Hip Hop « Archive of Attitude

Hip Hop

Dre Dre & Dillon Cooper

This month Interview Magazine features my photo of new ‘young blood’ rapper Dillon Cooper (above) wearing Alexander Wang and Nike. shot in NYC December 2013. Dillon age 21 grew up in Crown Heights Brooklyn. He immersed himself in hip-hop in High School learning how to rap to Dr Dre’s classic ‘Nuthin’but a ‘G’ Thang’. Now part of the ‘Beast Coast’ movement he self released a debut mix tape “Cozmik’ last June.

Esquire Magazine, this month, is running my archive photo of Dr Dre (below) wearing a Raiders cap Nike top and K Swiss sneakers, shot in Los Angeles in 1990. He’s been listening to music for as long as he can remember. His mother has a picture of him in a onesie putting a needle to a turntable. He says “You can learn but in order to be good at it, to be really great at it, it has to be in you” Dr Dre now 48 years old, is a rapper, producer and headphone magnate.

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January 14th, 2014

Afrika Bambaataa 2013

Trying to reach Afrika Bambaataa for a cover story for Jocks & Nerds in November was a difficult task. Everyone that knows him loves him but he can be a little elusive. Finally, we arranged to meet at 5pm at the National Black Theater on 126th St in Harlem where he was going to meet members of the Zulu Nation. Sitting outside the theatre at 5pm with writer Sara Rosen I was nervous that somehow he would not turn up. I wanted to shoot his portrait in daylight and had scouted an appropriate spot. The sun was starting to go down when we spotted him rolling down the street with a couple of friends. People were coming up to him to hug him and talk. He greets everyone with love. I introduced myself and gave him some photos that I had taken when I first met him back in 1982. Just as the sun was starting to sink below the Harlem skyline Bam posed for me for maybe 10 minutes, he politely refused to take off his wrap around sunglasses – if that is the way he wants to look that is how I will photograph him, documentary style. He made the cover with a great interview by my girl Ms Rosen.

Pictured above : Bambaataa Harlem 2013 – below: Bambaataa London 1982 with members of the Rock Steady Crew

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January 6th, 2014

Leaders of the New School

I photographed the group Leaders of the New School in 1989 in my studio. We had artist friends the ‘ThunderJockeys’ paint a crazy backdrop for the shoot.Check out the video clip I made at the studio. The group : Busta Rhymes, Cut Monitor Milo, Charlie Brown and Dinco D were from Uniondale Long Island. Next day we went to Uniondale and photographed them at their school.The group went on tour with Public Enemy and Busta Rhymes became famous.

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January 5th, 2014

Grand Mixer D.ST

Grand Mixer D.ST in London 1982 on the first hip hop tour to Paris and London traveling with the Rock Steady Crew , Afrika Bambaataa , Futura 2000 , Dondi , Fab 5 Freddy , Infinity 4 Emcees , Double Dutch Girls , Phase 2. D.ST started spinning around 1975 and got the name D.ST.from D Street which is what they called Delancey St. where he used to hang out. He was the house DJ at the Roxy and spins on Herbie Hancocks ‘Rock It ‘.

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January 2nd, 2014

Style Wars 2

Style Wars 2 is a homage to Henry Chalfont’s 1983 movie Style Wars. The directors Velli and Amos who hail from Slovenia and Switzerland say when they saw Style Wars for the first time they fell in love with the movie and the artists : “We watched it so many times we were quoting it constantly – it started getting bigger and bigger.The artists were our idols. Then we made the movie with our pocket money. It took us five years”

Devi (above) is a contemporary graffiti artist who represents the artist Skeme from the original movie.

It is a mystery who’ bombed’ the train painted with the name ‘Style Wars’ we see in ‘SW2” Devi says it wasn’t him but we think he may be undercover …. In any case SW2 is a hilarious tribute to the original.

Graffiti : ‘The uninvited appropriation of public space. The public expression of an individual for others to enjoy’

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November 11th, 2013

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

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

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