Description
Book SynopsisThis book focuses on the culture and politics involved in building hip-hop archives. It addresses practical aspects, including methods of accumulation, curation, preservation, and digitization and critically analyzes institutional power, community engagement, urban economics, public access, and the ideological implications associated with hip-hop culture’s enduring tensions with dominant social values.
The collection of essays are divided into four sections; Doing the Knowledge, Challenging Archival Forms, Beyond the Nation and Institutional Alignments: Interviews and Reflections. The book covers a range of official, unofficial, DIY and community archives and collections and features chapters by scholar practitioners, educators and curators.
A wide swath of hip-hop culture is featured in the book, including a focus on dance, graffiti, clothing, and battle rap. The range of authors and their topics span countries in Asia, Europe, the Caribbean and North America.
Trade Review“The variety of voices in Hip-Hop Archives is impressive. The mix of international contexts, especially incorporating the voices of scenes that developed under oppressive regimes, are eye-opening for the central metaphor of knowledge production. Campbell and Forman truly get at the egalitarian and universal form of hip-hop, while acknowledging both African American roots and the varying reasons some founders are left out, closing with beautiful, insightful, and passionate interviews.”
-- Courtney E. Chartier, Columbia University Libraries
“This innovative and accessible collection explores hip-hop practices that attest to its longevity, impact, and value. Of course, even with the global dissemination, adoption, and adaptation of hip-hop, this is also about the politics, community, and culture of Black people as the fount of this vital practice and knowledge, underlining the necessity of recording and archiving this history. Many contributors speak from empirical experience and their role in establishing the culture and its preservation attests to book’s authority and authenticity.”
-- Paul Long, Monash University
Table of ContentsList of Figures vii
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction: “An Archival State of Mind” xiii
Mark V. Campbell
SECTION 1: DOING THE KNOWLEDGE 1
1. The Hip Hop Archive and the High School Student: Symbiotic Knowledge Disruption 3
Kulsoom Anwer Shaikh
2. Hip Hop as a Practical and Methodological Issue: Libraries in Russia 19
Sergey Ivanov
3. Hip Hop Dance and the Circulation of Breaking Footage 41
Mary Fogarty and Jason “J-Sun” Noer
4. The Black History 101 Mobile Museum and the Michigan Hip-Hop Archive 57
Khalid El-Hakim
SECTION 2: CHALLENGING ARCHIVAL FORMS 77
5. As We Walk through the Archived Files of All Styles: Archival Practices and Cultural Memory on Battle Rap Forums 79
Sean Robertson-Palmer
6. The Responsibilities and Challenges of Community-Engaged Archives: Lessons from Building the Massachusetts Hip-Hop Archive 96
Pacey Foster
7. The Ballad of “Grandmaster PH”: Contesting Narratives and Lost Archives in Philippine Hip-Hop 114
James Gabrillo
8. Painting, Image, and Cultural Heritage: The Graffiti Mural Fascinate as Visual Ecology 129
Jacob Kimvall
9. Oral History and the Accidental Archive 154
Giuseppe “u.net” Pipitone
SECTION 3: BEYOND THE NATION 167
10. Traces of Solidarity and Breakdown: Domestic Collection in Post-Yugoslav Hip Hop Fanzines and Mixtapes 169
Owen Kohl and Dragana Cvetanović
11. Living Archives: Producing Knowledge about Hip-Hop Culture in East Germany 196
Leonard Schmieding
12. Rap Cubano in the Archive: The Immaterial Paradox 221
Pablo D. Herrera Veitia
SECTION 4: INSTITUTIONAL ALIGNMENTS: INTERVIEWS AND REFLECTIONS 249
13. Nwaka Onwusa (Vice President and Chief Curator, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame) 251
14. Ben Ortiz (Assistant Curator, Cornell Hip Hop Collection) 268
15. Martha Diaz (Chief Curator/Archivist, Hip Hop Education Center and Associate Curator/Archivist, Universal Hip Hop Museum) 281
Afterword 297
Murray Forman
Notes on Contributors 309
Index 317
