Construction is underway on the Universal Hip Hop Museum (UHHM) in the Bronx, New York.
The museum is scheduled to open in 2024 on East 150th Street next to the Bronx Point development.
According to CBS News, the UHHM’s executive director Rocky Bucano is currently working with his team to collect memorabilia and hip hop artifacts from around the world to showcase.
In addition to historic items — the Roc-A-Fella black leather tour jacket, a bike signed by Snoop Dogg, multiple hip hop magazines, and eye-popping artwork — Bucano is also working with the hip hop museum’s technology partner Microsoft to offer a virtual experience.
CBS reports Bucano has sought out a group from MIT, led by D. Fox Harrell, to present the history of hip hop in the metaverse.
The metaverse is designed and produced by Carnevale Interactive. The virtual history lesson is slated to debut before the actual museum opens.
It will feature a subway that acts as a gateway to different areas of the museum’s exhibits, and will also incorporate NFTs and live performances, CBS reports.
“We’re building a unique kind of museum experience. We’re not building the old traditional museum where you’re going to see a bunch of stuff on the wall and you know, looks like old dinosaurs,” Bucano told the outlet. “My curator [Adam Silverstein, the museum’s director of archives and collections] says, we’re not building a mausoleum, we’re building a museum. You know, a living, breathing representation of hip hop culture. Something that is always changing and evolving.”
In June 2021, the UHMM partnered with Ed Young, who is the co-founder of The Source Magazine, and illustrator André LeRoy Davis on a collection of hip hop NFTs.
As REVOLT previously reported the NFT collection was titled “A Love Letter to Hip Hop.” It was released on the blockchain platform NEAR Protocol and featured old school artwork of icons like the Fat Boys, RUN DMC, Rakim and Ice-T are included in the bundle, in addition to newer artists such as Missy Elliott, Eve, Drake and Kendrick Lamar. Many of the older rap artist pictures appear to be taken directly off the pages of The Source’s “The Last Word” section, which Davis helmed during his time at the publication.
Some of the NFT proceeds were expected to have been donated to the Universal Hip Hop Museum to help establish an original crypto art collection.