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Rapzines says he officially has over 5,000 magazines in the archive now. Whether you always saw it coming, recently became aware, or have yet to realize the importance of protecting physical media - this will go down as arguably the most valuable collection in preserving hip hop history. A few weeks ago BET quietly deleted their entire digital news archive. Earlier this year HipHopDX did the same thing. That’s 25+ years of hip hop history and journalism, just gone. Regardless of what’s been deleted digitally, there’s 10x more than that amount of information, photos, ads, etc. inside these magazines that’s never transitioned from the physical copy to the internet. Although it depends on what he plans to do with the collection one day, we’ll slowly be given access to information and hip-hop history nobody ever knew about. There will come a day that this collection will be able to properly piece together the history of hip-hop music and culture in a way you’d never imagine, after they try to silently wipe it away from us. Seemingly useless bits of information that could piece together an entire story, new perspectives coming from the reality of those times, putting together accurate timelines to the exact date. If you haven’t already, it’s time to take this seriously. Because if you wait till it’s too late, it’ll be gone forever.