This maxim reflects the bond between writer Tom Dent and his library at Amistad.
50 Years/50 Collections: NOLA Hip Hop Archive Project
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One of the newest collections at Amistad is the NOLA Hip Hop Archive Project, a digital archive of oral history interviews with foundational musical members of the New Orleans rap scene. The initial project to document this aspect of New Orleans music culture was founded in 2012 by Holly Hobbs, then a Ph.D. student at Tulane University who sought to facilitate a space for community members to tell their own stories in their own words, thereby seeking to combat the long history of negative perceptions of those engaged with rap music within the dominant public imagination in New Orleans. Interviews with internationally known artists like Mannie Fresh, Mystikal and Juvenile join oral histories of lesser known artists like the West Bank producer, Death, and the words of Ceaux, a tattoo artist and musician who tattooed many of the 1990s New Orleans rap superstars. Hobbs’ goal was to create a cohesive collection that offered a glimpse into the vast expressive artistry of this musical form.
As the first university-affiliated rap archive in the Deep South, the primary goal of the NOLA Hip Hop Archive has been to provide a space for the documentation of places, people, things and ideas not otherwise recorded in the dominant record. Rap music is Louisiana’s most lucrative cultural export, and yet the stories and histories of even the more well-known acts––Fiend, for example, who was a central artist for the internationally-known record label, No Limit Records––were often hard to find or little undocumented. Furthermore, the ability for many of these musicians to speak openly on issues of incarceration, prison reform, violence, and institutional racism has meant that the Archive continues to not only be a valuable repository for musical information and oral data lost to Hurricane Katrina, but has also served as an important arena in which to advocate for social change amid the rapidly changing social and cultural terrain in post-Katrina New Orleans.
In the years following Katrina, there has been a marked shift in the status of New Orleans rap and bounce within the public imagination. Nonetheless, ethnographic documentation, scholarly work and popular writing on New Orleans rap and bounce remains limited. The NOLA Hip Hop Archive seeks to address this need: over 60 videotaped oral history interviews conducted by Hobbs over the course of two years are joined by yet another block of extensive audio oral histories conducted by Alison Fensterstock and Aubrey Edwards as part of their 2010 project, Where They At?, which sought to reconstruct a timeline of bounce music prior to the renewed revival of bounce in the 2010s both inside and outside of New Orleans. Altogether, the two collections housed at Amistad comprise an unprecedented wealth of information about the last two decades of rap musical expression and performance in New Orleans.
In 2014, the Amistad Research Center and the Tulane University Digital Library partnered to create a permanent online home for Dr. Hobbs’ interviews entitled the NOLA Hip Hop and Bounce Archive, which can be accessed freely by anyone with an Internet connection at www.nolahiphoparchive.com. The collection can also be viewed in person at Amistad at a new viewing station, paid for by monies raised to support the Archive. We are thrilled to be able to offer this wonderful collection to all.
Images from the NOLA Hip Hop and Bounce Archive. Images from Amistad’s website, newsletters, and blogs cannot be reproduced without permission.
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Kathe Hambrick is the Founder and former Executive Director of the River Road African American Museum (RRAAM), established in 1994 as Louisiana’s first African American Museum. She is a past President of the national Association of African American Museums (AAAM). She served as the Chief Curator and Director of Interpretation for the West Baton Rouge Museum for four years. Hambrick was born in New Orleans and spent half her life in California where she received an undergraduate degree in English and a minor in African American Studies from California State University Long Beach.
Hambrick is a Public Historian with a passion for collecting, preserving and interpreting history for diverse audiences. Her thirty-one-year career as a museum professional includes expertise in program development, interpretative planning, curation, grant writing, fundraising, and board governance. She led the effort to preserve three slave cemeteries and six historic buildings in Ascension Parish.
