This is my friend Tahir Hemphill’s project.  He is now a resident at Eyebeam in NYC developing the project further.  Here’s the description of the project:

The Hip-Hop Word Count (HHWC) is a searchable ethnographic database built from the lyrics of over 40,000 Hip-Hop songs from 1979 to present day. The database is the heart of an online analysis tool that generates textual and quantified reports on searched phrases, syntax, memes and socio-political ideas.

The database is now being built and visualizations of the data are beginning to emerge, the first ones shown last week at Eyebeam Open Studios.  It’s an exciting prospect to imagine what will crystallize from so many songs and artists creating within hip-hop.  Below are some early releases from the project:

A gallery of results from a “rubric that estimates the education level needed to understand each rhyme as well as, rates the artistic sophistication employed through the metaphors, similes, cultural references, consonantal/vocalic alliteration and overall pattern of each rhyme.”:

From Jay Z’s body of work:

Here is the link to the first Rap Data Pack™ we have released. It includes the raw data from Hov’s complete body of work: word count, readability, release dates, Geo Codes, etc..

Keep checking in at Tahir’s Staple Crops site to stay abreast as the project develops.