Janae Pierre: Local concerts, a big Bronx art show, Grammy nominations with New York connections, the Gotham Book Prize, and some fire Chinese food. From WNYC, this is NYC Now. I'm Jenae Pierre, and welcome to another edition of our Arts and Culture Check In. It's a look at what's been coming across the arts and culture desk at WNYC and our news site, Gothamist. Some of the stories are big, some of them are pretty strange, and some might be easy to miss, but altogether, it's a snapshot of New York culture right now. Today, we're talking about everything from how Mayor Zohran Mamdani keeps weaving New York hip hop into his public appearances to major Bronx art show, new museum openings, and a few local entertainers up for some pretty big awards. Here to walk us through it all is our arts and culture editor, Matthew Schnipper. What's up, Matt?

Matt Schnipper: Hi. Thanks for having me.

Janae Pierre: Of course. Always love to have you. You got the first episode out of the way. How you feeling about this?

Matt Schnipper: Oh, it was great to talk with you. I tried not to embarrass myself too much.

Janae Pierre: Good job.

Matt Schnipper: Thanks. I. I think I spoke a little hastily about beloved Bob Weir.

Janae Pierre: You said what you said.

Matt Schnipper: You can go back and listen to see if I had a spicy take you disagree with. If you don't listen, then everything I said was great.

Janae Pierre: One really great thing was that Mamdani cultural reference tracker that you mentioned. It's been a week. Did we miss anything?

Matt Schnipper: It's funny. What we are attempting to do on Gothamist.com is keep track of many of the notable name drops that Mayor Mamdani is making throughout his term. This is something we are doing with love, but also, really, it's an interesting way to figure out when he says Taylor Swift or Robert Moses or he talks about two brothers, Peter, whatever it may be, to kind of figure out how he is attempting to govern. A lot of what they say is, you campaign in poetry and you govern in prose, is what we've heard, and I think he's still trying to bring some of the poetry in.

Janae Pierre: Yes, and he mentioned Jadakiss again.

Matt Schnipper: Again, yes. What was funny about this time, it felt a little smidge try hard. He appointed a new Parks Commissioner and he found a way to reference, again, Jadakiss' "I'm Outside."

Zohran Mamdani: I quoted the great Jadakiss, J to the [unintelligible 00:02:35] as guidance for how my administration intends to govern outside alongside the people of this city.

Matt Schnipper: Mostly he said, as the great MC Shan once rhymed-

Zohran Mamdani: Hip hop was set out in the dark. They used to do it out in the park. Yet we know that for too long, our parks have been neglected and underfunded.

Matt Schnipper: Which had very little to do with what he actually was discussing. He tried to make a transition in there. I'm not sure who the speechwriter for this was. If he did himself, he was trying, I think, to bridge it to, "Hey, hip hop originated out here. We used to have concerts in the park. Now we can do this again." I thought this was an enormous stretch, to be totally honest.

Janae Pierre: Pretty forced.

Matt Schnipper: Pretty forced. This is a near 40-year-old reference that I was curious, who his target audience, what this one was. I thought it was charming, nonetheless, I just was interested to see that this particular reference from a rapper who's older-- this song is older than he is.

Janae Pierre: Also, we have other outside references. We can come back to this later, but Cardi B has a huge banger called Outside that he could have dropped-

Matt Schnipper: Absolutely.

Janae Pierre: -if he wanted. Speaking of parks and artists, let's talk about some concerts that's happening around the city.

Matt Schnipper: Absolutely. Coming up this week, we are going to be launching a monthly listing of concerts. A great music writer, former Rolling Stone staffer named Hank Steamer, is going to be bringing us about 10 of his favorite concerts every month. We'd like to get you in the seats, but I think a lot of these are going to be standing, unfortunately, for your back.

Janae Pierre: All right, so what shows did he suggest?

