Kennedy Center taps Q-Tip as first hip-hop director

The Kennedy Center, the prolific Washington concert hall led by the US government, has tapped Q-Tip to a new position of artistic director for hip-hop culture.

Q-Tip -- whose former group, A Tribe Called Quest, was at the vanguard of art-house hip-hop in the 1980s and 1990s -- will take the role for the Kennedy Center's 2016-2017 season.

The 45-year-old New York rapper and DJ, whose real name is Jonathan Davis, will curate a series of hip-hop events in the upcoming season.

In one of the most striking among them, DJ Spooky will present a modern hip-hop version of D.W. Griffith's 1915 film "The Birth of a Nation," which notoriously glorified the white supremacist Ku Klux Klan even though the movie was hailed for its groundbreaking cinematographic techniques.

The Kennedy Center, home of the National Symphony Orchestra, has taken a lead among major cultural institutions in incorporating hip-hop.

One of the most acclaimed contemporary rappers, Kendrick Lamar, last year joined the National Symphony Orchestra Pops to perform "To Pimp a Butterfly," his introspective album on the state of black America.

The concert hall, which opened in 1971 as a living monument to John F. Kennedy, will perform a series of special performances and world premieres to mark next year's centennial of the slain president's birth.

In keeping with the Kennedy Center's goals, the season announced Tuesday features a number of events aimed at engaging children.

Jazz great Terence Blanchard will lead an ensemble in a world premiere of "Bud, Not Buddy" based on the children's novel about an orphan living in Flint, Michigan.

Joshua Bell, one of the most famous living violin players, will perform an original concert based on his experience playing anonymously on the Washington Metro, an experiment that earlier inspired a children's book.

In more adult fare, Chanticleer, a Grammy-winning male vocal ensemble from San Francisco, will perform the world premiere of a work by Mason Bates, who is known for his merging of classical and electronica.

Bates last year was named as the first composer-in-residence of the Kennedy Center, a post created soon after Deborah Rutter, an arts executive known for championing new work, took over as president.

The season will also feature tribute concerts to two recently deceased music legends -- folk singer Pete Seeger and jazz vocalist Abbey Lincoln.

With more than 2,000 performance a year, nearly a quarter of them free, the Kennedy Center is the busiest arts complex in the United States.