Cornell Welcomes Hip Hop Archive
Slip on your shirt and designer jeans
The ones that are tight at the hips and the seams
You shoot out the door like you’re runnin’ a race
Then finally you arrive at the party place…
The party’s packed and jumpin’
that funky bass in thumpin’
and the way the music rocks your mind
ooh girl it’s really somethin’
~ excerpt from an original lyric sheet for “The Weekend” by Grandmaster Caz
Cornell University Library's Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections has acquired a major archive on the history of hip hop and rap music, documenting its emergence in the Bronx in the 1970s and early 1980s. Materials in the collection, including sound recordings, photographs and party flyers, record the early spread of hip hop culture, preserving rare documentation of the performances of Afrika Bambaataa, Grandmaster Caz, the Cold Crush Brothers and many others.
A gift from private collector and author Johan Kugelberg, the collection will help students and scholars better understand the origins of hip hop and its influence on the history of music, art, performance and activism in America during the final third of the 20th century. The collection, which will be made available upon completion of cataloging, is the basis for Kugelberg’s book Born in the Bronx: A Visual Record of the Early Days of Hip Hop. Listen to an interview with Kugelberg in the podcast series Shelf Life at <http://libecast.library.cornell.edu/>.