Methodology
The single most important rule
Every fact on hiphopstorian.com must come from a verifiable public source. Nothing is invented, imagined, extrapolated, or paraphrased from model memory.
Trust tiers
Every cited source falls into one of three tiers:
- Tier A — Scholarly / institutional / primary
- Foundational books (Chang's Can't Stop Won't Stop, Charnas's The Big Payback and Dilla Time, Rose's Black Noise, Bradley's Book of Rhymes, etc.); institutional resources (Smithsonian NMAAHC, Carnegie Hall, Library of Congress NRR essays, Kennedy Center, Cornell / Harvard hip-hop archives); and primary sources (the work itself, official label records, court records, RIAA / Billboard chart data, Grammy / Pulitzer records). Full paraphrase + synthesis OK; unlimited attributed quotes.
- Tier B — Trade press + paper of record + Wikipedia
- Hip-hop trade press (The Source 1988–2002, Vibe pre-2014, XXL, Complex, Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, NPR Music, Billboard, AllMusic, Wax Poetics, The Fader, Mass Appeal); papers of record (NY Times, Washington Post, BBC, Guardian, LA Times); and Wikipedia. One Tier B source is sufficient for paraphrase / neutral synthesis. ≤30-word inline quotes, attributed when surfacing as a quotation.
- Tier C — Fan / community / specialist databases
- DigitalDreamDoor, todayinhiphophistory, HipHopDX, HotNewHipHop, RateYourMusic, etc. Requires a Tier A or B corroborator for factual claims. Carve-out: WhoSampled (for sample identification), Discogs (for catalog facts), and Genius (for lyrics-as-printed) are treated as Tier A-equivalent for their narrow domains.
- Never
- Model memory; anonymous wikis other than Wikipedia; content farms; AI-generated summaries; dead-link aggregators; anonymous social media; and The Source post-2003 (editorial collapse, Benzino era).
Single-source rule
Every claim needs ≥1 citation. Contested or controversial claims need ≥2 across tiers, with at least one Tier A or Tier B.
Hip-hop-specific rules
- Lyrics — ≤4 lines (~40 words) for criticism / commentary; cite Genius + original track. We do not host full lyrics.
- Beefs — the diss track itself is primary; interpretation needs ≥2 secondary sources. Never accuse a person of a real-world act on the basis of a diss-track line alone.
- Deaths — cause of death needs ≥2 sources (one news of record + one official). Unsolved cases are described as unsolved with case-status citations.
- Sample claims — WhoSampled is Tier A-equivalent for sample ID. "First sample of X" / "most-sampled" claims need editorial corroboration.
- Chart / certification claims — Billboard / RIAA / BPI as primary.
- "First X" / pioneer claims — ≥2 Tier A sources, because these are exactly the claims fan / wiki sources get repeatedly wrong.
Curator-led voice
The site speaks in a structured, factual voice. Opinions come from named, cited critics, scholars, or artists — not from the curator and not from Claude. Where curation is unavoidably interpretive (which 50 moments are "marquee", whether a beef is "resolved"), the criteria are documented and visible.
No open contributions in v1
All node creation, citation, and validation passes through the curator workflow. Corrections via the email on about are welcomed and tracked.