Matt Schnipper: Hank's favorite show of the month is-- actually two shows by the group Sheer Mag. They are a very, very fun rock group. He had a great description of them, which was basically, "Imagine Judas Priest covering Fleetwood Mac." They're showman. I think that is going to be a fun show. There's a lot of different, a lot of kind of music that I like, where sometimes it works better on record, sometimes it works better live, sometimes both. This is a thing you want to experience. It sounds great on headphones, but you're going to go there and you're going to get your socks knocked off, I suppose.

Janae Pierre: You got to feel it.

Matt Schnipper: Yes. Think about like, Judas Priest and Fleetwood Mac, very different bands, but both powerful bands. I think that's what Sheer Mag does. They're playing at Mercury Lounge on February 27th and then at TVI on February 28th. The first in Manhattan and the second in Ridgewood, Queens. You've got options depending on which subway line you want to take.

Janae Pierre: Who else?

Matt Schnipper: One thing I'm actually pretty excited about because I like earnestness, is there is a Neil Young cover band called Real Young and Lazy Horse, which is a real young and crazy horse pun.

Janae Pierre: Great name.

Matt Schnipper: They're doing a residency at Union Pool starting on the 1st of the month. They'll be doing shows throughout the month, and I think that's going to be really fun. It's going to be laid back. Neil Young can be self-serious at times, but his music's pretty playful. There's going to be a lot of flannel. I am sure at this event, people vaping questionable things. It's going to be a fun show.

Janae Pierre: EMS on standby?

Matt Schnipper: No. Oh, I don't think so.

Janae Pierre: No?

Matt Schnipper: I don't think we're going like that. I think this is more like the Corona Light guy on standby. I really like Union Pool. Union Pool's a venue's been around for 20 years, and they have had some amazing booking in the last couple of years. They've stepped up. Their game is just like a place to see-- It used to really just be a hookup bar and now they set it up as a place to really see great music. I think they often have interesting creative jazz, or that they're like saying, "You know what? We're putting our money behind this Neal Young cover band." I'm stoked for it.

Janae Pierre: Yes, Union Pool is a great, great venue. Never caught a concert there, only comedy shows, but that one has to be cool.

Matt Schnipper: Yes, maybe I'll see you there. Then, the day before Valentine's Day, one more I want to highlight is the group ESG. ESG is a group who's now been around for probably 40-plus years, from the Bronx, who are super percussion heavy. They've been sampled a zillion times. New York City legends. They swear this is their last door. Who knows? You should see them. They're great and they've been doing this for so long. They've been sampled umpteenth times, but they're going to be playing at elsewhere in Bushwick.

I think it's important to support and see legends. Obviously, the emphasis on music is often like, who was the newest thing, the newest thing, the newest thing? I obviously can fall victim to that as well, but I think it's exciting to go see people who have just been doing this forever.

Janae Pierre: Yes, and the newest thing oftentimes involves so many samples, right? This group, that's where you're getting it from.

Matt Schnipper: That's where you're getting it from. I think Hank, when he was writing about this, compared the group actually to James Brown. I feel like the showmanship and just the kind of pomp is there. I would go see them. If you haven't listened to ESG, I would also check them out, at least give them a listen now. I think that show's going to be really fun.

Janae Pierre: We can read the full list of concert suggestions at Gothamist.com.

Matt Schnipper: That will be up later this week.

Janae Pierre: Cool. All right, Matt, another story from your desk that caught my eye highlights the Bronx Museum's Biennial. Can you talk a bit about that?

Matt Schnipper: Yes, I'm excited about this. I live in New York City, and the Biennial, in an art show, has pretty much always meant one thing to me, which is the Whitney Biennial, and that is coming up in March. That will happen, and we will cover it. We'll be discussing that, I'm sure, later on. I'm a little embarrassed to say I did not know about the Bronx Biennial. Did you?

Janae Pierre: No, I didn't either.

Matt Schnipper: Right. This is the seventh edition of the Bronx Biennial. It's different than the Whitney Biennial, which to me is the sort of quintessential New York art Biennial. That exhibition is a national show, all kinds of folks. It takes place in New York City, but it is not a New York City show. It's a American artist, the vanguard, essentially.

