Bronx School Of Hip-Hop Makes History With Its First Freshman Class

Bronx Hip-Hop returned home Thursday in a most unique way.

Roughly 100 ninth graders entered the new Bronx School of Hip-Hop where the culture born in the borough now serves as a foundation for public education.

The inaugural class represents an unusual evolution for a movement that has spent more than 50 years educating people far beyond traditional classrooms. At 1600 Webster Avenue, Hip-Hop is now being formally connected to academics, creativity and career preparation inside a New York City public high school.

Founding Principal Jason Reyes, a Bronx native and former middle school principal, described seeing the school become reality in simple terms.

“It just feels, it’s a dream come true, that’s best way I could put it,” Reyes told ABC7 New York.

The school serves grades nine through 12 in District 9 and incorporates the elements of Hip-Hop into rigorous instruction. According to New York City Public Schools, students will study emceeing, DJing, graffiti, breaking and knowledge of self. Audio production, digital media and financial literacy are included alongside the standard curriculum.

The culture also lives beyond the lesson plan. The school features artwork and references to artists including Nas, Lauryn Hill, Biggie and Hov. Reyes pointed to one particularly fitting Nas message displayed for students: “The world is yours.”

For Martha Diaz, founder, president and CEO of the Hip-Hop Education Center, told AllHipHop the school represents the institutional arrival of ideas Hip-Hop has carried for generations.

“The opening of The Bronx School of Hip-Hop is a historic moment for our culture and for education. Hip-Hop was born in the Bronx, and now young people have a school where the culture they come from is recognized as a powerful source of knowledge, creativity, scholarship, and possibility,” she said.

“For more than 50 years, Hip-Hop has educated the world,” Diaz continued. “Now we have the opportunity to build an institution that honors that legacy while preparing the next generation to shape its future. This is more than a school, it is a home for Hip-Hop education.”

NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani placed the school within a larger effort to rethink public education when his administration announced five new Bronx and Queens schools for the 2026-27 academic year in May.

“Innovation, excellence and art are woven into the fabric of this city — they define what it means to be a New Yorker,” Mamdani said in a statement. “It’s time our schools reflect that reality. Our students deserve the best. This fall, we’ll deliver it with five new public schools that serve students of all ages, expand access for students with disabilities and put the arts at the center of education.”

Schools Chancellor Kamar Samuels said the broader initiative was designed to deliver rigorous learning while responding to the communities the schools serve. He described the new schools as vehicles for “innovative and culturally responsive instruction” that can prepare students for college and careers.

That mission gives the Bronx School of Hip-Hop significance beyond its name.

Hip-Hop once had to fight to be taken seriously by institutions that dismissed its music, language and artistic expression. Now in the borough where those ideas first took shape, approximately 100 freshmen are beginning their high school journeys inside a public institution built to explore their educational power.