Mending to Preserve is a multimedia exhibition by Ghanaian artist and cultural archivist Selorm Attikpo, also known as Selormjay, that challenges how hip hop—and particularly African hip hop—has been represented, understood and remembered.

Selormjay was a participant in ADAMA’s Bridge Residency, a collaboration with Villa Albertine that highlights artists, curators and thought leaders from the Francophone African diaspora. Mending to Preserve marks the culmination of his residency project.

Drawing from years of documenting Ghana’s hip hop scene, Selormjay confronts two lasting misconceptions: that hip hop is simply a musical genre rather than a culture rooted in creativity, education, resistance and community, and that African hip hop is merely an imitation of movements born elsewhere.

Since 2013, Selormjay and his team at yoyo tinz have documented, archived and supported Ghana’s hip hop movement. Their work preserves histories that might otherwise remain scattered across memories, drawers, hard drives, VHS tapes and forgotten newspaper clippings. Each object collected and each story recorded becomes evidence that these artists existed, created and mattered.

Mending to Preserve is both an act of care and a call to action. Mending corrects the narrative; preserving ensures the corrected story survives. The exhibition also serves as a road map toward Selormjay’s larger vision: establishing a pan-African hip hop museum in Accra dedicated to honoring the culture’s pioneers and preparing a new generation of African hip hop archivists.

Hip hop did not remain in the Bronx. It traveled, taking root in communities around the world and giving generations of young people language, purpose and identity. Mending to Preserve invites audiences to understand those histories not as competing fragments, but as one continuous Black cultural story being told across continents.