New York City is set to see big changes to its education system in the upcoming 2026-2027 academic year.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani and NYC Public Schools Chancellor Kamar Samuels announced the development of five new public schools across the Bronx and Queens.

Set to open in the fall, each school has a unique focus, with one in the Bronx focusing on hip-hop. The goal of these schools is to increase seat capacity in historically overcrowded neighborhoods, and to provide diverse and culturally important topics that are woven in with academic preparation for the students’ future.

The Bronx School of Hip-Hop, located in Claremont, will open its doors to students entering the ninth grade in September this year.

“These schools are designed to meet the diverse needs of our communities, including creating seat capacity where needed, delivering innovative and culturally responsive instruction, and preparing students with the skills and confidence to succeed in college, careers, and beyond,” Mamdani said.

The Bronx is known as the birthplace of hip-hop. According to 2023 Spotify streaming data, nearly a quarter of all streams globally are hip-hop music. Despite the genre’s popularity, it has often been reduced to the analysis of a lyric or song for literary purposes in English classes.

The Bronx School of Hip-Hop seems to be the first aiming to change this through rigorous study of hip-hop culture and a connection to real-world experiences.

Jason Reyes, the incoming principal of the Bronx School of Hip-Hop, explained why hip-hop was the main idea around the formation of the school.

“Students don’t go to, like, rap class – it’s embedded in ELA, right?” Reyes said. “So you take English language arts and you are studying English through…novels that exist…but then we also compare that to Nas’ ‘I Can.’”

“Having students see the genius that lies in both, how they weave together, but also how their creativity can heighten by using rhetorical devices that live in novels that we’ve all read growing up,” he said.

“But most of the time, like, kids don’t really engage with that because they don’t see themselves in some of these texts.” In addition to the Bronx School of Hip-Hop, West Q Elementary in Woodside, one of the schools included in the five-school plan, will focus on foundational literacy and math instruction.

The Bronx School of Arts & Exploration, located in Highbridge, will focus on aiding students with disabilities throughout their elementary and middle school years.

Students at the school of hip-hop will follow the normal curriculum expected at a NYC public high school, but the difference will be in the addition of classes that provide knowledge of audio production and engineering, digital media and financial literacy, with the overall hip-hop theme rooted around this coursework.