[Dixielandjazz] Time to "preserve" Hip Hop alongside Jazz?

[Steve barbone]

For the "wigs" on the List. While not OKOM, this is an intriguing article.
For there are many parallels to the development of Jazz . . . and the
development of Hip Hop. Goodness me, now we are preserving them both.
Cheers,
Steve Barbone 


Smithsonian's Doors Open to a Hip-Hop Beat

NY TIMES By BEN SISARIO - March 1, 2006

Grandmaster Flash gave his prized Technics turntable. Ice-T offered vintage
tour T-shirts and rare CD's. Afrika Bambaataa gave a trove of jackets, caps
and jewelry in his trademark Afrocentric style.

All will go to the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American
History in Washington, where they will reside alongside the flag that
inspired "The Star-Spangled Banner" and the Woolworth's lunch counter from
Greensboro, N.C., where four black students sat for civil rights in 1960.

At an emotional and at times rowdy news conference yesterday at the Hilton
New York, a group of hip-hop pioneers gathered beside the dark-suited,
white-gloved Smithsonian staff to announce a plan for a major new collection
devoted to the music. Called "Hip-Hop Won't Stop: The Beat, the Rhymes, the
Life," it is to be a broad sampling of memorabilia, from boomboxes and vinyl
albums to handwritten lyrics and painted jeans jackets, as well as
multimedia exhibits and oral histories.

"Now whenever anybody asks me about my music," Ice-T said, he would direct
him ‹ with a torrent of blunt epithets ‹ "to the museum."

Brent D. Glass, the director of the museum, said the project was begun in
recent months with seed money from Universal Records and was still in its
earliest stages of planning. But he said that he and his curators believed
the time had come to recognize hip-hop, with its straight-from-the-gut raps
and minimalist funk, as a significant cultural force that had spread all
over the United States and, increasingly, the world.

"American music is the soundtrack to American history," Mr. Glass said.
"Hip-hop has been a part of American music for more than 30 years."

With help from the music industry, the museum has been soliciting donations,
and most of the initial contributors were present: in addition to Ice-T,
Afrika Bambaataa and Grandmaster Flash, Russell Simmons, DJ Kool Herc and
the dancer Crazy Legs have opened their archives, and were clearly proud of
the recognition. 

"Nobody expected this thing 35 years ago to be mentioned in the Smithsonian
conversation," said Kool Herc, one of the prime technological innovators in
the early days of hip-hop in the Bronx, who was still trying to decide what
to donate. 

The National Museum of American History is not the first major institution
to collect hip-hop materials. The Experience Music Project in Seattle has
also built a sizable collection, and in 1999 the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
in Cleveland organized an exhibition of hip-hop memorabilia that traveled to
the Brooklyn Museum.

Mr. Simmons, the impresario who was a founder of the Def Jam label, said
that at first he had feared that hip-hop's inclusion in a major museum would
mean it had lost its power and novelty. His initial thought when contacted
by the Smithsonian, he said, was "It must be over."

But in an opinion echoed by nearly every speaker, Mr. Simmons suggested that
as hip-hop aged it was in danger of losing its connection to its roots and
that younger fans and performers would profit from direct experience of the
music's history. Hip-hop, he said, is "the only real description of the
suffering of our people."

Museum officials say that the collection may take three to five years to
develop and that they are still approaching musicians about donations. When
complete, they say, the collection will be used for a long-term exhibition.
The museum also plans scholarly symposiums to discuss the content, as well
as a traveling show.

Afrika Bambaataa, who helped integrate hip-hop with electronic music in the
early 1980's on recordings that remain influential, praised the museum in
his familiar declamatory tone for its attention to "factology" in
representing the music's history.

"Brothers and sisters," he said, "this is beautiful that the Smithsonian
Institution is recognizing hip-hop culture for what it is."