She is considered an expert on the history and culture of African Americans in communities along the Mississippi River. Kathe Hambrick’s interviews include local, national, and international media, the BBC Learning Channel, CBS Morning News, National Public Radio, and the New York Times. The consulting firm, 2PRESERVE was established by Hambrick in 2021 to provide cultural resources and guidance to corporations, museums, cultural centers, government agencies, and faith-based organizations.
Throughout her 31-year career, Kathe has curated over one hundred exhibits, including The Rural Roots of Jazz, African Influences on Louisiana Cuisine, Creole Du Monde, and The Square Collection which featured original art by Elizabeth Catlett, Jacob Lawrence, Richmond Barthé, and Tina Allen. Her most recent exhibit is the GU272 of Ascension: The Jesuit and Episcopal Connection to Slavery.
Kathe is the author and co-author of several books:
Kathe Hambrick is the Founder and former Executive Director of the River Road African American Museum (RRAAM), established in 1994 as Louisiana’s first African American Museum. She is a past President of the national Association of African American Museums (AAAM). She served as the Chief Curator and Director of Interpretation for the West Baton Rouge Museum for four years. Hambrick was born in New Orleans and spent half her life in California where she received an undergraduate degree in English and a minor in African American Studies from California State University Long Beach.
Hambrick is a Public Historian with a passion for collecting, preserving and interpreting history for diverse audiences. Her thirty-one-year career as a museum professional includes expertise in program development, interpretative planning, curation, grant writing, fundraising, and board governance. She led the effort to preserve three slave cemeteries and six historic buildings in Ascension Parish.
She is considered an expert on the history and culture of African Americans in communities along the Mississippi River. Kathe Hambrick’s interviews include local, national, and international media, the BBC Learning Channel, CBS Morning News, National Public Radio, and the New York Times. The consulting firm, 2PRESERVE was established by Hambrick in 2021 to provide cultural resources and guidance to corporations, museums, cultural centers, government agencies, and faith-based organizations.
Throughout her 31-year career, Kathe has curated over one hundred exhibits, including The Rural Roots of Jazz, African Influences on Louisiana Cuisine, Creole Du Monde, and The Square Collection which featured original art by Elizabeth Catlett, Jacob Lawrence, Richmond Barthé, and Tina Allen. Her most recent exhibit is the GU272 of Ascension: The Jesuit and Episcopal Connection to Slavery.
Kathe is the author and co-author of several books:
Kathe Hambrick is the Founder and former Executive Director of the River Road African American Museum (RRAAM), established in 1994 as Louisiana’s first African American Museum. She is a past President of the national Association of African American Museums (AAAM). She served as the Chief Curator and Director of Interpretation for the West Baton Rouge Museum for four years. Hambrick was born in New Orleans and spent half her life in California where she received an undergraduate degree in English and a minor in African American Studies from California State University Long Beach.
Hambrick is a Public Historian with a passion for collecting, preserving and interpreting history for diverse audiences. Her thirty-one-year career as a museum professional includes expertise in program development, interpretative planning, curation, grant writing, fundraising, and board governance. She led the effort to preserve three slave cemeteries and six historic buildings in Ascension Parish.
She is considered an expert on the history and culture of African Americans in communities along the Mississippi River. Kathe Hambrick’s interviews include local, national, and international media, the BBC Learning Channel, CBS Morning News, National Public Radio, and the New York Times. The consulting firm, 2PRESERVE was established by Hambrick in 2021 to provide cultural resources and guidance to corporations, museums, cultural centers, government agencies, and faith-based organizations.
Throughout her 31-year career, Kathe has curated over one hundred exhibits, including The Rural Roots of Jazz, African Influences on Louisiana Cuisine, Creole Du Monde, and The Square Collection which featured original art by Elizabeth Catlett, Jacob Lawrence, Richmond Barthé, and Tina Allen. Her most recent exhibit is the GU272 of Ascension: The Jesuit and Episcopal Connection to Slavery.
Kathe is the author and co-author of several books: