This new immersive exhibit honors 50 years of hip hop with a ‘visual mixtape’

Hip hop was born in the Bronx, so as the genre marks its 50th anniversary, it makes sense that New York City has been gearing up to celebrate the occasion with events and efforts across the city.

Commemorations have included the Brooklyn Public Library’s The Book of HOV, an exhibit celebrating the life and work of Jay-Z, whose face appears on special-edition library cards. Well-traveled hip hop fans can store it next to the limited-edition MetroCards the MTA is selling at certain Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens stations with images of New York rappers like Cam’ron, Rakim, Pop Smoke, and LL Cool J.

Not to be left out of the celebration, one of the city’s newest immersive exhibition spaces, Hall Des Lumières, debuted Hip Hop Til Infinity at the beginning of August. The Culturespaces and IMG joint venture is a converted a Beaux Arts bank whose space tailor-made for projection mapping installations that have included a Gustav Klimt exhibit and “Destination Cosmos: The Immersive Space Experience.”

Co-produced by creative studio Superbien and entertainment company Mass Appeal—which has served as the agency for Universal Hip Hop Museum since 2019—“Hip Hop Til Infinity” is designed as a visual journey through 50 years of hip hop. Jon Colclough, the VP of creative strategy at Mass Appeal, says the exhibit tasked his team with the difficult job of adapting half a century of music and culture into what he calls a “visual mixtape.” 

The presentation is separated into six segments—including a party in the Bronx where it all started, hip hop’s West Coast influences, the southern sounds of rap, and how the internet has influenced the music industry in the past twenty years. “[The exhibition] allows you to see moments in time that were influential to the overall history and allowed us to move across time and space in a more nonlinear fashion,” Colclough says. 

Viewers are greeted by projected graffiti by artists commissioned by Mass Appeal, with help from graffiti documentarian Henry Chalfant. Further inside the exhibit, curated music thumps in the background as projections of subway cars, graffiti art, lyrics, and photos of past and present rap stars glide over the architecture and on the floor. The exhibit also features a 10-minute documentary that looks at the origins of hip hop and how DJ Kool Herc’s Jamaican roots became the basis of the sound we know today—with commentary from hip hop icons like Questlove and Spinderella.

The artists featured in the projections include OGs like Grandmaster Flash and DJ Kool Herc; innovators like Mos Def, Jay-Z, and Lauryn Hill; and current stars like Drake, Nicki Minaj, and Kendrick Lamar. It’s a group that, like the genre, has gone from its East Coast roots and been shaped by artists in influential cities like Atlanta, Houston and L.A.—which are also cities Colcough says he’s hoping “Hip Hop till Infinity” will visit. 

“We [knew we] wouldn’t be able to celebrate every single city,” Colclough says of the New York exhibit, which will be hosting virtual concerts, interactive programming, and listening parties through September 17. “As this exhibit travels and goes to L.A. and goes to Houston and goes to Atlanta, it will evolve and speak more directly to what’s going on in those respective places,” he says. 

When the exhibition travels, Colclough says the aim is for each city to be reflected in the projected content, as well as in its mini-museum, “Lock Ur Sh*t Up,’ which features hip hop collectibles, like R-shirts, stickers, hip hop-centered magazines, art, tapes, and more.

Even as the exhibit looks back at hip hop’s achievements, Colclough says hip hop isn’t ready to rest on its laurels.

“There’s a lot to look forward to as far as the culture is concerned with new artists and new energy,” he says, noting that the ongoing celebration of the genre—including this exhibit—are meant to give current artists a sense of their place in hip hop’s ongoing legacy. “[We’re] giving this current generation an opportunity to look back and get that history and be able to pull inspiration for what’s going to drive them into the next 50 years.”