The African hip hop archive project is an experimental research based on a data-set collected in different African countries and in the African diaspora between 1993 and 2020. The Africanhiphop.com archive consists of thousands of music cassettes and other multimedia and texts related to the development of hip-hop culture across the African continent and its diaspora between 1996 and now. Parts of the archive have been published online since 1997. The project team will add new data. The archive traces the transformation of hip-hop from a medium of communication and education in its infancy (1993-2003) to a multi-million selling commercial scene.
In 2021 a trial was initiated with data collected in Tanzania, a stepping stone towards a more expensive research and archival project involving data from other countries. The online archive will be shared with the public via the web and offline media including a popular Tanzanian radio station. Broadcasting of archived music allows public participation. Listeners can phone to the studio or send messages via social media or email, which will be archived and fed into the online platform. The archive will be a continuous resource for research.
