![]() ![]() “We do cataloging, we do research, we do conservation, and once that’s all processed we digitize it to make it accessible,” she says. But, she stresses, the museum is looking to digitize as much of its archive as it can. ![]() There’s due diligence, licensing, and all manner of other procedures that must be done. Reece also notes that the legalities for collecting items like mixtapes and TikToks are tough, especially for an institution like the Smithsonian. These are definitely serious questions that all are wrestling with.” “How do you decide what to collect and how to collect it and how much of it to collect? The sheer volume is daunting. Everything now is on phones, in email, on social media. As culture, specifically music culture, has moved online, the things that used to be curatorial mainstays-handwritten song lyrics, letters, business records-are no longer physical objects. The associate director for the humanities at the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, she’s one of the people charged with maintaining the organization’s hip hop archive. To that end, not everything can be saved. Before that, if you wanted to hear it, you had to find an illicit stream or have hung onto your record collection. The group’s catalog finally got cleared for a streaming release in March of this year. Even major releases, like De La Soul’s Three Feet High and Rising, can get caught in the copyright weeds. Many early mixtapes and DJ mixes used unauthorized samples they may still float around on YouTube or SoundCloud, but they’ll never make it to Spotify. There are unofficial song leaks that eventually disappear. Its heroes may dominate the Billboard Hot 100, but it’s always been an outsider’s game, rendering many of its pillars nearly obsolete. Hip hop, Aku reminds me, is an art form based on improvisation. It’s pushed forward technology, culture, commerce-but also always been focused on the future, on what’s next. It’s terrible at documentation,” says writer and podcaster (and collector) Timmhotep Aku. “This is me paraphrasing someone whose name is escaping me right now, but hip hop is great at innovation. Eric disagrees with him on this point, but the fact remains that the generation of music fans who grew up online seem much more comfortable with things being of-the-moment, rather than lasting forever. But as Eric’s brother and fellow Blog Era creator, Jeff, notes, the current generation has gone through the “Snapchatification” of culture. Hip hop is, of course, its own oral history. Not everyone archives the way vinyl collectors or DJs do, but, Jenkins adds, those who do are being much more intentional about it. Now in his mid-thirties, he remembers his dad teaching him how to make mixtapes, but also sees the ease with which young people can now pull nearly anything up on Spotify or YouTube-repositories that seem infinite and everlasting, but also could disappear instantly if a business fails. But he’s telling the story now as a way of explaining the importance of preserving hip hop’s history.Įffort, the work put into archiving, is changing, Jenkins says, often in ways that are generational. As an adult, Jenkins would become a writer and TV host and tell Ludacris the story on the Mogul Mixtapes podcast. ![]() He got it he’s still got it, one of dozens of rap albums in his collection. When he got there, he had to convince the clerk to sell him the explicit version of the CD. It was 2000 and he was 13 years old, but he wanted Ludacris’ debut album, Back for the First Time. Love & Hip Hop Hollywood airs Mondays at 8/7c on VH-1.Brandon “Jinx” Jenkins rode his bike to Kmart after school. Princess says: “How am I getting dragged into this? I don’t want this information, I don’t want to have anything to do with this information.”īut will all the secrets backfire and lead to Max finding out?Īlso on tonight’s episode of Love & Hip Hop Hollywood, titled For the Love of Money, A1 and Lyrica’s moms pose a risk to their relationship thanks to their strong opinions, and Princess pulls up Moniece about her social media shenanigans. Princess says Brandi’s actions are “basically betrayal” towards Max - and is furious that she now also wants her to lie to Ray after using her as an alibi. She then begs Princess not to tell Ray J, and admits that whenever she’s been spending time doing up the boutique she’s been telling Max that she’s been spending time with Princess. She adds: “I know that’s not what Max thinks I am doing with this money, but I intend to turn that $27,000 into $270,000 real quick.” She tries to excuse her actions by saying she’s going to make the business work. ![]()
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