Rap Research Lab (RRL) is a community-based creative technology studio that uses a Hiphop framework to develop new ways for people to engage with data and culture. RRL builds on Hiphop’s legacy as a transformative and innovative genre that revolutionized global cultural practices by creating tools that playfully transform data engagement.

RRL has created the world’s largest, and ever-growing, Hiphop database, a research data archive that uses natural language processing analysis and associated data - such as artist name, song title, release date, geolocation, lyric content, sentiment analysis and rhyme pattern - from over 500,000 Hiphop songs from 1979 to the present day.

RRL is pioneering new, 21st century digital forms by harnessing big data, artificial intelligence, robotics, natural language processing, and social networks to create opportunities for cultural research, creative competition, individual expression, and collaborative problem solving. With wide use, our platforms reconstruct how the public understands, visualizes and engages data networks, and ignites student interest in STEM careers.

Stakeholder List

RRL’s strategic partnerships create opportunities to advance innovation in art, scholarship and public engagement. We are proud to include Eyebeam Art + Technology, Creative Capital Foundation, Saul Zaentz Innovation Fund in Film & Media at Johns Hopkins University, LACMA Art + Technology Lab, The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Autodesk, Spotify, W. E. B. Du Bois Research Institute at Harvard University, Verizon Innovative Learning and New York City Department of Parks and Recreation among our partners.

Allies: These are artists, co-collaborators, community members and other individuals who support, engage, observe and document the concepts and broader conceptual aims of Rap Research Lab.

Community engagement institutions: These would include schools, museums, libraries, and arts and culture organizations who embrace and engage Hip-hop culture’s unique means of connecting art and technology, expressing literary practices and facilitating new approaches to cultural studies and social justice research–especially where youth are concerned and able to take leadership positions.

Educators: These stakeholders implement, adapt and adopt Rap Research Lab curriculum and are key actors in the deployment, evaluation and evolution of the educator toolkit. 

Mentors: These individuals design, assess and grow the Rap Research Lab effort, taking a higher-altitude view of the work being done by educators and tracking it against the goals of the program. They facilitate the learning and instruction process and are responsible for capacity assessments, professional development, and curriculum adaptation during project implementation.

Research associates are active and/or published researchers who focus on hip-hop culture as subject literature and have a specific interest in supporting, engaging, observing, documenting or contributing to the  Rap Research Lab community data project’s pedagogy.

Student participants: come to the Rap Research Lab project through an independent interest or being part of an educator’s community of learners.

Project Managers: These stakeholders are responsible for the global implementation of the project. They may be “stand-alone” professionals or participating in a joint role as educators, mentors, or representatives of community engagement institutions. 

Visiting collaborators support, engage, observe and document the Rap Research Lab project in a role that accommodates those who do not directly fit into other established stakeholder categories. This stakeholder position is extended to future audiences who will interact with the co-created outputs from this ongoing work through their own personal or collective research methods.

Partners