The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame may include hip hop legends Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, Run-DMC and Public Enemy, but the new Hip Hop Hall of Fame Museum will celebrate all of the great artists from the musical genre that began more than 40 years ago.
New York City will house the museum that will have two locations - one in Harlem and other in midtown Manhattan, right off of Times Square, according to the New York Daily News.
"This will be the home of hip hop history," JT Thompson, hip-hop connoisseur, told the Daily News. Thompson hosted the Hip Hop Hall of Fame Awards held in 1996 and again in 2014. "People need to understand the importance of hip hop, the elements, the DJs, the B-boys and B-girls and the graffiti writers."
The museums will feature memorabilia donated by Run-DMC, Snoop Dogg, Salt-N-Pepa, Ice Cube, Outkast, Young Jeezy, Common, Eminem, Grandmaster Flash and Afrika Bambaataam including items such as turntables, posters and jackets, according to the Daily News.
The Harlem museum will have 12,000 square-feet of space, a coffee and juice bar, shops and a TV studio. The Times Square location will measure 50,000 square-feet with the same attractions as Harlem plus a 90-minute tour and an interactive exhibit.
The Harlem location will also service 50 kids annually through its youth media program. Organizers plan to break ground in 2015 and officially open the museums in 2017.
The total cost for the project is $80 million. They have raised $50 million so far and have launched an Indiegogo crowd-funding campaign to raise at least another $500,000, Thompson told Daily News.
Organizers want to show the full history of the hip-hop genre beyond the violent East Coast vs. West Coast rivalry during the 1990s that left legendary rappers 2Pac and Notorious B.I.G. dead, killed by unidentified shooters.
"Hip hop got a bad rep," Kenny Syder, co-chair of the museum's entertainment committee, told the Daily News. "With this museum, it's important to sit on the other side of it."
