You wouldn't know it if you looked at her. Christie Z-Pabon, a 41-year-old hijab-and-robe wearing Muslim American woman, is the curator of hip hop past.
Z-Pabon and her husband Jorge Pabon run a series of free summer concerts called the True School NYC Summer Park Jam series. The concerts recreate the outdoor hip hop parties of the 80s and feature many urban music pioneers, such as the likes of the Grand Wizard Theodore, Kool DJ Red Alert and Grandmaster Caz.
The purpose behind these events, she says is two-fold – she wants to introduce the current generation of fans to the roots of the movement, while also creating safe havens for young people to enjoy themselves during the long summer months.
A third, more selfish reason, she says, is the need to make up for time lost in her childhood.
Z-Pabon – her name a hybrid of the first initial of her maiden name and her husband's last name - claims her love of hip hop started when she was in school in Perrypolis Pa. She heard "Rapper's Delight" by the Sugar Hill Gang at a dance and was hooked for life.
Thereafter she would comb the airwaves, taping anything and everything hip hop, and listened with yearning to news of park jams all over New York where people of all ages and races danced to the work of hip hop legends.
Z-Pabon eventually moved to New York in 1996, working odd jobs while scouring the local hip hop scene, taking in everything she had little access to in her home town. This passion eventually led her to another like-minded individual, her husband, Jorge Pabon, himself a noted hip hop artist, historian and native of Spanish Harlem.
The couple met whom she met at an anniversary party for international hip hop awareness group Universal Zulu Nation. She surprised Pabon with her knowledge of the scene and even her presence at the party. Her only exposure to Islam being hip hop lyrics, she started a conversation with this young Muslim man, who as she put it , "pretty much shot down all the stereotypes I had." She converted to Islam and the two were married in 1997.
The couple now organizes the park jams under the name of their joint-owned company, Tools of War, an organization aiming to revive the inclusive spirit of hip hop.
Park jams will be held in Crotona Park on July 22 and 29 and will be followed in August by five concerts in St. Nicholas Park in Harlem.
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