The Bronx Biennial is a bit different. All of the artists who are in the show, which is going to take place in two parts, have participated in this AIM program, which is the Artists in the Marketplace program that the Bronx Museum sponsors. It's kind of like an how-to-live-in-New-York-as-an-artist boot camp, how to make community with other artists, but really, how to market yourself, how to survive in the city which is not deeply hospitable to artists right now. It's very, very hard to make a living as an artist.

To me, I thought that was really interesting. You can go to grad school, you can spend a lot of time working on your practice, but you got to pay rent, at the end of the day. You need to learn how to actually make money off of this. They spend a lot of time actually trying to support artists. I think, to me, that felt crucial because those are the fundamentals that you need in order to actually make the art. After they complete this program, every two years there is a show with all of the artists in New York who have participated in the program.

Janae Pierre: How many artists are we talking about here?

Matt Schnipper: There are 14 artists in the program each year.

Janae Pierre: Nice. I want to move on to the Gotham Book Prize. This is an interesting one. You guys put out a story highlighting the finalists for this. Can you tell me about the awards?

Matt Schnipper: Yes. It's a relatively new award, and I think within the last five or so years. It's a $50,000 prize, so it's a pretty significant amount of money.

Janae Pierre: That's cute.

Matt Schnipper: It goes to a book, fiction or nonfiction, which is set or about New York City. What I thought was really interesting about this and the books that were in the prize is they are vastly different.

Janae Pierre: How so?

Matt Schnipper: There are so many different types of books, and here it seems like the fact that they're about New York for some of them seems very tangential. I Regret Almost Everything probably seems like an immediate favorite. That is Keith McNally's memoir. I think people have been excited about that and about his role in New York. There's a book that came out not so long ago called The Gods of New York.

Janae Pierre: Oh, yes, Jonathan Mahler.

Matt Schnipper: Yes. His book is nominated. Those are two very different books, but two nonfiction books. There is also a crime novel, Garbage Town by Ravi Gupta. There is a funny and strange book, John Kenney's novel, I See You've Called in Dead, which is about a guy who is an obituary writer who publishes his own obituary. It's set in New York, and I think it is a New York City-ish book, but it is not the same as doubling down on the kind of how does the city become the city from Jonathan Mahler. These things are so different.

I actually found the disparateness of their subject matter, even the format, to be rather charming. I like the idea, to me, that's what the city is about, that all of these things fit in, and are of the city. It makes it hard to compare one to the other. How do you comp a kind of hard boiled crime novel to a deeply researched history of the late '80s, the beginning of the Trumpian New York City era? I don't know. Maybe we'll ask the judges, I suppose, but I don't have an idea.

Janae Pierre: The one thing that's interesting to me, that stands out here, that an essay collection has been nominated. I'm wondering how an essay collection even matches up to a book like Gods of New York.

Matt Schnipper: It does and it doesn't, I think the book you're talking about, Turning to Birds, by actress Lili Taylor, it's, honestly, as a meditation on looking. It's mostly a book about birds.

Janae Pierre: Yes.

Matt Schnipper: I think what's nice about those things being included, look, what the book's about, how does New York come to be New York. Jonathan Mahler has talked about, "Here's how the framework of the city has come to be what it was." Lili Taylor's like, "What do I see when I come off the subway?" It's not as much about the socioeconomic power struggles of the city. It's more about what happens on Wednesday afternoon and how do I make that work for me?

I thought the book was really interesting. There's one very brief line I want to talk about. She's talking about getting out, literally getting out of the subway, and she's got a bunch of time to kill. She doesn't want to be there. She's waiting to go to work, and she realizes that she's not so far from Bryant park, and she's like, "Well, I'm going to go bird watch." Within that, she's saying she's looking for whatever she can find, and within it, she does some considering, and she says she's looking for any bird that isn't a pigeon or a house sparrow living in the heart of a metropolis is worth visiting. Some pigeon lovers say pigeons are too. I'm working on that.

