Tahir Hemphill Studio

About me

As a native New Yorker, I came of age in the 1980s and divided my time between practicing various elements of Hip-hop culture and exploring cyberspace from my basement in Queens with a dial-up modem connected to a Commodore 128 computer. A fundamental affinity between Hip-hop culture and hacking would define the trajectory of my professional and creative life. Starting in middle school, my exposure to curricula that foregrounded engineering-oriented making led me to acquire knowledge, values, and skills at institutions of higher learning while Hip-hop’s “golden era” informed my perspectives on popular culture and politics. The theoretical frameworks that support these two educational influences have been synthesized into my current creative endeavors.

Over the past 20 years, as an artist who works with technology, I have been influenced by scientific work that pushes investigation to artistic limits and artistic work that pushes repetition towards scientific method. This productive tension between art and technology is fueled by my reverence for the scientific method as well as my irreverent tinkering with it.

A result of my work sitting in the hybrid area between art, technology, social engagement, and interdisciplinary research, my practice investigates the role systems play in the generation of form and the role collaborative knowledge production plays in the resilience of communities.

This is me

Selected Public Presentations

2017

  • Maximum Distance. Minimum Displacement. Solo exhibition, California College of the Arts, San Francisco, September
  • Collections as Data: Impact Stories, Library of Congress, Washington, DC, July
  • Science Speed Dating, The Science & Entertainment Exchange/National Academy of Sciences, NeueHouse, Los Angeles, June

2016

  • The Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center Thematic Month on Human Behavior, Bellagio, Italy, July
  • Eyeo Festival: Code + Activism, Walker Center, Minneapolis, MN, June.
  • A View of the World from Here: Spotifyville, Spotify, New York, NY, April

2015

  • Creative Time Summit: The Curriculum NYC, Boys and Girls High School, Brooklyn, NY, November
  • Bronx Calling: The Third AIM Biennial, Bronx Museum of Art, Bronx, NY, July
  • Princeton CASS Grad Seminar 2014-15: Black Studies in the Digital Age Princeton, NJ, April

2014

  • 2014: TedYouth Worlds Imagined, Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, NY, November
  • Picasso, Baby!, ICI Curatorial Hub, New York, NY, August
  • Eyeo Festival, Walker Center, Minneapolis, MN, June
  • DRAW2014: Why Draw Now?: International Drawing Symposium, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, March

2013

  • Word Beats Life Teach-In, Washington, DC, July
  • Creative Capital Retreat, Williams College, Williamstown, MA, July
  • The Rap Almanac, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, October

2012

  • Champagne Always Stains My Silk: Factors in Rapper Aspirational Behavior, DuBois Institute Fall Colloquium Series, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, October
  • Hip Hop & Technology, ISEA2012 Albuquerque: Machine Wilderness, Albuquerque, NM, September
  • IdeaFest, Kentucky Center for the Arts, Louisville, KY, September
  • Six New Exhibitions, Land of Tomorrow Gallery, Louisville, KY, September
  • Eyeo Festival, Walker Center, Minneapolis, MN, June
  • What Makes A Good Data Visualization, Leaders in Software and Art, New York, NY, April
  • The Box That Rocks: 30 Years of Video Music Box and the Rise of Hip Hop Music & Culture, MoCADA, Brooklyn, NY, March
  • CPT: Time, History and Memory, Gallatin Gallery NYU, New York, NY, February

2011

  • The Hip Hop Word Count, The Hip Hop Archive at Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, August
  • Enterprise Journalism: Data Visualization and Mining for Stories, NABJ Conference, Philadelphia, PA, August
  • Talk To Me, Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY, July
  • Crown Heights Gold, Skylight Gallery, New York, NY, July
  • Ignite, Galapagos Art Space, New York, NY, February
  • Arts, Culture & Tech, New York, NY, January

2010

  • Hip Hop Tourettes, Conflux Festival, New York, NY, October
  • SEED / GE Hackathon, New York, NY, October
  • NY Dataviz Meet Up, New York, NY, December

2008

  • Redux London, UK, January

2006

  • Club Society, off_corso, Rotterdam, Netherlands, April

2004

  • Fresh Still Life, Black Soil, CBK/Artotheek, Rotterdam, Holland, November
  • Indocile, Frère Independent, New York, NY, May

