Reece additionally notes that the legalities for amassing objects like mixtapes and TikToks are robust, particularly for an establishment just like the Smithsonian. There’s due diligence, licensing, and all method of different procedures that should be finished. But, she stresses, the museum is trying to digitize as a lot of its archive as it could. “We do cataloging, we do research, we do conservation, and once that’s all processed we digitize it to make it accessible,” she says.

Some of those efforts have already borne out. As we’re ending our name, Reece factors me to the Smithsonian Anthology of Hip-Hop and Rap, a 129-song assortment and 300-page e book that got here out in 2021. It is, she notes, a collaboration between, writers, b-boys, graffiti artists, students, and neighborhood members that’s “not the definitive story of hip hop, but [it is] a story about hip hop.” The entire motion is an excessive amount of for any assortment, however the assortment, Reece says, illustrates its cultural, political, and historic significance.

Amid all of this dialogue about the way to archive hip hop’s historical past loom bigger questions on the place these collections ought to exist.

Nearly everybody I spoke with for this piece spoke in regards to the significance of retaining their very own stash of CDs, tapes, get together fliers, and MP3s within the face of disappearing digital archives. But what in regards to the bodily stuff? Much of Cornell’s archive, and an identical one at Harvard University, can be found to the general public, however typically require appointments to view. (Much of Cornell’s has been digitized, although.) Some of the Smithsonian’s assortment is on view, and the National Museum of African American History and Culture is free.

But so most of the bodily artifacts of hip hop’s historical past are in personal collections. Last yr, DJ Kool Herc, the person whose Bronx block get together is credited because the start of hip hop, auctioned off a lot of his gear through Christie’s. The Radio Raheem growth field within the Smithsonian’s assortment was once owned by Gene Siskel. It was gifted to him by Spike Lee himself; the museum acquired it at public sale after his passing in 1999. The Smithsonian will get most of its archive by donations, however it’s going to purchase issues this manner if it could. The Kool Herc public sale was “competitive,” Reece says, however the group did purchase just a few objects.

An area just like the Universal Hip Hop Museum reveals promise—a spot, within the Bronx, that can be accessible to the neighborhood. But with any museum exhibit or tutorial archive come questions. Jenkins compares it to African artwork that’s ended up within the collections of US museums. “Did you guys get this gifted? Or did you take it? Who wrote the placard? Where is it situated in the museum?” he says. “All of those things have an immense effect on us, and it’s crazy because hip hop is often challenging those same institutions and individuals and ideas.”

Putting hip hop behind glass additionally runs the danger of taking one thing evolving and interactive and turning it right into a one-way dialog, notes Aku. “I think, sometimes, academia being the repository for a bunch of stuff creates an invisible gate,” he provides. It’s antithetical to a tradition that started with block events open to everybody.