Hip Hop « Archive of Attitude

Hip Hop

Patti Astor Fun Gallery

On Saturday I went to Patti Astor’s long awaited book launch for the ‘Fun Gallery ..the true story’, it was jammed with her friends, artists from back in the days : Bill Stelling (co owner of the gallery), Jane Dickson, Collette, Charlie Ahearn (above) and many more.

Patti Astor started the Fun Gallery with Bill Stelling in 1981, they gave the first shows to many artists including Basquiat, Lee Quinones, SHARP, Keith Haring, Fab 5 Freddy, Cey One, Zephyr, and Revolt. It got it’s name when Kenny Scharf’s show “Atoms Can Be Fun” filled the front window with doomed, melting figures. The space was constantly changing – Dondi White flooded the Fun with graffiti heads collected from every borough in New York, Jane Dickson painted the space neon green to hang her gritty cityscapes on vinyl and Lee Quinones covered the front with a huge sprayed “MOM.

I first encountered graffiti artists in London while working for Melody Maker in 1981 where I photographed Futura and Dondi (below) at the first hip hop event to come to the UK. A month later I shot rapper/artist J Water Negro (below) for the Christmas cover of the magazine. In 1982 I moved to New York and a few years later I was living on Avenue B and 8th Street, riding on graff covered trains and going to art shows at the Fun Gallery, Gracie Mansion, PPOW et al. Patti’s book is a great read, it totally captures the crazy early 80’s East Village art scene.

October 9th, 2012

Adam Yauch and The Beastie Boys

RIP Adam Yauch aka MCA, one of the founders of the Beastie Boys. The group were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame just two weeks ago.

I shot this photo of the Beastie Boys for Rolling Stone in 1985 – they arrived with their producer Rick Rubin who had signed them to his label Def Jam. Their songs like “(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (to Party)” and “No Sleep Till Brooklyn” changed the world of hip hop.

May 4th, 2012

Ricky Powell

Ricky Powell invited me to photograph him in his natural habitat in the West Village – I call him the ‘Lenny Bruce of hip hop’ The legendary photographer and ‘Professor of the Rickford Institute’ is an original- born in New York City 50 years ago, he lives the life. His apartment is crazy, stuff spilling off the shelves, sports memorabilia, jazz records, old magazines, well thumbed books, graffiti on the walls, an empty wine bottle covered in photos from Ron Galella, girlie pics, empty champagne bottles, beer bottles, sneakers, photos and film canisters.

Ricky interviewed me last year for Frank Magazine – we were sitting on a park bench in Washington Square Park, that he called ‘his office’ one afternoon, He seemed to know everyone in the park ‘Oh Shit there goes ..’ jumps up and takes their photo with his trusty Minolta AF2 Hi-Matic camera, stops to yell “Shut up!” at some loud teenage girls and comes back to the bench to ask me some more crucial questions. He said he wanted to ‘peep my shit’ which he did in Frank 151 Chapter 43.

Legend has it that he ditched a job selling Frozade ices to go on the ‘Raising Hell’ tour with the Beastie Boys and Run DMC, he acted like a ‘rascal’ and was immortalized in rhyme with the line, “Homeboy, throw in the towel/Your girl got dicked by Ricky Powell.”

Ricky is the man ! and a pretty good photographer too.

May 4th, 2012

International Center of Photography – my summer course

I am teaching a workshop on Youth Culture, documentary and street photography at the International Center of Photography in NYC this July. Everyone is welcome – film and digital

I’ve been documenting street style and youth culture ever since I first spotted the ‘Islington Twins’ in the school yard of the college I was teaching at in London back in 1977. My blog is the Archive of Attitude and to my mind street style and youth culture express just that – it is about the style and attitude (see my photo of ‘Mod Girl London 1976’ above)

Youth culture and street styles are important in the history of photography – photographer’s have been documenting them since August Sander first took photos of the working population in Germany in the late 19th Century, Danny Lyon shot bikers in America in the 1960’s and Jamel Shabazz shot the hip hop kids he saw on the street in New York in the 1980’s. Today photographers like Bill Cunningham at the NY Times and the Satorialist document current fashion on the street.

These days when every face on magazine covers looks ‘perfect’ – not a hair out of place, not a wrinkle – it is even more important to document and appreciate the amazing people we see everyday on the streets.

I shot this photograph of Run DMC and posse on the street where they lived in Queens in 1984.

Occupy Wall Street demonstration 2011

Claude Serieux in Paris 2012.

April 21st, 2012

Live By The Gun Die By the Gun

News today of yet more innocent people killed in a shooting at a college in CA, seven dead. Trayvon Martin, an innocent student, was shot in FLA on his way home from the deli (still no arrest of the self confessed shooter). A Toulouse gunman opened fire at a children’s school last month and admitted to killing seven people. Lat year in Norway a gunman shot more than eighty people at a summer camp. Shootings are an everyday thing these days, look at these school shooting numbers: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_shooting#2010s_-_Present

Andre Charles painted this mural on Houston Street the day that Tupac was shot in 1996 ‘Live By The Gun – Die By The Gun’. If people are permitted to have lethal weapons they will use them.

April 2nd, 2012

Keith Haring

In 1985 I was working for the New York Daily News Magazine. I got the job to photograph one of my favorite artists Keith Haring whose work I had admired on NYC subway and neighborhood walls. I went over to his downtown studio one afternoon.

Every bit of the studio was covered in art, cutouts, paintings, drawings, graffiti – it was an amazing place. And there was Keith, a lovely friendly man who happily posed for me for a couple of hours. He gave me a huge signed Free South Africa poster which has pride of place in my studio to this day. Look out for the retrospective at the Brooklyn Museum opening March 16.

“The East Village …was just exploding. All kinds of new things were starting. In music, it was the punk and New Wave scenes. There was a migration of artists from all over America to New York. It was completely wild. And we controlled it ourselves” KH in Rolling Stone interview 1989

February 28th, 2012

Back In The Days Paris

At La Bellevilloise in Paris – some very cool people, everyone into ‘Old School’.

And a nice French interview online as well as on TV.

Did I mention that a French journalist called me the ‘Anti Annie Leibovitz’ which is hilarious. Let’s just say I have a simpler way of taking a photo. I met Ms Leibovitz, many years ago in a hotel elevator in Texas. We were both there to shoot the tennis player Martina Navratilova. Annie had six assistants and twenty bags of photo equipment – I had one assistant and two bags .. I prefer to keep it simple

February 19th, 2012

Jose James

This weekend I photographed Jose James on the Bowery – he sings both jazz and hip hop (and has a great barber). Just back from touring the world with jazz luminary McCoy Tyner, he has recorded with DJ Giles Peterson, Taylor McFerrin, Basement Jaxx and many more – catch him performing at the Brooklyn Museum on December 15th.

December 6th, 2011

George Clinton & Bootsy Collins at the Apollo

Last night at the Apollo in Harlem George Clinton aka ‘Dr Funkenstein’ founder of Parliament Funkadelic was honored with an all star tribute featuring Bootsy Collins, Sheila E, Bernie Worrell, Nona Hendryx, Vernon Reid, Ray Chew, Paul Shaffer (who according to a source was considering wearing a diaper, in honor of Gary Shider, but ended up sporting just the diaper pin) and many more.

Bootsy Collins celebrated his 60th birthday by taking a walk across the audience.

Bootsy’s gorgeous wife Patti wearing peace sign eye wear

Bernie Worrell ‘s solo was beautiful. An all around ‘moog’ genius who studied at Juilliard, he has been compared to Beethoven, Jimi Hendrix and Duke Ellington