2002

  • Queens International, Queens Museum of Art, Queens, NY, September
  • Siggraph Gallery, San Antonio, Texas, July

1999

  • African American Photographers of the 20th Century, Schomburg Center, Harlem, NY, May

Awards and Honors

2016

  • The Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center Thematic Month on Human Behavior Resident, Bellagio, Italy
  • Spotify Media Artist in Residence, New York, NY
  • New York University ITP Something in Residence, New York, NY
  • Eyebeam Art+Technology, Impact Resident, New York, NY

2015

  • The National Endowment for the Arts Art Artworks Grant
  • The Bronx Museum of Art, Artist in the Marketplace 35

2014

  • TED Speaker: TedYouth 2014: Worlds Imagined

2013

  • W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research at Harvard University Hip Hop Archive Research Fellow
  • The Frank-Ratchye STUDIO for Creative Inquiry Fellow at Carnegie Mellon University
  • Creative Capital Community Supported Artist

2012

  • Creative Capital Foundation Grantee
  • Eyebeam Art+Technology, Education Resident, New York, NY

2011

  • Eyebeam Art+Technology, Honorary Resident, New York, NY
  • Eyebeam Art+Technology, X-Lab Resident, New York, NY

2010

  • Eyebeam Art+Technology, Artist in Residence, New York
  • Awesome Foundation Grant, Hip Hop Word Count
  • The Bill Graham Memorial Fund

2006

  • Ad Age Multicultural Agency of the Year, Burrell Communications

1999

  • African American Photographers of the 20th Century, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture

Selected Bibliography

2016

Taylor Lewis, Ten Things We’re Talking About, Essence Magazine, pg. 83, September

2015

  • Vinson Cunningham, School of Hip–Hop, Nylon Guys, pg. 24, January
  • Ryan Joseph, The History of Champagne in Hip-Hop, FirstWeFeast.com, December

2014

  • Aaron Souppouris, Mapper’s Delight: Rap’s Lyrical Journeys Captured with Light, TheVerge.com, February
  • Andrew Lasane, Tahir Hemphill Uses Light Painting to Trace Geographic Locations Mentioned in Rap Lyrics, Complex Magazine, February

2013

  • Leigh Paterson, Hip Hop Word Count Analyses the Culture Behind Music, BBC Living Online, July.
  • Mishal Husain, On-Air Interview, BBC World TV News, April
  • Alec Wilkinson, Talk of the Town: Rap Sheet, The New Yorker, April

2011

  • Rob Walker, The Trivialities and Transcendence of Kickstarter, The New York Times, August
  • Julia Kaganskiy, Is Hip Hop Making You Stupid? The Hip Hop Word Count Breaks It Down, The Creators Project, July
  • Michael Eric Dyson, The Michael Eric Dyson Show, Interview, May
  • Archiving Rap With the ‘Keeper of the Beats’ ABC News, Tech This Out!, April.
  • Duncan Geere, Datamining Hip-Hop’s History, Wired.com, February
  • Cacy Forgenie, Ever Wonder How Many Times Power Was Said In Ye’s Record? GlobalGrind.com, February
  • Adrianne Jeffries, Please, for the Love of Hip Hop, Donate…, The New York Observer, February
  • Jenisha Watts, The Man Behind the First Searchable Rap Lyric Database, Complex Magazine, February
  • Ben Chapman, About that rap song? He’d Like to Have a Word, NY Daily News, pg. 16, February
  • Curt Hopkins, The HHWC Counts on Language to Understand the Reality We Keep, Read Write Web, January
  • Adrian Covert, Hip Hop Word Count: What If You Could Search the Lyrics of 40,000 Hip Hop Songs?, SF Weekly, January

2010

  • Kyle Studstill, Linguistic Researcher Tahir Hemphill Talks Data And Lossless Communication, PSFK.com, June
  • Sherri Smith, Hip Hop Word Count, BlackWeb, December
  • Dan Nishimoto, Hip Hop Word Count: A Searchable Rap Almanac, Prefix Magazine, December