This Easter has seen an exciting project unfold at Manchester Central Library. Led by Unity Radio’s Jon Green and DJ Basha, the pioneering Manchester Hip Hop Archive (MHHA) has been running Easter Holiday Activities for young people to inspire them with fashion creativity and cool product development.  

With expert help from David Govier, audio preservation engineer at Manchester Archives+, the group have been exploring digital sound preservation. They had a behind-the-scenes tour of the Archive+ strongroom vaults at Central Library, where environmentally controlled conditions ensure the optimal storage conditions for the sound archives. They also looked at how music created on older formats such as CD, tape and minidisc needs to be transferred to digital file formats to ensure it will survive and be available for future use.  

Earlier workshops saw the group create and produce great music and artwork for their own CD. This time the young people chose images from the Manchester Hip Hop Archive’s digital graffiti collections. Textiles artist Kemi Gbadebo introduced design themes of environmental sustainability, showing the group how to create their own unique Manchester artist-inspired upcycled bottle carriers. They created durable and attractive reusable products which incorporate principles of environmental responsibility.

Next up was product enhancement where they each created their own graffiti artwork inspired by the MHHA collection and then produced photographic shots fronting their high quality products to learn about how entrepreneurs showcase and sell their products online. 

Manchester Hip Hop Archive lead Jon Green said “We had a really great time and created some amazing works. Massive thank you to Dave for the great tour!”