The Ahmed Iqbal Ullah Race Relations Resource Centre (AIU Centre) based within Manchester Central Library and open to all members of the public, has recently introduced new resources focusing on the themes of Hip Hop, Grime, Spoken Word, education and social justice.

The resources, which include books, magazines, records and films, are part of the Hip Hop Studies Collection project, a piece of work led by Eithne Quinn from American Studies at The University of Manchester and funded by the University’s Social Responsibility in the Curriculum initiative. The project gives Eithne’s students access to new resources to support their learning whilst also making them available to the general public and local secondary schools through specially designed lesson plans.

To celebrate the new resources, the AIU Centre recently held a successful event, ‘Hip Hop, Spoken Word and the Library’, which showcased some of the new material.

The packed programme featured Joy White, the author of ‘Urban Music and Entrepreneurship: Beats, Rhymes, and Young People’s Enterprise’, who reflected on a decade of Grime music in England and the extent to which this formerly niche Hip Hop genre has transcended borders.

It also included Shirley May and Reece Williams of Young Identity writing collective talked about the work of the group to provide young people with a platform to express themselves through Spoken Word. Members of Young Identity then gave several passionate performances of their own poetry.

The evening finished with Jon Green from Unity Radio giving an insight into the Manchester Hip Hop Archive project; a community group working to build an archive of the Hip Hop scene here in Manchester.