Janae Pierre: I love that. When you mentioned the book, I was like, "Why isn't this called Turning to Pigeons?"

Matt Schnipper: It's funny. How many times have you seen a pigeon and been like, "That pigeon has a screwed up leg," and "That pigeon's a albino pigeon. That one looks like an oil slick." [crosstalk] I love [unintelligible 00:13:42] You see a lot of pigeons, and that I'm working on that. That's a New York City book. I love that idea that she's just like, "I don't want these things, but you know what? These are part of my home, and maybe I could love them, too." Look, is that the same thing as a book about the stock market crash? No, but is it about New York? Yes.

Janae Pierre: Definitely. All right, Matt, hold it right there. We're going to take a short break. We'll be right back. Welcome back to NYC Now. We're talking with WNYC's arts and culture editor, Matthew Schnipper on this latest edition of our Arts and Culture Check In. Matt, let's talk about the Grammys. The big award show is coming up on February 1st, and there are a lot of New York connections. Right?

Matt Schnipper: Weird ones, not the ones you expect. You expect there to be like David Byrne and Bruce Springsteen. Well, he's from New Jersey, but [unintelligible 00:14:42] 10,000 Grammy awards. This was not a great New York City year for the Grammys in the way that you would think.

Janae Pierre: Yes, but some mentions here and there.

Matt Schnipper: Some mentions here and there. Would you like me to tell you about those mentions, Janae?

Janae Pierre: Yes.

Matt Schnipper: Some New Yorkers did get nominated for Grammys. I want to just be clear. Teyana Taylor, she won a Golden Globe. I think that's in her future. Cardi B was nominated for a Grammy. Emmanuel Wilkins, who's nominated for the Best Alternative Jazz Album. We're way down on the list of categories here with that one, but shout out to him who I see at my local coffee shop quite a lot. Great album, Blue Blood. Check that out. I want to talk about one specific New-York-related Grammy nomination, if I can do that. Indulge me. Addison Rae, who is very much not a New Yorker, was nominated for Best New Artist. If you don't know Addison Rae, she was a TikTok star doing basic dances.

Janae Pierre: Yes, and now all of a sudden, she has this song called New York that you're fully obsessed with.

Matt Schnipper: I am obsessed with this song. Addison Rae, who I believe lives in Los Angeles, has a song called New York. It's the opening song on her album, and it is among the-- it's not a stupid song, it's just like if you described New York to someone who described it to someone who described it to someone who described it to someone who described it to someone who described it to someone, and that person lived in Tuvalu, they might think New York is a place where you go and there is partying, and the Big Apple is fantastic, and that's as far as it goes.

She's just like, that is the New York she is living. She has come here. There is one proper noun referenced in this city of many places. It is not the Met, it is not LaGuardia, it is not Shea Stadium, it is The Bowery Hotel. She drops her bags at the Bowery Hotel.

Janae Pierre: Why, why, why?

Matt Schnipper: To me, I just was like, what a less New York place? The least New York place in all of New York City is the Bowery Hotel. This line, she takes a black car to the Bowery Hotel, drops her bag, she goes out to the club and has a great time dancing in New York. Here's the kick drum in the club. It is a mystifying song, but I really came to listen to this song-- I've listened to the song a lot of times, and I started to think, "I think this is the New York she's experiencing. I think she's dropping her bags at the Bowery Hotel, and I think she's going out to the club, and I think she's having a great time.' I think she loves New York, and her version of New York is not the one that I am living, and it is not the one that you are living.

Janae Pierre: It's not mine.

Matt Schnipper: I don't think it's the one that any of our listeners are living, but it is real to her. It made me think, just like Jonathan Mahler's book is New York, just like Lili Taylor's book is New York, I think her song, it's New York. There are pigeons, there are owls, there are eagles. They all are here. There is room for Addison Rae. Why she decided to start her album with the song, I have no idea. I found it to be naive a little bit. It's certainly not my favorite New York City song in the history of time, but I think it's real. This level of just cluelessness about the city is real. Maybe what I need to do is accept that that actually is what the city is to other people.

