The event doubled as a meet-and-greet for the rapper’s fans.
It’s a regular Sunday afternoon in Williamsburg, Brooklyn as a small line begins forming in front of an unmanned table at Rough Trade NYC. In the middle of one of New York’s well-known indie record stores, Gammy Alvarez, a Puerto Rican activist and main organizer of this event, arranges school and art supplies on a tiny table. Despite the intermittent light rain showers in the area, the small group of people with subdued chatter shortly becomes a line of excited fans that starts to snake its way around hundreds of records, both old and new, as rap blares through the speakers.
These people were here to support a fundraiser for Puerto Rican disaster relief led by independent rapper, and New York’s own, Princess Nokia, under the Hood 2 La Gente campaign, that was held on Sept 9.
“I know so many people whose families have lost members, like their grandmothers, elderly, young kids, have been lost because of the hurricane,” Alvarez, 23, said.