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LaMar Stephens Sr. has spent more than three decades building one of the only surviving video archives of hip hop's formative years. He started what became Rap Entertainment back in 1992, out of public access and local origination television in Jersey City, recording the artists, videos and live performances that most broadcasters either ignored or, in some cases, taped over and destroyed.
In this episode of The Archive Room, LaMar joins us to talk about what it actually takes to build and protect a hip hop archive with no institutional backing, no preservation budget and no guarantee anyone would ever want the footage. We go deep on the tapes that did not survive, including the loss of ABC's Hot Tracks masters and the Jersey City cable reels that were recorded over to save money, and why that loss still shapes how he approaches archiving today.
We talk through what actually lives inside the Rap Entertainment archive, from golden age hip hop performances to the artists who came up through public access television before anyone knew their names. LaMar also shares where he sees the archive going next, from FAST channel distribution to AI assisted restoration of lost performers, and how Rap Entertainment TV is trying to help the next generation of creators get paid fairly for their own work.
It's a conversation about hip hop history, documentary archive research and TV archive history, told from someone who lived through the years he's now trying to preserve.
0:00 Cold open, the tapes that got erased
2:31 Meet LaMar Stephens
2:59 Growing up around film and public access TV
6:05 Becoming a young director in cable TV
10:30 From cable to YouTube to the FAST channel
15:37 When the archive got erased
19:26 Inside the golden age of hip hop
26:06 The Cities in Crisis documentary
36:48 Quick fire questions
43:16 What's next for Rap Entertainment TV
47:23 Where to find LaMar
Find Rap Entertainment TV at rapentertainment.com, and on YouTube at youtube.com/c/rapentertainmenttelevision.
The Archive Room is brought to you by Silver Salt Restoration, the UK's foremost film and television restoration company and part of the John Gore Studios family. Find them at silversaltrestoration.com.