By the time they opened the first Museum of Rap in Fatehpur Sikri no-one could taste, smell, feel, hear or remember it anyway

Cameron Hayes
By the Time They Opened the First Museum of Rap in Fatehpur Sikri No-One Could Taste, Smell, Feel, Hear or Remember It Anyway, 2006
oil on linen
66 x 100 inches
Photo: Hermann Feldhaus
Courtesy Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, New York

By the time they opened the first Museum of Rap in Fatehpur Sikri no-one could taste, smell, feel, hear or remember it anyway

Fatehpur Sikri was a city built by a Mogul king to be a perfect city; but it was on high ground and not near any lakes or rivers, so no-one ever lived there because there was no water. In 2004, the National Bank of India opened the first Museum of Rap there.

All the stars from television, film, and music were expected to arrive in cabs and step out of a painting or a limousine onto a red-carpet conveyor belt. The stars then had fifteen minutes to line up behind and then have their photos taken in a wooden picture of Beyonce Knowles, Justin Timberlake, Tupac, or the cat from Friends. Many stubborn stars refused to take their heads out of their image and stumbled around until they accidentally hanged themselves in the wood.

Outside the Museum of Rap, many entertainers have come to cash in on all the hype. Ten-year-old girls have brought their dancing bears dressed as Madonna, Brittany, and Run DMC. A dance school has opened next door for girls to train their bears using only bells, knives, and scissors. Another entertainer painted many different species of animals with black and yellow stripes, and people pay to see them raped by a real tiger.

Not-so-famous rap stars have brought their own spotlights, and have tied capes to small animals, and are dropping them from scaffolds.

Because the way everyone and everything looked was all important, people lost their sense of smell and needed dogs to smell if food had expired, and homeless people carried bees in glass jars to check if their bodies were decaying badly enough to worry about.

As people’s sight strengthened they lost more and more memory, so musicians were able to do cover versions of hits while they were still on the charts. And many sitcoms were able to use the scripts from other sitcoms the day before.

The empty water pipes of Fatehpur Sikri were used to circulate the same three or four scripts through all the TV studios and hopes of the people.