Brooklyn Hip Hop Festival Day 2: 'Under The Influence' Art Exhibit

The 7th Annual Brooklyn Hip Hop Fest is currently in full swing this week, and if you can’t make it to every dope event of the six-day long hip-hop celebration, VIBE’s got you covered.

Yesterday, in Day 2 of the Brooklyn Hip Hop Fest, Brooklyn Bodega presented Under The Influence at the Powerhouse Arena in Brooklyn Height’s DUMBO section. Here, an Art and Photography exhibit that displayed some amazingly dope pieces (think Kill Bill inspired katana swords and a tall-as-the-wall, colorful as hell art sculpture). The crowd was as diverse as the city it was hosted in, from dreadlock white guys with tats creative enough to have graced the walls of the exhibit to book-bagging black hipsters.

The live DJ kept the room booming with some great Hip Hop tracks from time’s past. The selection of various books on sale was definitely a nice addition to browse at while taking a break from peeping art. Yoga Dogs by Dan Borris and The World According to Pretty Toney by Ghostface Killah were just a few of the interesting reads. Speaking of Ghost, we caught up with a dope artist named John Breiner who did a dead-on painting of Ghostface, complete with likeness from 1996's Ironman album cover and oddly enough a Dalmatian. On his inspiration behind the piece, John said “Basically if you make 3 dope albums, I’ll paint your portrait” and said about the Dalmatian addition “Dalmatians have human eyes and look at you like they know something you don’t know. And that’s just like Ghostface.” — Keenan Higgins

For more information on the Brooklyn Hip Hop Festival and to see a schedule of all the events this week, check out http://www.bkhiphopfestival.com/2011. And if you want to see more of John Breiner’s art, hit up his page at http://www.johnbreiner.com