The Documenting, Archiving, and Curating Hip-Hop Initiative was developed as a way to create opportunities for communities of color to have access to tools and resources.  Documenting History in Your Own Backyard Symposium is an interdisciplinary initiative that seeks to explore the process of capturing and preserving Hip-Hop’s history and culture in formal and informal ways to advance. The Symposium includes presentations from archivists, curators, collectors, educators, and scholars representing educational, cultural, and preservation institutions, for-profit and-non-profit community organizations/enterprises, and government agencies.

Since 2012, Hip-Hop Education Center in collaboration with Cornell University’s Hip Hop Collection, The Schomburg Center, and NYU’s Moving Image Archiving and Preservation Program, have hosted two Documenting History in Your Own Backyard Symposiums to bring together institutions that collect and preserve Hip-Hop, collectors, archivists, curators, and scholars for the advancement of archiving and preservation of Hip-Hop culture.

The goal of Documenting History in Your Own Backyard Symposium is to share knowledge, lessons learned, to build community, and foster ideas and future collaborations that will strategically advance the archiving and preservation of Hip-Hop culture.

➤ Safe Space – we create a safe space for dialogue, sharing ideas, asking questions, and documenting / transcribing the process

➤ Research – we conduct an assessment of the field

➤ Publish – we collect essays, testimonials, photographs, and research to publish a book in the near future

➤ Exhibit – we highlight archives and collections through exhibitions

To further investigate, organize, analyze, facilitate and professionalize the field of Hip­-Hop Education, HHEC formed a Think & Do Tank to connect thought leaders and practitioners with emerging and seasoned artists, scholars, educators, administrators, and community leaders. The goal of the HHEC Think & Do Tank is to engage a range of constituencies that are using Hip-Hop for educational purposes and to produce and disseminate research, tools, and best practices to the wider field.

• Think Tank I: Rollin Deep, Moving Forward: Professionalizing Hip-Hop Education. 2011, Produced in partnership with NYU with support from The Nathan Cummings Foundation
• Think Tank II: Laying the Foundation for Professional and Economic Development of Hip-Hop Education. 2012, Produced in partnership with Columbia University: Teachers College and NYU with support from The Nathan Cummings Foundation
• Think Tank III: Legacy Building! Cultivating A Global Cypher from the Streets to the Classroom. 2013, Produced in partnership with the Schomburg Center with support from The Nathan Cummings Foundation and The Ford Foundation
• Think Tank IV: The Fifth Element: The Future and Promise of Hip-Hop Pedagogy. 2017, Produced in partnership with Stanford University