When it’s free to get free: Robert Pruitt, Fat Man Scoop, Brandee Younger, and Shakespeare in the Park

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The price of eggs may be the only thing that has gone down in the last six months. Between climate change, tariffs, and supply chain issues, the rent isn’t the only thing that’s too high, so when it comes to entertainment, I try to watch my coins — I’ve become a fiscal entertainment snob. Of course, I want to be down with the hotness, but I don’t want to break the bank to do so. That’s why I absolutely love summer in NYC. There are so many exciting performances and things to do and see, and most of these activities are free. 

Just this past weekend, the Lyricist Lounge presented Raekwon The Chef at BRIC, Spike Lee hosted a Pop-up Stoop Sale, the Whitney held “Free Second Sundays” where folks caught the last day of Amy Sherald’s fantastic “American Sublime,” and of course, the hottest ticket in NYC may be Shakespeare in the Park. And none of these events costs more than the lint in your pockets.

With “no charge” as my compass, I kicked off my weekend with art, and I found myself dashing into Salon 94, 15 minutes before closing, to see Robert Pruitt’s mesmerizing exhibit, “Son Sun Sun Syn Sen Zen Zenith,” which closed the same day. This Texas-raised current Harlemite conjured all the feels with this exhibit. Using nature as metaphor and swag as symbol, he visually gives us what Raekwon (and RZA) served up 30 years ago on wax in their seminal “Only Built 4 Cuban Linx…”: the surreal, yet crazy-real interiority of Black angst and desire. This show featured 11 works that alluded to the vast nuance of our resilience as traumatized Black folk by showing, breathtakingly, how that fortitude is hinged by our hustle and our frustrations; our determination and our vulnerability; our losses and what we can’t afford to forget. I’m so glad I caught it.

Saturday saw me making the most of Summer Streets, again, where I enjoyed a concert by the Mama Foundation for the Arts before hopping on a bike and heading south, where I made a pitstop at 109th and Fifth Ave. for the street co-naming ceremony in honor of beloved rapper and hypeman Isaac “Fatman Scoop” Freeman III. Ironically, despite there being a great deal of hype for the renaming of the subway station across town at 110th Street and Central Park North after civil rights icon Malcolm X that took place the following day, there wasn’t so much fanfare for this occasion. Even still, so many hip-hop heavyweights and neighbors showed up to honor a local hero whose biggest flex was knowing how to get hip-hop’s usually hard-to-move crowd amped. I spotted Treach from Naughty by Nature, Funkmaster Flex and the legend Kurtis Blow, along with NYC Public Advocate Jumaane Williams and Harlem’s own Melba Wilson. Scoop’s childhood friend from 109th, Bobby Smith, stood next to me and remarked, “I remember when he used to work down the street at Mount Sinai, but he wanted to be a deejay. His dedication and perseverance were key because the next thing I knew, I was hearing him at midnight on Hot 97.”

Sunday was a fun day in the park. I started off in Madison Square Park for the inaugural NoMad Jazz Festival, where I caught my Harlem neighbor and harpist extraordinaire, Brandee Younger. Reminiscent of jazz icon Alice Coltrane, Brandee and her trio brought the house down and all the folk to the yard, including Harlem socialite Lana Turner and preeminent photographer Dawoud Bey.To close out my free-kin weekend, I headed to the newly renovated Delacorte Theater in Central Park to see this year’s Shakespeare in the Park performance of “Twelfth Night.” It was reported that people had been lining up in the park at 5 a.m. to snag tickets, so when my friend Novella Ford, the head of programming at the Schomburg Center, invited me to join her, it was an immediate yes. Where else can you see Lupita Nyong’o (“Black Panther”), Sandra Oh (“Grey’s Anatomy”), Peter Dinklage (“Game of Thrones”), and singer Moses Sumney for free? I’ll wait. Under a wondrous full moon with a frosé in hand, it became abundantly clear to me that even in the most turbulent of times, there is joy to be had and it doesn’t have to cost a thing.