The fellowship program is at the heart of the activities and mission of the Hiphop Archive & Research Institute. Named in honor of the rap artist Nas, Nasir Jones Hiphop Fellowships fund scholars and artists who demonstrate exceptional scholarship and creativity in the arts in connection with Hiphop. Annual or semi-annual fellowships are intended to further the development of Hiphop scholars and artists and to support research or creative projects in any of the arts. Consistent with the motto of the Archive to build, respect and represent, the Archive seeks projects designed to build on the rich and complex Hiphop tradition, to respect the tradition through historically grounded and contextualized critical insights, and, most importantly, to represent individual creative and/or intellectually rigorous contributions to Hiphop and its discourse through personal projects. Personal projects of Nas Fellows may be manuscript projects, performance pieces, album work, curriculum planning, primary archival research, seminar teaching, and exhibition preparation, among other possibilities.