Janae Pierre: Is there a lyric that just sits with you?

Matt Schnipper: You mean when she goes,

Love New York, love New York,

Love New York, love New York,

Love New York, love New York,

Love New York, it's my religion,

Love New York, love New York.

That one? How about that one where she says she loves New York?

Janae Pierre: Yes. That does.

Matt Schnipper: "Drop my bags at The Bowery Hotel." It's just like, oh my God.

Kick drum, chew gum,

Love New York, love New York.

Love New York, love New York,

So free, it's my religion,

Love New York.

I love it. It's great. I know she wins this award, she's not going to go up and sing this song. This is not the song people remember her for. This is a song, I think all New Yorkers need both to remind you that you live in a thing that to a lot of other people is a fantasy. It's nice to know, even if you are not participating in that fantasy every day in an active level, you are on a micro level. We're the pigeons. We are the pigeons, but I think somebody is going to look kindly on us, too, one day. That's what this song is about, to me.

Janae Pierre: Well, Addison Rae's up for Best New Artist with this one.

Matt Schnipper: Good luck.

Janae Pierre: Good luck, for sure. Now to the part that I am most looking forward to. Apparently, there's a new Chinatown, and it's in Long Island City.

Matt Schnipper: Yes. Robert Sistema, who is a longtime food writer, who is just-- he is a real legend.

Janae Pierre: He's also a character.

Matt Schnipper: He is a character and a half. I love the man. You may not have ever seen his face because he likes to put a clown nose in his online photos so that he can dine anonymously in service of his reviews. He did come through the office. I am lucky enough to have gazed upon his true visage. He's great. He's just a punchy, amazing New York City character. He came to me and he said, "You know what? There's a big, blooming Chinese restaurant scene in Long Island City." He said, "Look, there are a lot of different Chinatowns in the city.' Chinatown. Chinatown, Flushing and Sunset Park, but he said, "I think this is going to start to be a place that people really associate going and eating Chinese food." He said, "Can I go do a guide to it?" I said, "Yes, that sounds great."

Janae Pierre: All right. Did he suggest any restaurants?

Matt Schnipper: Did he suggest any restaurants? Oh my gosh, yes, he's got a whole list. This is the kind of thing that you can take as a map, and you can walk through and go from here to here to here to here to here. He would say this because he writes it in his story. All of them are great, It really depends on what spice level you are going to be comfortable with.

Janae Pierre: I like it spicy.

Matt Schnipper: You like it spicy?

Janae Pierre: Yes.

Matt Schnipper: A lot of the restaurants are Sichuan restaurants, and he says it's relatively hot.

Janae Pierre: For a full list of the Chinese restaurants coming up in Long Island City, you can visit our news site, Gothamist. Matt, you have some suggestions for me?

Matt Schnipper: Yes. He's got a bunch of listings in here, including a food hall that you could check out that has a couple of different places. Honestly, I wanted to check out the Marathon Hong Kong Diner, which sounds great, but the one that I am going to be checking out first is called Fer, F-E-R, and that's on 29th Street. He said that they have juicy lamb, spicy chicken, a bitter melon salad, which sounded great, but they also have a bowl called Heavenly Intestines.

Janae Pierre: Oh, no.

Matt Schnipper: Oh, no, you're not an offal fan?

Janae Pierre: Honestly, I don't even eat meat.

Matt Schnipper: Oh, then this is not going to be for you, Janae. Oh, gosh. You can't see here. Janae has just folded her arms in protest against this.

Janae Pierre: Just patiently waiting. You can put-- Continue.

Matt Schnipper: The idea of heavenly intestines really got me that they were like-- what's more bodily than intestines? These ones are heavenly, I guess. The angel's intestines, [unintelligible 00:21:43]

Janae Pierre: It's [unintelligible 00:21:43] chitterlings.

