This article is also a weekly newsletter. To celebrate hip-hop’s birthday, the Projects and Collaborations team asked Mahogany L. Browne, Lincoln Center’s first-ever poet-in-residence and an acclaimed author, to write a love letter to the genre, composed entirely of lyrics both oft recited and obscure. In the resulting interactive piece, which is full of stunning archival photography, we’ve annotated the lyrics with information about the artists, songs and their significance in the history of hip-hop. “Each of the audio clips represents a voice, a feeling, a moment in the 50-year evolution of the music. “From the start we knew the conceit was to use lyrics and this found poetry structure, but how does that look on the page?” Fang said.

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Persons: Mahogany, Browne, Lincoln Center’s, Browne “, ” Marcelle Hopkins, Alice Fang, Antonio de Luca, ” Fang, Fang, de Luca