The last of the four original elements of hip-hop, Rap-aka Emceeing, is said to have originated in the South Bronx in the late 70’s. The term “MC”, is a misnomer. It has come to be known as another word for rapping, but it actually stands for “Master of Ceremony”, a sort of “host” partner of the DJ that eventually evolved into a rapper. Rap is the most widely celebrated of all the elements of hip-hop culture and is primarily responsible for its global commercial success.

However, the purpose of nmoh.org, during the pre-construction phase of the Museum, is not to provide a comprehensive history on any of the four elements. Instead, this site means to provide members of hip-hop culture with something that no other website can; an in-depth glimpse into how this element will be represented within the World’s first hip-hop museum.

The following summary is a rendition of current design protocols for the Museum facility. NMoH has published these designs, prematurely, for the purpose of keeping hip-hop fans around the world informed on our development progress, but mostly to encourage comments, questions and suggestions from the visitors of this website. The Board of governors for the Museum has mandated that we take into serious consideration any and all comments from the public; as we envision this will be the first museum in history to be created by a plethora of suggestions from the public. This will be an institution designed for hip-hop culture, by hip-hop culture.

It is important to realize that the National Museum of Hip-Hop will not be a reproduction of the traditional museum; filled with permanent and temporary exhibits. NMoH will consist of 75% interactive activities and about 25% exhibitions. The Museum Campus will consist of the museum facility, two public parks, an exterior promenade and a separate concert hall for the Hall of Fame. The museum facility will be divided into four elemental departments, a central cafeteria, two public parks and a restaurant/lounge. Each of the four departments represents an element of hip-hop. The Rap Department, focusing on the art of rhyme/poetry, is the third largest of the four departments.

This department will be approximately 17,000 square feet and will consist of a 2,400 square foot entry hall and 12,000+ square feet of exhibition and interactive media space (Figure 1). There will be approximately 30 individual media stations where visitors can sit and review the extremely vast digital library of rap songs and videos. Additionally, patrons can be virtually super-imposed into any rap video and have their performance recorded onto a DVD that they can take home.

As with every elemental department, the Rap Department will offer a full poetic writing, voice & delivery, and record production legal workshop (Figure 2) as well as U.S. college-accredited production, engineering, and record industry management courses. The workshop will give visitors of all ages a chance to learn exactly what it takes to be a real world-class rapper. Workshop teachers will consist of some of the top rappers and producers from around the world, as well as poetry and writing professors from the New York Metro area.

The featured contest for the Rap Department will be a bi-monthly event called “The Lyrical Master Competition”. This event will be a competition involving the best rappers from around the world, who will showcase their spitting skills at NMoH in front of a live as well as televised audience. There will be a total of 6 winners per year. Before the end of each fiscal year, each of the 6 winners will compete in a tournament to declare one final Rap Champion. The champion will receive a prestigious record deal and become the official rapper to perform for the annual Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony that year.

So as you can imagine, the Rap Department will have a great deal to offer to its visitors. Besides what has been illustrated here, there are many more features of this department. However, we feel like there are many more that can be developed! This is where you come in. Tell us what you think about our proposed ideas. Tell us what we can do to make them better-whether by additions or subtractions. Tell us how you think we should devise the criteria for the Rap Hall of Fame inductions. Tell us about your favorite rappers from around the world (both commercial as well as underground), and why they should be featured within the Museum. We are building this facility for YOU! So we want to hear from you…we are really going to take the dopest suggestions under serious consideration; and any ideas we consider, we will post props for on the website! PEACE.