Archive of Attitude

Gold caps

In 1986 Sleeping Bag records asked me to photograph Just-Ice (above) for the cover of his new album ‘Kool & Deadly. Rumor had it that Just Ice had recently beaten a murder rap in Washington DC and was an all all around dangerous dude. Born in Brooklyn he was was one of the first MC’s to use a Ragga/Hip Hop style.

The photo shoot went well and we ended up going across the street to the Time Cafe for Long Island Ice Teas and snacks. Just-Ice neatly removed his gold caps, folded them in a napkin and stashed them in his pocket before eating the tortilla chips.

Gold Caps or Grills were all the rage in the 80’s – a few weeks before I had filmed gold teeth being made and fitted at Eddie’s in Brooklyn at the Fulton Mall for ‘Slammin’ a VHS hip hop magazine.

A week or two after my shoot with Just-Ice, he popped by my studio to show me the little kitten he had adopted – he named him ‘Money Clip’.

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October 2nd, 2013

Photoville

Tomorrow is the last day to see the Photoville show in Dumbo – it is well worth a visit. LuxLab has a show called ‘Rebels; curated by Carl Saytor featuring, amongst others, my photo of Justin from The GoHardBoyz (above) – true rebels that ride dirt bikes in the Bronx and Harlem – more of them in my next post. The exhibitions are shown in metal shipping containers, there are some beautiful and shocking war images in the exhibition”Liberia -Remembering’, aCurator presents ‘Small Town Inertia’ black and white intense photographs by J A Motram, – and much more to see.

ytyty

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September 28th, 2013

Louis Mendes Street Photographer

I recently spent the morning with iconic street photographer Louis Mendes and his biographer Ray We met for an early breakfast in Harlem at his favorite tiny soul food diner.We walked around the neighborhood chatting and taking photos Then we went to his home in a converted old hotel by Times Square His room is stacked with photo books, old cameras, boxes of flash bulbs, photos cover the walls.

He used to photograph at nightclubs and has probably shot every one, the famous and not so famous He takes just one Polaroid which he sells to the subject He never thought to take one for himself

“”I just photograph people, I stand outside and wait for them to come to me. I give them a set price for a Polaroid photo if I need to buy a coffee or an extraordinary price if I need to fly away”

The idea that he is a documentary photographer seems strange to him He was just taking photographs of people for ‘coffee money’

Now 80 years old Louis can be found outside B&H Photo, Adorama or at an event at BAM, always impeccably dressed, still taking polaroid portraits – have him take your photo.

Posted in Art, Portraits, Street Style | 1 Comment » | ADD THIS
September 17th, 2013

Punk Hip Hop Free Speech

In 1988 rock critic Greil Marcus said : “Punk to me was a form of free speech. It was a moment when suddenly all kinds of strange voices that no reasonable person could ever have expected to hear in public were being heard all over the place.” His quote applies equally to Hip Hop “Yes yes y’all and you don’t stop”.

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September 3rd, 2013

Kangol

In 2012 I was in Manchester shooting bands for the 2012 Kangol catalog. This summer I shot another campaign for Kangol at the Governor’s Ball Music Festival on Governor’s Island. The weather had been unusually rainy, we had to carry the models across a sea of mud to shoot in front of the bands (above). Kangol had graffiti artists Ian’Alone’ and Ellis ‘Net’ decorating hats (below) and a British double decker bus parked on site. After the shoot we caught the headliner Kanye’s show. Back in the day many of the hip hop artists I shot wore Kangol everyone from LL Cool J to the Fearless Four. Musicians have rocked those hats for years . They are still stylin’

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September 1st, 2013

Out West

Watching ‘Breaking Bad’ reminds me of road trips out West, driving in New Mexico, Arizona, California, Texas. Deserted roads, neon signs, abandoned gas stations, motels, old cafes,reflections of life as it used to be on the road. Took these shots on cross country trips trying to see the other side of America. It’s still out there.

