Bio – S O M M E R

Shot by Diane Bondareff at Columbia University

Regan Sommer McCoy is an NYC-based curator, community archivist, and arts administrator. Sommer is the Chief Curator of the Mixtape Museum, an initiative that encourages the research, archiving, preservation, and data analysis of mixtapes. Her mixtape scholarship has been supported by appointments with Columbia University, the Institute of Museum and Library Services, The Alliance for Media Arts and Culture, and a 2022 research grant from the Association for Recorded Collections (ARSC). She is the ‘23 Visiting Hip Hop Scholar at Virginia Union University and an inaugural ‘23 ARSC Awards for Independent Initiatives awardee. Sommer consults and advises the Black Beauty Archives, Museum of Pop Culture’s Hip-Hop Collection, and Five Mics: The Hip-Hop Trading Game. She is on staff at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) in Creative Social Impact, curating BAM Archive’s Hip Hop Collection. Her most recent article, Mixtape Memories: Hip-Hop Community and Culture at NYC’s Mixtape Museum, appears in ARSC Journal (2021). Find her mentioned in The Enduring Romance of Mixtapes in The Atlantic (2023).