Days after the release of the late Memphis rapper Young Dolph’s first posthumous album, Paper Route Frank, it was announced his life would be celebrated with a pop-up museum tour, Dolphland.
In 2021, Young Dolph was shot and killed on Nov. 17 while buying cookies for his family at Makeda’s Homemade Butter Cookies before heading to a community event in his hometown. His death shook the hip-hop industry as another rapper lost their life to a senseless act of violence.
His estate partnered with his record label Paper Route Empire (PRE) and the Trap Music Museum worked together to bring fans an unforgettable up close and personal look at key moments that contributed to his come up.
“It’s paying homage to Dolph, but the pop-up is also an activation with his fans for his new album Paper Route Frank,” Young Dolph’s Manager and Street Execs Co-Founder Allen Parks said when chatting with Blavity. “If he was here, he would be in the streets promoting his music to connect with his fans. It’s an olive branch of him and a creative way he can still touch his fans.”
He continued, “We had to change up the form since he’s not actually here to do it, so we made it a museum so people could come to look at the legacy he built and fellowship to his music. We’re keeping the same business principles and vision that he had.”
The pop-up museum tour made its debut in New York City and recently made a stop in Dallas, Texas. Other stops on the tour, based on the rapper’s biggest fanbases, include Denver, Los Angeles, Arizona, Houston, Washington D.C., San Antonio, Chicago, Atlanta and Memphis, with the possibility of additional cities being added along with the potential to be at festivals.
“The plan is to also have the Memphis location be a permanent location,” Parks shared.
Before stepping foot in the museum fans can expect to see two army fatigue-wrapped cars which are symbolic of the Role Models rapper’s custom cars he was known to drive. Once inside, the first place they’ll be in will be a corner store where Young Dolph first started marketing and promoting his mixtapes market and promote his mixtapes and launched PRE, his indie record label, in 2010.
As the museum continues, a cannabis lab with strands of marijuana, likely Gelato, the rapper’s favorite strand created by Mario Gunzman, the founder of the well-known Sherbinskis brand.
When fans exit the lab, they can take a break and snap a picture in front of the “100 Shots” wall, a tribute to the hit record from his 2017 album Bulletproof. In addition to the bullet shell casings on the ground, the backdrop is the album cover itself.
Next on the journey is a replica of the trap apartment that includes a recording booth. Young Dolph bought the apartment to record music and pack his CDs when he first started rapping in the early days of his career.
As PRE started to grow, the Major artist started signing more artists, one of them being his cousin and fellow Memphis rapper Key Glock. PRE began to make major moves in 2017, so it was only right to have a room dedicated to the label with pictures of all the signed artists, album covers, a library, a small statue of the late rapper and walls with benjamins on it, because of course he had a big ambition for cash.
From here, fans will end the tour in the “Hall of Fame” room, which has blue walls and contains intimate iconic pictures that influenced the culture, intimate photos of Young Dolph’s family members, plaques and a memorable suede blue suit he wore.
“We just wanted to tell an overarching story from the cornerstore to being one of the biggest street music artists of all-time, a legend,” explained Parks.
Guests will be able to spend 30 minutes minimum in the museum to see the exhibit and take pictures. Tickets for Dolphland are $40 and can be purchased online here. Some of the proceeds will help support the Ida Mae Foundation, a nonprofit named after his late grandmother, to help continue her legacy.
See the upcoming dates for the tour below.
- Los Angeles (Feb. 3-5)
- Washington D.C. (Feb. 17-19)
- Arizona (dates coming soon)
- Houston (March 10-15)
- San Antonio (dates coming soon)
- Chicago (dates coming soon)
- Atlanta (dates coming soon)
- Memphis (dates coming soon)
