The Smithsonian...izzle?

According to an article in The Washington Post, A group of hip-hop legends gathered at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History to announce a plan for a new collection devoted to music called "Hip-Hop Won't Stop: The Beat, the Rhymes, the Life". The exhibit will include items from boomboxes and vinyl albums to handwritten lyrics and painted jeans jackets, as well as multimedia exhibits and oral histories. Brent D. Glass, the director of the museum, said that hip hop deserved a spot in the museum because it is a significant cultural force that had spread all over the United States and, increasingly, the world. With help from the music industry, the museum has been soliciting donations, and most of the contributors were present, including Ice-T, Afrika Bambaataa, Grandmaster Flash, Russell Simmons, DJ Kool Herc and the dancer Crazy Legs. Museum officials say that the collection may take three to five years to develop and that they are still approaching musicians about donations. When it is complete, the collection will be used for a long-term exhibition.


The National Museum of American History opened to the public in January 1964 as the Museum of History and Technology. It was the sixth Smithsonian building on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. . On June 28, 1955, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the bill authorizing $36 million for the museum. Groundbreaking took place on August 22, 1958. The architects were McKim, Mead, and White. Mills, Petticord, and Mills were associate and supervising architects and engineers. The Museum’s area is approximately 750,000 square feet. The building’s location on the National Mall qualifies it as a National Historic Landmark. Its status as one of the last structures designed by McKim, Mead, and White. In 1980, the Museum's name was changed to the National Museum of American History to better represent its basic mission—the collection, care, and study of objects that reflect the experience of the American people. Some 4 million visitors pass through the doors each year to enjoy the Museum’s exhibitions.