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Photo Credit: Rayon Richards
Uptown, as we know it, has both served as home, stomping ground, and backdrop for a fair number of local legends who’ve come through and shown our blocks some love.
It’s all the more thrilling when the opportunity to revel in the center of our universe is provided a vibrant, throbbing aural backdrop guaranteed to make you move, shiver and sweat, when that summer playlist that you carry over- and under-ground daily on the #1 train seems to have come pouring out of your headphones, and is there, beside and beneath you.
It is Fela, and 4-40, and Roxanne Shanté, and Portishead.
Antony Santos too.
When that happens, it’s in your marrow; it becomes your pulse, it is what you breathe and exhale. When it happens, it is time to move, and not stop, to swing your head, to sway your hips, to stomp your feet. It’s time to get taken over and take over, like the whole world’s come up to see you, just you, as if it followed you up right off the train and come Uptown and just wants to move, wants to watch you move too.
Starting tonight at APT78, the café/lounge near West 190th on Broadway that’s become Uptown’s new-millennium, new-generation, nuevo-guavaberry take on Andy Warhol’s The Factory, such an experience comes courtesy of its Uptown Summer Series, featuring such sonic superstars as DJ Spinna, Rich Medina, and The Legendary Pete Rock.
In the Summer Series’ inaugural session tonight, Tues., July 26th, stepping up to the decks, in characteristically inimitable, take-no-prisoners fashion is DJ Robert "Bobbito" García, or as he is or has been known in alternate realms, Bobbito The Barber, Make It Happen, Boogie Bob, Kool Bob Love, and of course, Kool Bob Love.
Taking some time from prepping his latest project, “Doin’ it in the Park,” a documentary slated for release in 2012, the cultural ambassador, filmmaker, activist and artist paused between shape-shifting to extol the virtues of water, pick-up basketball and veggie mofongo.
Debralee Santos: Fair to say you’re an equal-opportunity fanatic: music, writing, broadcasting, basketball, sneakers, art. What makes them compelling to you?
Bobbito García: I wouldn't consider myself a fanatic. [But] I am definitely passionate about being creative, drinking water, and enjoying New York City to the fullest, so all these options just kind of pour out the fire hydrant.
DLS: Many are coming out tonight to hear and see the legend in action, on the block, as it were. Last time you were dumbstruck by presence of another?
BG: While filming for my and Kevin Couliau's documentary DOIN' IT IN THE PARK: PICK-UP BASKETBALL, NYC (www.doinitinthepark.com) just this past Friday at Macombs Dam Park behind Yankee Stadium, there was a 5'1" teenager that literally was completely dominating the run. His team didn't lose all night. And he wasn't gassed either.
DLS: Puerto Rican v. Dominican mofongo?
BG: My favorite mofongo in the world (sorry, Ma, don't be mad at me, haha) is made at Camaradas [where Garcia has a residency, and spins the first Monday of every month]. They do a veggie version that is demasiado!
DLS: Favorite merengue?
BG: I actually don't play any merengue, and most of the artists I'll be spinning tonight are unknown to the public. My goal is to introduce new sounds to the dance floor, challenge people to move to the unfamiliar.
Come out to meet the “unfamiliar” tonight starting at 7pm, and give DJ Bobbito García a little quack-quack (he’ll get the joke), and show them how Uptown is really the center of the universe.
APT.78 Café and Lounge is located at 4447 Broadway, near corner of 190th, under the scaffolding. 646 490 4657.
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