Hip Hop as Living History for Generations

This collaborative archive led by TRUE Skool and the Wisconsin Black Historical Society to collect, preserve, and share Milwaukee Hip Hop Culture.

We facilitate community intake Archive Days, youth research training, pop-up exhibits, and host a growing physical & digital archive collection.

We're just getting started!

Hip Hop Humanities

The Milwaukee Hip Hop Archive Project being awarded Ruth Arts and Wisconsin Humanities grants marks a critical validation of our mission and Hip Hop Culture as a legitimate, essential humanities practice and a cornerstone of Wisconsin’s cultural record. Read that again.

These awards recognize our project’s community-led archival model, which centers lived experience, oral history, and grassroots knowledge as primary sources—rather than secondary or supplemental materials.

At a time when local histories are rapidly disappearing due to displacement, digitization gaps, and cultural erasure, this investment affirms that Milwaukee’s Hip Hop Culture is not peripheral history—it is foundational public knowledge.

By training youth archivists we are introducing a whole new vision for what the future looks like, quite literally.

We're just getting started. As a living, community-powered collection, the Milwaukee Hip Hop Archive Project requires continued investment to preserve endangered materials, support youth archivists, expand digital access, and deepen our ongoing public engagement.

We invite funders, sponsors, and individual supporters to help protect this history—not as nostalgia, but as a vital resource for education, research, and cultural continuity. Your support ensures Milwaukee’s Hip Hop legacy - past, present and future is preserved, activated, and carried forward for generations.