“Like a kid that’s always dreaming about going to the NBA and then you get the call, I was dreaming of this project even before I knew I was going to work on it,” says artist Cey Adams, the founding creative director of Def Jam. Adams art directed the Smithsonian Anthology of Hip-Hop and Rap, which is released on Smithsonian Folkways Recordings today (20 August 2021).
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Tracing hip hop’s evolution from 1979 to 2013, the anthology brings together nine CDs with 129 tracks and a 300-page illustrated book published to celebrate the fifth anniversary of Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC). Featuring photographs by Janette Beckman, Charlie Ahearn, Anthony Barboza, Adrian Boot, Jamel Shabazz, and Glen E. Friedman, it offers a panoramic history of a culture born on the streets of the Bronx, that has since become a multi-billion dollar global phenomenon.
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The anthology’s creators eschew the notion of a canon and instead envision the project as a foundation upon which to build. “I was on a call with LL Cool J and Chuck D, and we talked about not only making this book, but our journey as a people,” says Adams, who got his start as a graffiti writer in the 1970s.
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