Work
Culture Building Through Knowledge
Rap Style Archeology is a cultural archive preserving hip-hop's material memory, connecting the objects, stories, and overlooked details that prove how rap shaped style, media, and everyday life.
Activations
Nike x Too Many More
Brooklyn, NYA street-level archive moment at the center of Brooklyn culture
Read the featureAt Nike x Too Many More's Brooklyn block party, Rap Style Archeology brought the archive to the curb with a clear point of view: rap history should not only live online. It should be touched, questioned, remembered, and passed hand to hand.
Inside a gathering built for community, movement, and Black creative enterprise, RSA's table became a meeting point for the block. Original magazines, CDs, posters, and promo artifacts sparked stories from people who lived the era, while giving a new generation the details they do not always get from the feed.
The partnership showed what RSA is built to do: turn preservation into participation. Nike and Too Many More created space for the archive to connect with Brooklyn, and the culture felt present, social, and alive.
Exhibition
They Gave a N**** an Art Gallery
Atlanta, GARap history, framed as fine art
At Underground Atlanta, Rap Style Archeology staged They Gave a N**** an Art Gallery, an exhibition that treated hip-hop's printed legacy with the scale and seriousness of fine art. Magazine spreads, posters, covers, ads, and archival references were placed in conversation with the city that raised the culture, turning the space into a living record of rap's visual language.
The room carried the energy of a gallery opening, but the subject matter belonged to the people. Every piece on the wall pointed back to the artists, writers, photographers, editors, stylists, and street-level moments that helped define how rap was seen, sold, documented, and remembered.
For RSA, the exhibition pushed the archive beyond collecting. It became a cultural statement: rap history deserves walls, lighting, context, and room to be studied. They Gave a N**** an Art Gallery made that argument in real time, proving that the objects around the music are part of the art too.
Film work
Glitter Ain't Gold
SXSW 2022Period detail for a coming-of-age story set in 90s Atlanta
Watch the film
Christian Nolan Jones's SXSW world-premiere short Glitter Ain't Gold follows a young boy in 90s Atlanta who tries to impress a crush by buying a fake gold chain, exploring friendship, identity, and growing up too fast.
Through styling and wardrobe, Rap Style Archeology helped shape the film's visual language, giving its 90s Atlanta setting a texture that felt pulled from the block instead of dressed for nostalgia. Cultural reference, period-correct detail, and the 1985 Monte Carlo seen in the film gave the coming-of-age story a physical presence that feels lived in instead of styled from memory.
Founder Nakari Johnson appears in the short, extending the archive's role from behind-the-scenes research into the world of the film itself.
Music editorial
Wara - INFLUENZA
High VolumeA cultural frame for a record built from raw emotion
Listen to the album
Rap Style Archeology created the written context for Wara's INFLUENZA, treating the album as more than a release. The piece placed Wara's story inside a wider cultural map: Brooklyn roots, Atlanta evolution, reggae lineage, and a sound shaped by both East Coast pressure and Southern movement.
Built over four years, INFLUENZA moves like a full-spectrum self-portrait: raw, restless, and intentionally hard to box in. RSA's write-up gave listeners a way into the world of the album before pressing play, translating the music's range into a story people could read, stand with, and remember.
With Nakari pictured alongside Wara and the displayed text, the moment shows RSA's editorial role in real time: documenting an artist's present with the same care it gives the past, so the record becomes part of hip-hop history while it is still unfolding.
Installation
Belly 25th Anniversary
New York, NYA live archive honoring Belly at 25
Explore Nalia Brand
For Tunnel 17's 25th Anniversary of Belly, Rap Style Archeology partnered with Nalia brand and owner/creative director Russell Hamilton to extend the anniversary experience inside EDAS Studios. The day brought together a live broadcast, Nalia's pop-up, RSA's library installation, and an evening screening dedicated to Hype Williams' debut film.
RSA treated Belly as more than a milestone. The installation framed the film as a blueprint for rap's late-90s visual language: nightlife, luxury, street mythology, music-video scale, and the cultural references that made the movie feel larger than cinema.
In partnership with Nalia brand, the anniversary moved beyond nostalgia. It became a living archive moment, connecting Belly's imagery back to 50 Years of Hip-Hop and the generations still pulling from its style, sound, and atmosphere.
Installation
EDAS Studios Installation
Brooklyn, NYA public archive room for touch, conversation, and study
In partnership with EDAS Studios, Rap Style Archeology transformed the Brooklyn space into an interactive library installation, inviting guests to experience the archive in person instead of scrolling past it.
Founded by Creative Director Sade Mims, EDAS is rooted in craft, storytelling, and community building, making the studio a natural setting for RSA's materials to live as cultural objects, design references, and conversation starters.
The installation closed with an exclusive archive screening of Black and White, James Toback's 1999 New York film about hip-hop's pull on style, identity, race, and downtown culture at the end of the decade.
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