to broadcast televised versions of the series.
It’s why the Black Promoters Collective tapped the New York University alum for their inaugural Radio City Music Hall booking. The group was founded in 2020 as an answer to the drastic lack of diversity in the concert promotion industry, with a mission to bring “culturally relevant live entertainment experiences” to the masses.
“Cassidy provided a platform that was joyful and brought people together while also celebrating Black music in a way that complimented the work that Swizz Beatz and Timbaland were doing with ‘Verzuz’ and what D-Nice was doing with ‘Club Quarantine,’ the group’s president Shelby Joyner explained to The News.
“I liked that Cassidy picked legends and icons in Black music to sing live while passing the mic. It was unique and genius.”
Despite some scuttlebutt about a well-to-do white kid being the face of hip hop’s golden anniversary at one of the world’s most storied concert halls, BPC’s Troy Brown said it’s emblematic of how far the culture has evolved over the past five decades.
“We all know the origins of hip hop and there’s always been a lot of allies that were part of hip hop,” the marketing chief said, name-checking Def Jam Records co-founder Rick Rubin, former Warner Music Group chairman Lyor Cohen and trailblazing rapper-producer MC Serch — who are all white.
“Those guys have been really key to the culture and have good hearts. We’ve known Cassidy for a while and we’ve rocked with Cassidy for a while. So the [race] part didn’t really play into it.”