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September 1st, 2013

Afrika Bambaataa & Cornell’s Hip Hop archive

I just came back from the seeing a great Hip Hop exhibition at Cornell University in Ithaca. The Cornell University Library has the largest collection on Hip Hop culture in the world.

Right now Cornell and Johan Kugelberg are archiving Afrika Bambaataa’s amazing record collection of over 41,000 records. At the Gavin Brown Gallery on Greenwich St in NYC. DJ’s spin records and volunteers help to sort through the vinyl. All kinds of music : James Brown Evolution of the Mind, BT Express Does it Feel Good, Brothers Johnson Aint we Funkin’ Now, Salt n Pepa, Gill Scott Heron Midnight Band, Joyce Sims All and All, Stetsasonic,Donna Summer, The Spirit of Atlanta, Cash Money, Sylvester You Make Me feel Might Real, Deon and the Belmonts Live at Madison Square, and so many more.

So cool to pick up the original masters (which look and feel like 78’s) and to see how Bam labelled the records, sometime taping over the song titles so no one could see what he was playing. starring certain tracks, marking and numbering the sleeves and labels.

I first photographed Bam when he came to London in 1982 (above with DST – check the ‘Instamatic’ camera). That show changed my life.

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August 9th, 2013

Jamel Shabazz & Charlie Ahearn

Charlie Ahearn’s new documentary about Jamel Shabazz is showing at BAM on August 1st and 2nd

The documentary took 10 years to make, it was a a test of wills, a magnificent struggle between the two creatives: Jamel the brilliant street photographer and Charlie, the veteran film maker who’s movie ‘Wild Style’ which came out in 1983 featured Lee Quinones (another artist who perhaps preferred to remain on the shooting side of the camera – don’t we all?)

I was privileged to see an early edit of the movie last year – it is not to be missed – there will be panels featuring Charlie, Jamel, Fab 5 Freddie, Bobbito, Sharp and Dave Chino.

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August 1st, 2013

Shirt King Phade

Ed, aka Shirt King Phade came round to give me his book today. He had some jackets he had painted for a friend’s daughter in his bag. Ed started as a graffiti artist and because of his ‘love of the aerosol’ learned how to use an airbrush and put his art onto clothing.

“I had a shop in Jamiaca Queens that was just dedicated to airbrush art. All the rappers would come around, each day you never knew who would pop up – like one day LL Cool J would be there, or Big Daddy Kane, EPMD came all the way from Long Island. They tended to look at me and my team as ‘outfitters’ we weren’t tailors but we were able to put their dreams on their clothes”

Sweet T and Jazzy Joyce wearing a Shirt King sweater NYC 1987

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June 26th, 2013

Darlene Love – 20 Feet From Stardom

In 1985, working for the Daily News in New York City, I was sent to photograph rehearsals for the musical ‘Leader of the Pack’ starring Darlene Love (above centre), Ellie Greenwich and Annie Golden (above L) – listening to Darlene sing ‘Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)’ in that studio was a mind blowing experience.

Now Darlene Love is in the new movie ’20 Feet from Stardom’ – the inspiring, heartbreaking documentary about the most memorable voices in the world of backup singers who performed with world-famous musical acts, but mostly are not household names. Darlene Love was speaking at the screening on friday – groomed as a lead singer by Phil Spector, her un-credited voice was used in top hits of the ’60s like ‘He’s a Rebel’ – she says “It’s pretty debilitating to the spirit to see somebody else on television lip-syncing to the song you recorded”. In 2011 she finally got recognition she deserved when she was inducted into the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame.

The film also features Merry Clayton who tells the story of being summoned to a recording studio in the middle of the night, pregnant and with her hair in curlers, to record the incendiary vocal track with those immortal lines “Rape, murder! It’s just a shot away” on my all time favorite Rolling Stones song “Gimme Shelter.” Merry says “I said to myself, ‘I’m going to blow them out of this room,’ ”and she did.

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June 16th, 2013