Contact:
Tanisha Colon-Bibb, Rebelle Agency
646-653-0848
tanisha@therebelleagency.com

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

(New York, NY) Yo Stay Hungry, a culinary competition that fuses a connection between food, beverage and hip-hop will host their annual Biggie Day culinary competition on Sunday, May 20th at St. John's Bread for Life from 2-4pm. Yo Stay Hungry highlights creative and memorable hip-hop lyrics and gives young culinary artists an opportunity to demonstrate their shared love for the culture by preparing dishes illustrated in the identified lyrics. Emcees promote regional or invented slang in their lyrics, with food and eating as a consistent metaphor. For example, cheese meaning money, beef for arguments or grudges, and phrases like stay hungry as replacements for ambition or motivation. High school students, some who have never had a cooking experience in their lives, team up with a lead chef coach and compete to wow the judges for the #1 spot and more importantly, bragging rights for the year. For the first time all five teams will be preparing a dish around the same Biggie lyric. A lyric that can't be revealed until the day of competition!

Every year judges are carefully chosen and curated to represent industry vets, culture heads, food enthusiasts, editors and more. Judges this year are Grammy-nominated producer DJ Scratch, Executive producer of Loud Speakers Network A-King, food writer and host of "A Hungry Society" Korsha Wilson and Terror Squad's Pretty Lou. Past judges have been Scottie Beam, Mikey of Mikey Likes It, Tahiry Jose, Chef Jarobi (A Tribe Called Quest), Producer Easy Moe Bee, Peter Kim, Executive Director of the Food and Drink Museum and more.

Each team only has an hour to prepare their dishes so the importance of strong, talented and diverse chefs keep the competition interesting - especially when their latest gigs include being a personal chef for Carmelo Anthony or catering events for the mayor of Newark. Chef coaches this year are Cliff Hunt, Leon Jardine, Kathy Martinez, Teri Anne Lott and Samantha Davis. 

One of the many highlights of the day is the distribution of the You Got The Juice awards to past supporters of Yo Stay Hungry and the Chef Curry Scholarship, awarded to a student who applied for the opportunity to receive monetary support for their culinary dreams. The competitions are partnered with The Future Project's NYC Dream Directors to get young people who are passionate about the culinary arts and or hip-hop to participate in the event as cooks, performers, greeters, etc. The day comes together around food and hip-hop but the emphasis on community and cultural growth allows it to be a larger, more impactful experience worth supporting.

See below for a recap of Yo Stay Hungry's 'Biggie Day' competition 2017

About Yo Stay Hungry:
Founded in 2015 by Syreeta Gates, Yo Stay Hungry has been a groundbreaking innovation, bridging the worlds of rap and food. It started out as a citywide culinary competition for high school students hosted at August Martin HS in Queens, NY. It has since grown to be a trusted brand to wet the appetite for rap parties like Jonathan Mannion's Reasonable Doubt 20th Anniversary celebration and to represent for the culture at events like the 2016 Taste Talk Food and Drink Awards. Whoever thought hip-hop would take it this far? Yo Stay Hungry produces hip-hop culinary competitions at different schools in various cities with students and professional chefs as participants. They will be creating competitions for adults and the like in the near future.  More information about Yo Stay Hungry can be found at www.yostayhungry.com.

About the Chef Curry Scholarship:
As a tribute to one of the best to ever do it, Chef Terrell. A. Curry, the Chef Curry scholarship is offered to rising cooking and baking aficionados who are pursuing careers in culinary arts in the flyest of ways and are working to spread their love of food to the masses. The scholarship is open during each Yo Stay Hungry Competition tour to applicants from each participating city, to be presented at the #BiggieDay competition. The scholarship is currently closed and the winner will be publicly announced at the May 20th Yo Stay Hungry competition in NYC. If you are interested in getting updates about next year's scholarship email yostayhungry@gmail.com.

We are currently sourcing local media to attend and cover the competition. If you are interested in an event media pass, interviews or want to receive the media recap for consideration please contact us using the information above. General guests are encouraged to attend and can rsvp at www.yostayhungry.com.

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