From Wikipedia:

Queens was an important center of jazz in the 1940s. Such jazz greats as Louis Armstrong, Count Basie and Ella Fitzgerald found refuge from segregation in the mixed communities of the borough, while a younger generation Charlie Parker, Sonny Rollins, Thelonious Monk, Dizzy Gillespie, and others were developing bebop in the clubs of Harlem. Queens is also an important incubator of rap and hip-hop for artists including Run-D.M.C., A Tribe Called Quest and LL Cool J to Nas and Mobb Deep. Folk duo Simon and Garfunkel were raised in Queens, as were most members of punk rock band The Ramones.

Western Queens is becoming an artistic hub, including SculptureCenter, the Flux Factory, the Noguchi Museum, Socrates Sculpture Park, Fisher Landau Center, Dorsky Gallery Curatorial Programs , and the Museum of the Moving Image. The P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center in Long Island City is one of the largest and oldest institutions in the United States dedicated solely to contemporary art. In addition to its renowned exhibitions, the institution also organizes the prestigious International and National Projects series, the Warm Up summer music series, and the Young Architects Program with The Museum of Modern Art. The current poet laureate of Queens is Ishle Yi Park.

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