Matt Schnipper: Oh, for sure. That one seemed great to me. Then there was a tea parlor, that sounded really nice, on Jackson Avenue. They said they have fruit juice, avocado, kale, all the great stuff. Whatever.

Janae Pierre: That's my lane.

Matt Schnipper: Tea parlor sounds great. I could use another tea parlor in my life.

Janae Pierre: We all can. Chill vibes.

Matt Schnipper: Yes. After you finish your heavenly intestines, you can go wash it down with some barley tea.

Janae Pierre: Yes.

Matt Schnipper: Or maybe, you know what? I'll go have the intestines. I'll meet you thereafter.

Janae Pierre: I can't end this episode without giving a huge shout out to Ryan Coogler and Michael B. Jordan, and the whole sinner's crew for 16 Oscar nominations. That's big.

Matt Schnipper: Congratulations.

Janae Pierre: Yes. Michael B. Jordan, of course, grew up in Newark, New Jersey. I'm going to give you some homework, Matt.

Matt Schnipper: Am I getting graded or.

Janae Pierre: No. It's an honor system.

Matt Schnipper: Okay. What is it?

Janae Pierre: You have to go watch Sinners.

Matt Schnipper: Oh, I do.

Janae Pierre: You need to watch Sinners, man. It's so good. Then after that-- I know you understand the noms now, but you'll really get it.

Matt Schnipper: Look, I have eyes. I have seen Michael B. Jordan. I can understand.

Janae Pierre: Oh, no, it's not just his face.

Matt Schnipper: He's not ugly, and there's two of them, I heard, which is cool.

Janae Pierre: Yes.

Matt Schnipper: I like vampires, I like Delroy Lindo.

Janae Pierre: He was just here.

Matt Schnipper: We did see him in the hallway, which is exciting. I loved him in Da 5 Bloods. I feel like he's just great. I feel bad. I really feel like I have to defend myself about having not seen Sinners yet.

Janae Pierre: It's okay. You have a kid. You have a family.

Matt Schnipper: I'm tired a lot. I haven't seen Marty Supreme?

Janae Pierre: I haven't seen that either.

Matt Schnipper: Yes, exactly. Is there a way we can maybe just screen these as part of our work day?

Janae Pierre: Movie night.

Matt Schnipper: Exactly. No, like, movie, 2:00 PM. Movie meeting. Let's put it on my [unintelligible 00:23:36]

Janae Pierre: Movie meeting. I don't need another meeting.

Matt Schnipper: You don't need another-- Well, what if it was just watching Sinners with me?

Janae Pierre: I can do that.

Matt Schnipper: Yes.

Janae Pierre: All right, Matt, what's your hot take for this week?

Matt Schnipper: I feel sad for Dan Lopatin, also the artist known as Oneohtrix Point Never. He did not get nominated for best score for Marty Supreme. I have not seen the movie, but I have listened to his score, and it is fantastic.

Janae Pierre: What's so hot about that take?

Matt Schnipper: What's so hot about that take? I don't know. I'm thinking of [unintelligible 00:24:03] Come on. Oh my God. Are you really shading me? What's so hot about that take? I don't know. He deserved a take. He deserved a look.

Janae Pierre: Okay, I believe you. I haven't seen it or heard the scoring yet.

Matt Schnipper: It's good. You know what? I'm going to watch Sinners. You're going to listen to the score. We're going to come back in conference.

Janae Pierre: Let's do it.

Matt Schnipper: It's good.

Janae Pierre: That's WNYC's art and culture editor, Matthew Schnipper. Matt, thanks so much for joining me.

Matt Schnipper: Thanks, Janae. It's nice to be here.

Janae Pierre: That's the latest edition of our Arts and Culture Check In. Thanks for listening to NYC Now. I'm Janae Pierre. Quick question, what are some cool events that you're eyeing around the city in the coming weeks? Hit us up and let us know at nycnow@wnyc.org. We'd love to hear from you.

 

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