Expansion of Houston Hip Hop Collections

University of Houston Libraries Special Collections announces three major enhancements to the Houston Hip Hop Collections, the region’s definitive archive of hip hop music and culture.

Photographer Peter Beste and journalist Lance Scott Walker have entrusted UH Special Collections with materials related to the production of their 2013 book, Houston Rap, nine years in the making. The book documents the lives of Houston hip hop musicians, both renowned and underground, as well as the changing urban neighborhoods from which the sound developed. The Peter Beste and Lance Scott Walker Houston Rap Collection contains photographic prints, digital images, audio interviews, correspondence, posters, T-shirts, artifacts and more, providing an in-depth look at Houston’s home-grown rap scene.

Preservation work on a prominent audio component of the Houston Hip Hop Collections has recently been completed, expanding access to one-of-a-kind recordings of Houston hip hop artists. Students and scholars now have the option to come to the Special Collections reading room and hear mp3 files of the separate tracks of master recordings from Keenan “Maestro” Mosley’s Samplified Digital Recording Studios, including several sets by DJ Screw. The original recordings were captured on the now obsolete Alesis digital audio tape (ADAT) format.

Cataloging of the DJ Screw Sound Recordings, the original vinyl records from which the DJ made his influential mixtapes, has been completed.

DJ Screw at Samplified Digital Recording Studio during the recording of 3 N tha Mornin’ in 1996. Available in the UH Digital Library. Original material from UH Special Collections.

Cataloging of the DJ Screw Sound Recordings, the original vinyl records from which the DJ made his influential mixtapes, has been completed, increasing the materials’ online discoverability. More information about the DJ Screw sound recordings use policy can be found here.

For more information on Houston hip hop research, contact Julie Grob.

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Posted on July 15th, 2015 by Esmeralda Fisher and filed under Announcements | Comments Off on Expansion of Houston Hip Hop Collections