How the head of the Universal Hip Hop Museum spends his Sundays

The Universal Hip Hop Museumwho will be part of it Bronx pointa new mixed-use development offering affordable housing in the South Bronx, is slated to open as late as 2025. But that won’t stop Rocky Bucano, the museum’s executive director, from celebrating hip-hop’s 50th anniversary this year.

“[R]Evolution of Hip-Hop,” an exhibition tracing the momentum of the genre from 1986 to 1990 offers free admission in August in honor of the anniversary. The show runs through September at the nonprofit’s temporary headquarters in the Bronx Terminal Market.

Mr. Bucano, 63, lives in the Clason Point section of the Bronx with his wife, Kim, 62, who recently retired as a public school teacher, and the younger of their two sons, Kylerr, 31. wraps up Tangy, the family’s Bichon Frisé mix, and Toby, a former stray cat.

6 IN THE MORNING I get up around 6 or 7 am and open my Microsoft Surface Duo 2. I flip through emails and read the Sunday edition of The Times. I do this very quietly in bed. I try not to wake my wife.

THE MESSAGE Around 8 or 10 we normally order pancakes and scrambled eggs and maybe some corned beef from the Crosstown Diner. We have breakfast and watch the Sunday news. I like the political talk shows, for example “This Week with George Stephanopoulos.” My wife is watching Channel 12, who has religious news about the Bronx. Then we try to generate our spiritual vibe by looking Joel Osteen.

IN DA CLUB The exhibit at the Bronx Terminal Market opens at 1 p.m. My son Kylerr and I usually jump in the car and shoot there. He oversees social media for the museum and is a lecturer. Usually I’m there all afternoon. I meet people – our visitors, our guests. Sometimes I work with the people who work at the museum to make sure everything is tight in terms of telling the stories of the different artifacts that people are looking at. Sometimes I hop on the turntables when I feel like playing music.

SUPA DUPA FLY On Sundays we have a visiting DJ, Cutman LG. He’s part of our team and he’s always playing great music: James Brown and a lot of classic hip-hop like Run-DMC, LL Cool J, Salt-N-Pepa. When people come in, they not only see objects about the great golden age of hip-hop, they actually feel it and experience what the music was like.

EVERYDAY PEOPLE Being here on a Sunday is work, but it doesn’t feel like work. I have been involved in this project from the very beginning, since we first started looking for locations in 2014. It’s in my DNA now. It’s who I am. And I like meeting people from different parts of the country and different parts of the world and learning about their connection to hip-hop. Each person has a unique story of how they fell in love with it. Sometimes it’s the first record they bought, sometimes it’s a Run-DMC concert they went to in 1986. I remember when I bought my first Salt-N-Pepa CD. That’s what led me to love the music.

ROCK BOX People from Europe come here because they are true fans of classic hip-hop and want to relive the earliest years. On weekdays we have teachers who take their students with them. Kids come in and many have never seen a cassette player or vinyl. They don’t know what a boombox is. We have a huge boombox and when they see it they think, ‘What is that? Why do they call it a boombox? So it’s just a lot of feel-good moments for me. I see people smiling and taking their selfies.

IT IS DIFFICULT When I started this journey, I wasn’t really savvy about what’s called “the museum experience.” I learned on the job. The first exhibition was bare. The second one we refined made it a better experience in terms of how it was put together. And now, with this third exhibit, I think we’ve knocked it out of the park. It’s the most compelling, the most entertaining, the most informative. I’d say the main thing people love right now is the Dapper Dan Lounge, where we have some of his original jackets, or the DJ booth.

PUSH IT! When I get home, I might go to the gym in our community clubhouse and lift some weights, or sometimes I’ll walk to the water. One of the ferry stops is not far from where we live, so I go there and stand by the water and enjoy the sights. It’s a way for me to put things in perspective.

ENJOYMENT OF THE RAPPER For Sunday dinner, we like to order turkey wings from a soul food restaurant. We also get kale and for my son mac and cheese. I can’t eat that stuff, but I love sweet potatoes. After dinner I normally sit at my computer, email, send notes to my team, look for anything on social media that I need to pay attention to. People say I work too much.

IT WAS A GOOD DAY I might watch a movie on Netflix or Amazon Prime, but I go to bed early. My wife comes to bed late because she is retired. But at 10 I say, “I’ll see you later, I’m going to sleep.” And that’s it.

Sunday Routine readers can follow Rocky Bucano on Twitter @RBucano and on Instagram @rockybucano.