Bobbito Garcia is DJing in New York City again — but you’ll need to wear a mask
The radio and streetball legend is back with parties that center COVID safety in a COVID-unsafe world
Bobbito Garcia wants you to mask up for his next gig.
The New York radio and playground basketball legend, a.k.a. Kool Bob Love, DJ’d in New York City last month for the first time since 2021, at a mask-required show organized by COVID-safer event organizers Positive Deviance. His next set is this Sunday, May 17 at Bogart House in Brooklyn alongside DJ Suce and DJ Center.
“The name of the party is ‘All Vinyl, All Love,’” Garcia told The Groove last week. “This is a love-based community. This is about community care, culture, music, dance and, ultimately, centering the vulnerable.”
COVID rates may no longer be grinding the city to a halt, but the virus is still out there and still ruining lives. For people who already have Long COVID, a reinfection with the virus can exacerbate disabling symptoms. For people who don’t have Long COVID, reinfection increases the risk of long-term illness. As public health mitigations have shriveled away, the options for at-risk people and their loved ones to participate in public life have vanished as well.
Six years after the pandemic began, Garcia, who helped make unsigned hip-hop artists famous in the 1990s as the co-host of The Stretch Armstrong and Bobbito Show, is one of thousands of New Yorkers who still prioritize preventing the spread of COVID and other airborne illnesses — in his case, to protect the health of his co-parent, who is immunocompromised and has Long COVID.
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