Tahir Hemphill (born May 14, 1972) is an American multimedia artist, ethnolinguist, and design researcher. He developed the Hip Hop Word Count database.

Early life

Hemphill grew up in

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

, on the

Lower East Side The Lower East Side, sometimes abbreviated as LES, is a historic neighborhood in the southeastern part of Manhattan in New York City. It is located roughly between the Bowery and the East River from Canal to Houston streets. Historically, it w ...

Manhattan Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...

. He graduated from

Brooklyn Technical High School Brooklyn Technical High School, commonly called Brooklyn Tech and administratively designated High School 430, is a public specialized high school in New York City that specializes in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. It is on ...

with a Regents diploma concentration in Electrical Engineering. He is

African-American African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from any of the Black racial groups of Africa. ...

. Hemphill graduated from

Morehouse College Morehouse College is a Private college, private, Historically black colleges and universities, historically black, Men's colleges in the United States, men's Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Atlanta, Georgia, ...

with a B.A. in Spanish. He has a certificate in Strategic Planning from Miami Ad School. He has a master's degree in Communications Design which he received from

Pratt Institute Pratt Institute is a private university with its main campus in Brooklyn, New York. It has an additional campus in Manhattan and an extension campus in Utica, New York at the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute. The institute was founded in 18 ...

Career

Hip-Hop Word Count database

Hemphill created an

ethnographic Ethnography is a branch of anthropology and the systematic study of individual cultures. It explores cultural phenomena from the point of view of the subject of the study. Ethnography is also a type of social research that involves examining ...

database of hip-hop lyrics covering the period from 1979 to the present. In the database, assets are geotagged and dated according to album release dates. Hemphill calls this data a geography of language in the universe of hip-hop. Hemphill faceted the information with analysis of word count, number of

syllables A syllable is a basic unit of organization within a sequence of speech sounds, such as within a word, typically defined by linguists as a ''nucleus'' (most often a vowel) with optional sounds before or after that nucleus (''margins'', which are ...

per word, number of letters per word,

polysyllabic A syllable is a basic unit of organization within a sequence of speech sounds, such as within a word, typically defined by linguists as a ''nucleus'' (most often a vowel) with optional sounds before or after that nucleus (''margins'', which are ...

words, as well as an education and audience reading level rating. Hemphill used Simplified Measure of Gobbledygook ("SMOG") and Flesch–Kincaid readability tests (created by

plain English Plain English (also referred to as layman's terms) is a mode of writing or speaking the English language intended to be easy to understand regardless of one's familiarity with a given topic. It usually avoids the use of rare words and uncommon euph ...

advocate

Rudolf Flesch Rudolf Franz Flesch (8 May 1911 – 5 October 1986) was an Austrian-born naturalized American author (noted for his book '' Why Johnny Can't Read''), and also a readability expert and writing consultant who was a vigorous proponent of plain Eng ...

) to evaluate reading levels. Within his analysis of Hip-Hop through a scientific lens, he aims to trace origins of certain slang words, how they move to different communities, and their malleable, fluid meanings in different contexts.

Fellowships, grants, etc.

* 2010-2011: Artist-in-Residence, Eyebeam * 2012: Grantee,

Creative Capital Creative Capital is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization based in New York City that supports artists across the United States through funding, counsel, gatherings, and career development services. Since its founding in 1999, Creative Capital has co ...

* 2012-2013: Fellow, WEB Du Bois Institute at

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

* 2013: Fellow, The Frank-Ratchye STUDIO for Creative Inquiry at

Carnegie Mellon University Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. The institution was established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools. In 1912, it became the Carnegie Institu ...

* 2015: AIM Program participant,

Bronx Museum of the Arts The Bronx Museum of the Arts (BxMA), also called the Bronx Museum of Art or simply the Bronx Museum, is an American cultural institution located in Concourse, Bronx, New York. The museum focuses on contemporary and 20th-century works created by ...

Exhibitions

* 1999: "Black New York Photographers of the Twentieth Century."

Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture is a research library of the New York Public Library (NYPL) and an archive repository for information on people of African descent worldwide. Located at 515 Malcolm X Boulevard (Lenox Avenue) be ...

* 2002: "Queens International Biennial."

Queens Museum of Art The Queens Museum (formerly the Queens Museum of Art) is an art museum and educational center at Flushing Meadows–Corona Park in Queens, New York City, United States. Established in 1972, the museum includes the '' Panorama of the City of Ne ...

* 2002:

SIGGRAPH SIGGRAPH (Special Interest Group on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques) is an annual conference centered around computer graphics organized by ACM, starting in 1974 in Boulder, CO. The main conference has always been held in North ...

* 2011: " Talk to Me."

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, a ...

. July 24, 2011 - November 7, 2011 * 2012:
The Box That Rocks: 30 Years of Video Music Box and the Rise of Hip Hop Music & Culture.
Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts. March 10 - May 28, 2012

Works and publications

* Hemphill, Tahir.
Visual Alchemy: Subversive Graphic Design in the Urban Environment.
' Master's Thesis. New York, NY: Pratt Institute: December 1999.

References

External links

Tahir Hemphill

Staple Crops
* American multimedia artists 21st-century African-American artists 1972 births Living people 21st-century African-American people 20th-century African-American people {{US-artist-stub