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.