Marcyliena Morgan, Harvard's Hip Hop Archive Founder, Dies at 75
Marcyliena Morgan, Harvard’s Hip Hop Archive Founder, Dies at 75
Renowned scholar and founder of Harvard University’s Hip Hop Archive and Research Institute, Professor Marcyliena Morgan, passed away after complications from Alzheimer’s disease. She was 75.
Professor Morgan, born in 1950 and raised in Chicago, became one of the most respected voices in the study of language and pop culture, shaping social discourse. She was a linguistic anthropologist who taught Harvard’s African and African American studies department.
In 2007, she established the Hip Hop Archive and Research Institute.
Along with an extensive variety of rap albums, the archive includes collections of hip-hop magazines, fliers of house parties and concerts and other ephemera.
“I developed a respect for hip-hop culture because in spite of all its excesses and some of its deserved criticism from society, it remains a rare place where young black people and brown people are valued and awarded by their peers,” Professor Morgan said in a previous interview.
Under her guidance, the archive began to represent an intersection of street culture and scholarly inquiry and became a model archive for other institutions.
Many believe that the archive helped hip-hop gain elite credibility in areas it was once ignored.
“I actually can’t imagine Kendrick Lamar having received a Pulitzer without the imprimatur of the archive.” Imani Perry, a fellow Harvard professor, said in a previous interview.
The Hutchins Center at Harvard University confirmed the passing of Professor morning in an Instagram post. The archive has also been renamed earlier this month in honor of her as the Marcyliena H. Morgan Hip Hop Archive & Research Institute.
“Professor Morgan created the world’s first, largest, and best archive to record the ongoing cultural phenomenon of Hip Hop music, art, and culture. The Hutchins Center is committed to carrying on the study of this most vital and global of art forms in her name,” officials with the Hutchins Center said in a statement.
Marcyliena Morgan, Harvard’s Hip Hop Archive Founder, Dies at 75 was originally published on hiphopnc.com
