On Thursday July 25th, Brooklyn design and fabrication studio Collab-Orators wanted to celebrate. After all, welders from the studio's apprenticeship program had built an 18-foot metal sculpture that weighed some 7,000 pounds.
DJs spun classic Hip Hop hits for a diverse crowd, including local officials like Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso, who marvelled at the behemoth art work that was created in Bushwick.
Welding masks were handed out to the crowd, as the robot's first antenna was welded on as the crowd watched from below.
There was good reason for this cheer, as the sculpture emerged due to a innovative collaboration between an apprenticeship program called Welder Underground and comic book creator Eric Orr.
The 18-foot robot was a replica of Orr’s signature character, Rappin’ Max Robot, otherwise known as “The World's First Hip-Hop Robot.”
The robot stood with one foot on a giant metal boombox featuring five volume knobs meant to resemble the Olympic rings.
Six Welder Underground apprentices created the sculpture, all of whom attended the six-month program operated by Collab-Orators co-founders Marc and Adina Levin. The program provides young people with a thirst to weld, but have no formal training, to learn a new skill and hopefully find a career in welding and fabrication.
The statue is set to be gifted to Paris for installation next July, following this year's introduction of Breaking, a.k.a. break dancing, as a new competitive Olympic sport. But first, the statue will live in the Bronx for a year and will be moved to the exterior of the Hip Hop Museum, scheduled to open next year.
