HIP HOP HISTORIAN SOCIETY
The Hip Hop Historian Society (HHHS) is a Leeds-based community-led organisation concerned with documenting, preserving, researching and presenting the history and culture of Hip Hop in Leeds and the wider United Kingdom
Documenting, preserving, researching
DOCUMENTING
The Society developed from a longer period of community, cultural and museum activity in Leeds. Its history includes community events, exhibitions, museum collecting, oral-history projects, research, education and public programmes associated with Leeds Hip Hop culture.
PRESERVING
HHHS has worked extensively with Leeds Museums and Galleries, developing a community-led approach to collecting and documenting Leeds Hip Hop history. The relationship includes the annual Hip Hop History Month community day at Leeds City Museum, a proposed permanent Leeds Hip Hop archive, museum exhibitions and the co-curated exhibition A Hip Hop Journey: 50 Years of Kulture in 2023–24
RESEARCHING
The work of HHHS has also been examined through academic research into Hip Hop, popular music, museum practice, cultural heritage and community archives.
The chapter “Where You’re From and Where They’re At: Connecting Voices, Generations and Place to Create a Leeds Hip Hop Archive”, written by Sarah Little and Alex Stevenson and published in Popular Music in Leeds: Histories, Heritage, People and Places in 2023, examines the development of the Leeds Hip Hop archive and the partnership between HHHS and Leeds Museums.
& presenting
A Hip Hop Journey: 50 Years of Kulture
The Society’s largest museum project to that point was A Hip Hop Journey: 50 Years of Kulture, held at Leeds City Museum from 28 July 2023 to 24 March 2024.
The exhibition was co-curated by Leeds Museums and Galleries and the Hip Hop Historian Society.
Formation of HHHS
According to the Society’s own historical records, the concept and name Hip Hop Historian Society were developed by King Monk in approximately November–December 2017.
The idea was to establish a dedicated collective that could continue and develop the existing work of documenting, preserving and presenting Leeds Hip Hop history.
A collective formed around the concept, and the Society’s constitution was signed on 17 March 2018.
