Travel back in time with me to a recent but random Thursday night. Most of New York had clocked out, ordered in, and given up on the evening entirely. But over at Compound Art and Sound Gallery in Brooklyn’s Red Hook, things were very much alive, and if you knew, you knew.
The first thing you notice when you walk in is the decor. The overall vibe is industrial reclamation meets your favorite older brother’s living room. Exposed steel beams, concrete floors, and brick walls open up to the ocean air at the dead end of an unassuming block. The room is warmed by gentle lighting, expansive rugs, and a series of large, comfortable seating arrangements. It feels intentional… almost lived in. A vintage white Range Rover in pristine condition sits in the middle of the room, a wild card detail you absolutely cannot miss. That alone tells you everything about Set Free Richardson’s curatorial sensibility.
The menu, printed on the back of a record sleeve, is stocked with a curated selection of Japanese whiskeys like Akashi and Ichiro’s Malt, bright citrus-forward tequila cocktails, and a smoky Pal Alma mezcal mule that hits exactly right. Clean, clever, and thoughtful. This isn’t a bar with art on the walls. This is an aesthetic statement of care, taste, and deep intention.
As the sun set and the late-spring air balanced nicely with the heat of the bodies filling the space, the night began at full volume. This was the Uguhmugga Jam Sessions, an ongoing series at Compound inspired by the legendary jam sessions in Philadelphia that The Roots helped make iconic. The Philadelphia lineage was not incidental. In fact, it was the whole point.
Philadelphia-bred artist Dayne Jordan opened the evening, carrying that 215 warmth into the room while getting the crowd settled and ready. What came next was anything but ordinary. Black Thought took the stage and wasted no time reminding everyone in attendance exactly why his name belongs in any conversation about the greatest MCs to ever do it.
Behind the boards was Jazzy Jeff, the DJ’s DJ, who didn’t just spin but conducted from his perch above the crowd. Looking down like the godfather of the night, he wove Tweet’s “Oops… Oh My” into a full audiovisual experience while scenes from Cooley High projected across the gallery’s massive wall. The room felt like a living museum, curated in real time.
The band, led by Grammy Award-winning musician James Poyser, the man whose hands have held down the keys for The Roots for almost two decades, locked into Herbie Hancock’s “Watermelon Man” and did not let go. Before we knew it, Renée Neufville of Zhané stepped to the mic and delivered a rendition of Michael Jackson’s “I Can’t Help It” that had the room asking where she’d been. She hadn’t gone anywhere. We just haven’t been paying enough attention. And that’s what the night ultimately felt like: a time to engage and give flowers while we can.
The night reached its peak during a mass sing-along that everybody felt. Musiq Soulchild’s “Just Friends” bled right into Usher’s “You Remind Me,” and for a moment, everyone in that gallery was the same age, locked into the same feeling.
A$AP Rocky was in the building, bopping along and visibly trying to lose himself in the music just like the rest of us. No entourage energy. Just a fan. Afterward, he kept it simple. “The experience I just had in there is indescribable,” he shares. “I ain’t even gassing it or putting extras. This was fucking amazing.”
That pretty much sums it up. Compound Art and Sound Gallery pulled music lovers, audiophiles, nostalgia seekers, culture keepers, and those with an eye for beauty across generations and scenes in a borough that has spent the last decade watching its creative spaces get priced out and paved over.