Hip Hop

5 Pointz

5 Pointz is old school New York – a living changing graffiti museum in Long Island City. Every spare spaces, walls, street lights, doors, dumpsters is covered by art made by legends of the graff world.

On the side streets guys are cleaning the donut carts that serve Wall st types downtown in the morning – oblivious to their sourroundings as they fill trash bags with the last of the unsold donuts  and cofee grounds, and crush the kosher donut company carboard boxes – french and spanish rap music is blaring,  the trains are rattling overhead.

5 Pointz is a hub for graffiti artists from around the world, constantly changing and  also honoring the legends passed like Dondi White.

Scheduled to be demolished to make way for condominiums – please sign a petition to preserve this icon of NYC

Update November 24th 2013 : Early Tuesday, under the cover of night, painters quietly blanketed much of the walls of 5Pointz with whitewash, erasing the work of hundreds and seemingly putting the final nail in the long battle between the building’s owners, who plan to erect luxury apartments, and the artists who fought to save it.

“This is the biggest rag and disrespect in the history of graffiti,” said a teary-eyed Marie Cecile Flaguel, a spokeswoman for the group behind 5Pointz, which sprang like a rainbow from the gray sidewalks near Jackson Avenue in Long Island City. “He’s painted over the work of at least 1,500 artists.”

Doin’ it in the Park

Walking home this afternoon, camera in hand looking for locations for next week’s photo shoot,  New York City is sizzling 90F – stop to watch a street ball pick up game happening on Bowery and Houston -guys asked me if I wanted to take a photo – yes!  I just saw ‘Doin it in the Park‘ a great movie which explains the history of street basketball. The first time I came to NYC back in early 1980’s I got off the subway at West 4th Street, the smell of popcorn and piss in the air, stood fascinated watching the game on the 4th Street court aka ‘The Cage’ on a hot summer day. Welcome to New York.

Adam Yauch Park

Adam Yauch Park is a peaceful oasis in Brooklyn under a highway on-ramp, kids play basketball and ride their scooters in the sunshine. Adam Yauch aka MCA, grew up here, playing in this playground and learning to ride his bike. The formerly named Palmetto Playground was renamed Adam Yauch Park to mark the one-year anniversary of his passing on May 4th.

“Born and bred in Brooklyn the U.S.A./
They call me Adam Yauch but I’m M.C.A.”

“No Sleep Til Brooklyn,” The Beastie Boys

LL Cool J


LL Cool J (Ladies Love Cool James) is releasing a new album ‘Authentic’ at the end of this month.

I took his first promo photograph (below) back in 1985. The then seventeen year old LL Cool J seemed shy when he arrived in my downtown studio with Bill Adler, the PR for Def Jam ( keeper of the great hiphop ‘Adler ‘archives) carrying a huge boom box . Two years, and many hits, later I photographed him again on the street (above) with Cut Creator, E Love and B-Rock for the British music weekly Melody Maker. He was still rocking the Kangol with bigger gold chains and more confidence. The New York Times claimed he radiated ” the charisma of the young Muhammad Ali”

These days he is one of hip hop’s great success stories, a movie actor and star of  the TV series ‘NCIS: Los Angeles’. Looking forward to seeing the NY show at Roseland.

Salt-N-Pepa Burton Lifebeat

Burton Snowboards has a new collaboration with hip-hop artists Salt-N-Pepa introducing a special-edition 2014 Burton Lip-Stick board available to the public next fall. The board was developed with Lifebeat, a nonprofit HIV/AIDS prevention organization that Salt-N-Pepa has been involved with since the early ’90s. The Burton creative team and Lifebeat came to my studio about six months ago to choose a photo for the board.

Sandy “Pepa” Denton says : “Burton and Lifebeat wanted to represent that particular moment in the hip-hop era, and out of all the pictures to choose from, when they picked this one I had to agree it was the best. When you think of Salt-N-Pepa, you remember this picture, these jackets. They called it the “Push It” jacket! If someone’s dressed up as Salt-N-Pepa for Halloween, this is what they’re dressed up like.

This was our take on that gold-chain-and-door-knocker-earrings b-boy stance era. It’s a great photo by Janette Beckman, and Play, from Kid ‘n Play, actually designed these jackets for us. … So there’s a lot of stories and a lot of memories behind that photo for us. Those were good times. The ’80s rocked!”

Salt-N-Pepa you rock!

Crash on Houston St

Crash was painting this beautiful mural featuring Popeye on Houston and Bowery in New York City today. And there was legendary photographer Martha Cooper signing her book, being photographed by more legends Joe Conzo and Francisco Reyes II, good to see them all and meet graffiti artists Bio, Wane and BG183

Tuki Caracas

There is a new genre of break dance and music in Venezuela – it is called Tuki. One day Marianna drove us to Petare a huge barrio clustered on a hill in the Palo Verde district. Across the street at the bottom of Petare is the Tuki school. There’s a courtyard, guys playing basketball, people hanging out watching the game, dance studios, graffiti and  murals of Chavez painted on the walls.

‘Tuki’ is a music and dance style stemming from hard house and techno and it primarily came from the barrios of Venezuela.The music is a variation of “Changa”  a Venezuelan slang word from the 90s meaning “House music”. The sound developed into a music style called Raptor House, which gave birth to Tuki. A dancer tells me ‘There was a  perception that if you were Tuki you were a criminal but you’d rather see your son dancing than going out robbing’ . Tuki mixes Venezuelan street styles and pop culture – and just like hip hop came from people making ‘Something from nothing’

Respect to DJ Baba, His Majesty from the Raptor House Crew, DJ Yirvin, Elbert El Maestro, DJ Kike Abstractor, Branko J Wow, DJ De Ville, Parla Burgos, Joel Arritos, Andrews Guitiar-Locaotor, Anthony El Hiredero, Junior El Alucinante , Daniel Goillen Robots and many more.

Caracas Youth Culture in Los Dos Caminos

“In Caracas if you don’t have attitude you are dead”

We  took our students from Roberto Mata’s photo school to shoot in Los Dos Caminos, a square where the Caracas youth go to skateboard and hang out in the afternoon. The square was jumping, kids breakdancing, skateboarding, just chilling after school, met some of Caracas’ rap community P.Lu.K, Rone, and friends who generously posed for the class in a graffiti bombed alley around the corner. Many Venezuelan parents do not allow their kids out on the street as kidnapping and robbery are so prevalent in the city. It was great to see this square full of youth just enjoying themselves on a sunny afternoon.

Venezuela Hip Hop School Tiuna El Fuerte

Visited Tiuna El Fuerte,  a community based cultural center in the dusty El Valle neighborhood of Caracas  Built from old shipping containers piled one on top of the other made into a recording studio, a store with spray cans of all colors, an underground performance space, classrooms, for art, hip hop, break dancing workshops, It is funded by the government and run by the rap artists Apache aka Cultur MC and Piky (below) who teach the local community the four elements of hip hop.

Tiuna El Fuerte is a c

Made in New York- the 1980’s

Inspired by Penguin paperbacks, fanzines and artist Edward Ruscha’s series, I decided to self publish these small books in a limited edition featuring mostly unseen photographs from my archives of the times.  Order them from me directly or get them at Bookmarc and Dashwood. The third book ‘Made in New York -the 1980’s’ is just out.