We brought Playtest: Practicum to the Kennedy Center, inviting prompt engineers to explore how AI is transforming creative culture. It’s a bold new model for how communities can question, shape, and co-create the future. 🎥 youtu.be/FDSKch4kQGA

Champagne Always Stains My Silk (2010) is an interactive visual history of Champagne brand mentions in hip-hop from 1980-2010. This data-visualization tells a nuanced story of a rapper’s relationship to the American dream.

Our founder and creative director Tahir Hemphill's work straddles art, technology and archival research. He synthesizes a hiphop framework into his current creative pursuits here at the Rap Research Lab, and beyond!

This semantic analysis of Drake songs looks at the linguistic data behind his body of work - which words he’s using, how he’s using them, and how often. We use this tool to analyze rap lyrics from over 800,000 songs in our Rap Almanac.

We're always finding new ways to use rap as an analytic tool in pedagogy, entertainment applications, art, and play. Whether its natural language processing analysis, 5G mapping, or memory labs, our team is dedicated to creating tools that playfully transform data engagement.

As technology continues to develop, our ways of thinking and speaking shift too.

Considering the implications of a rap neural network with @mica students, our founder Tahir Hemphill shared metaphors for human life inspired by technology:

Our future demands new metaphors.

📢Exciting News! 🎉 We are thrilled to announce that writers at The New York Times used our Rap Almanac for their extensive research in creating this Hip Hop 50th Anniversary Story! 🎤🎶 🙌🏽 A huge shout-out to @mobrowne and NYT Special Projects: nytimes.com/interactive/2023…?

A live performance of "King Tim III," the first recorded rap song, from the disco album XII, at the Capital center in Landover, Maryland. youtube.com/watch?v=FZsBpxtw… #hiphop50

We are conducting creative research into the role our platforms play in the generation of form. By applying linguistic analysis techniques to our rap lyric data, we unveil and draw out the infinite intricate patterns concealed within hip-hop. #14KGold #datasculpture #HipHop50

grand closing the body cool You can see the streets the streets put the corners better should be screaming to the street Broke in the good and sticking the born in steady money for the boot I don't wanna #rapbot

rapbottle I got the dreams her and the money you can seen the fact your shower I can see you don't wanna get the greatest the streets Hit the beats to the love on the hood on the tracks I think its looking #rapbot

rapbot is the future for the cops You say it was gonna be a shots of pool I said who stay problems of hand and I done living the movements But since the floor my sun don't really gonna keep it get through #rapbot

At @SXSW giving @PrincipalRahh a demo of Mapper's Delight youtube.com/watch?v=2jO0wlXp…