The relationship between Hip Hop and the Institution is a thorny one. On the one hand, Hip Hop has gained recognition and financial support from institutions and it has also contributed to institutional change. To some extent, we can even say that Hip Hop has become an institution itself, if we think for example of hip-hop themed record labels, clothing brands, youth outreach programmes or university courses.

Schedule

25th and 26th September 2025

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[Download Book of Abstracts]

Keynote Speakers

• Cookie Pryce(Cookie Crew), UK (Instagram)
• Dr Richard Bramwell, Loughborough University, UK (Profile)

On the other hand, though, Hip Hop activists have consistently critiqued the way the Institution uses resources, knowledge and aesthetics created by communities of Hip Hop heads without giving back anything of value to them. The Institution’s appropriation of Hip Hop has also led to divisions within the Hip Hop community, for example, when certain people and groups receive institutional funding but others are excluded. It has also exposed larger questions relating to Hip Hop’s participation in colonialism and capitalism.

To explore such dynamics between Hip Hop and the Institution, around 80 scholars and practitioners have gathered for an intense two-day conference in Milton Keynes and online in September 2025. We have discussed Hip Hop as a culture that is rooted in African diasporic traditions and practices that have become a source of inspiration and identification for often disenfranchised people from across the world. And we have conceptualised the Institution as any formal structure of social organisation that has the purpose to legitimise and promote particular ways of living, types of knowledge and forms of relationships. An institution could be any such organisation, ranging from schools to prisons, from record labels to dance studios, from museums to universities, or from grassroots activist groups to the state’s global soft-power politics.

To develop and update our understanding of the dynamic connections between Hip Hop and the Institution, we have explored the following questions.

• What positive and negative effects result from Hip Hop becoming part of the Institution?
• Who benefits, at what cost, and who gets excluded?
• How can Hip Hop bring about long-lasting institutional change (e.g. decolonising the Institution)?
• Conversely, how can the Institution push for more equality and social justice within Hip Hop (e.g. promoting female practitioners)? 

From participants' contributions and the discussions we had, it became apparent that Hip Hop heads have a deep-rooted – and in our opinion justified and healthy – scepticism when dealing with institutions. Yet, it also became very clear that hip hop scholars and those who identify as being of the Hip Hop culture can play an important part in bringing about institutional transformation (e.g. reforming criminal justice systems and educational practices or amplifying oppressed voices) and articulate political critique and push for social justice and decolonisation. With rising social inequalities, global threats like the resurgence of fascism, genocides and the climate collapse, the relationship between Hip Hop and the Institution will only become thornier, and so the conference has laid out the conditions under which mutual benefits can occur, and when not. In this way, the conference has provided us with clear avenues to imagine the future of Institutional Hip Hop and the Hiphopified Institution. 

Fees

This conference will be free of charge and open to everyone interested.

Funding

This conference has been generously funded by the Black, Minority, Ethnic Network, OpenLearn and the School of Languages and Applied Linguistics at the Open University.

Conference Event Team

Barry ‘Kraze One’ Watson

Jaspal Singh

Sas Amoah

Natalie Pollard

Marcus Young

Claudia Torres

Archiving Hip Hop