Celebrating hip hop is an important part of America’s culture, and especially New York’s. Hip hop is also celebrating its 50-year anniversary, so with the program in the Hall des Lumières, the celebration will be complete. The exhibition title is “Hip Hop Til Infinity”. The Mass Appeal works on creating the show, which will put on view never-before-seen footage of the pinnacle of the genre and key personalities.
Jon Colclough, vice president of creative strategy at Mass Appeal spoke about the project’s intentions. The goal of this kind of marking, and especially in this location, is to destroy prejudices about “how hip hop should look like”. It is important to change people’s traditional perspective on this important part of culture. The program contains elements that are educational, as well as special effects for fans of the genre.
“We wanted to raise the profile around the culture, and to place it in a place like Hall des Lumières showcases how far hip-hop has come in 50 years. We hope this appeals to everyone, not just hip-hop purists. But if you’re just a casual fan, you’ll walk away with some educational knowledge”, he added. Although the exhibition has a global character, this is only the beginning. The focus will continue to be on American hip hop and the story that follows it.
Following a birthday celebration that DJ Kool Herc hosted in the Bronx neighbourhood of New York City in August 1973, hip-hop emerged as a musical style and cultural movement. To honour the origins of the genre, Mass Appeal invested its last five years on creating an arena dubbed Hip Hop 50. “You wouldn’t expect to see hip-hop in a place like Hall des Lumieres”, he added
Creative director also explained the hip hop is not only a music genre, but a style of life. Colclough stated that the project’s graphics endure for around sixty minutes, remarking that 50 years is a significant amount of time to document. With tangible objects chosen to match the visual imagery, the installation’s creators collaborated with DJ Clark K on the audio soundtrack.
The advantages of virtual exhibits is the ability to “transform people across time and space”. “We can take them to the West Coast. We can show them the 1970s and what was going on at the birth of hip-hop to how people collaborate now to make music. It’s an amazing medium. It’s a little bit of a choose-your-own-adventure. This is not meant to be a historical look back”.