The front rows at the latest menswear and Haute Couture shows featured all the coolest stars from the world of rap. Fashion houses must be fans of the RapCaviar playlist on Spotify, as Doja Cat was at Schiaparelli's show, JT from the City Girls at Mugler's, Polo G at Louis Vuitton and Kenzo's, and Tyga and Usher at Louis Vuitton's (just to mention a few artists who were at the shows). Yet, rap is one of the elements of hip-hop and, if you want to rediscover the roots of this cultural movement, there's an exhibition currently on at New York's Fotografiska that you may want to check out.
Co-curated by Sacha Jenkins and Sally Berman, respectively Chief Creative Officer and former Director of Photography at Mass Appeal (the exhibition is organised in partnership with the magazine), "Hip-Hop: Conscious, Unconscious" (running until 21 May) celebrates the 50th anniversary of the movement, through 200 photographs taken from five decades.
The exhibition explores hip-hop, one of the most influential pop culture movements that evolved throughout the decades generating a multi-billion dollar industry, through its four elements - rapping, DJing, breakdancing, and graffiti - as well as several debated "fifth elements", including fashion and beatboxing.
There are many stories to discover and rediscover thanks to a photographic selection that shows a genuine passion for the main topic of the exhibition.
"Hip-Hop" features indeed many rare or unusual shots, such as Martha Cooper's 1981 portrait of Frosty Freeze of Rock Steady Crew rehearsing against a graffiti backdrop painted by T-Kid.
The photographs, on display on two floors, are accompanied by archival ephemera that help contextualizing the images. The photographic selection features portraits of iconic stars, but also more intimate shots chronicling the parable of the movement through the lens of a variety of photographers.
There are biggest stars, but there are also images celebrating the women artists who emerged in this male-dominated scene. Besides, there is also a visual investigation of hip-hop's regional and stylistic diversification and different areas are tackled, from the East Coast and West Coast to the South, together with the newer wave of artists who have emerged since the mid-aughts.
The exhibition begins in the early '70s, when hip-hop started in the Bronx as a social and cultural movement by-and-for the local community of African, Latino, and Caribbean Americans; the early images also chronicle a period of economic distress when unemployment rates were high.
In a press release, Jenkins defines the early works included in the exhibition as "more reportage or documentary-style," explaining that people then were just "trying to be local celebrities and superstars at their high school gym or in a park outside."
One image from 1972 by Jean-Pierre Laffont shows young members of the New York street gang Savage Skulls in The Bronx. Laffront explains in the picture notes that they formed a sort of large and close family, spending time with their relatives and playing with each other's babies.
The documentary style continues in the images of the next decade such as Jamel Shabazz's Flying High (1982), portraying a boy cavorting on a pile of discarded mattresses.
"It's easy to forget that there was a time before hip-hop was an industry and before it made money," states Jenkins. "It wasn't conscious of itself. It was just existing with young people living their lives, dressing as they did, trying to entertain themselves with limited resources and creating an aesthetic that registered amongst themselves. It wasn't for the world; it was for a very specific community. Then there was an exponentially paced transition where hip-hop culture became conscious of itself as an incredibly lucrative global export. The exhibition's lifeblood is the period before hip-hop knew what it was."
This section also features Henry Chalfant's early 1980s images of Brooklyn, Bronx, Queens, and Downtown Manhattan, with a focus on graffiti writers, breakdancing and block parties and Janette Beckman's late-1980s to early-1990s street-style portraits of hip-hop's living legends.
There is a casual and carefree mood that characterises the early images in black and white, at times portraying artists such as Grandmaster Flash, Public Enemy, De La Soul and Run DMC. A picture by Josh Cheuse shows Run DMC's feet under the tables at The Fresh Fest press conference in 1985, all of them are wearing Adidas Superstar sneakers, the protagonists of their 1986 single "My Adidas", part of their personal uniforms and a symbol of the hip-hop scene.
As time passed, photographers captured some vital changes in the styles and in the industry, with images becoming little by little more staged and sophisticated. "The attire gets fancier; the settings change," Jenkins says. "You get mainstream signifiers of luxury like private jets and nice cars and iced-out chains and swagger-filled poses. The photographic chronology itself mirrors the evolution of hip-hop, from documentary-style to full on productions."
Styles and poses started changing in the '90s, as proved by Geoffroy de Boismenu's 1994 portrait of The Notorious BIG smoking a spliff and Shawn Mortensen's 1993 photograph of Tupac in a straitjacket, even though Eddie Otchere's 1998 shot of Talib Kweli & Yasiin Bey aka Mos Def enjoying a meal in a Brooklyn diner while taking a break from shooting the album artwork for "Mos Def & Talib Kweli are Black Star", is reminiscent of the early informal shots included in the exhibition.
In this male-dominated environment where misogyny thrives, curators emphasized the role of women in hip-hop. Cheryl "Salt" James, Sandra "Pepa" Denton and Deidra "DJ Spinderella" Roper, look like cool superheroines in their Spandex bodysuits from the "Push It" video, in a 1987 picture by Janette Beckman.
The theme of female empowerment in a male-dominated industry is widely explored in the exhibition. Rap music in the '90s tended to objectify women, but the artists featured here are remembered for their contributions to the scene: Cindy Campbell, the first hip-hop promoter known for organizing the first hip-hop party at 1520 Sedgwick Avenue; American singer and record label executive Sylvia Robinson, who produced singles "Rapper's Delight" by the Sugarhill Gang and "The Message" by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, and MC Sha-Rock, the front woman of Funky 4 + 1, the first hip-hop group ever to perform on national television in 1981. Portraits include Missy Elliott by Christian Witkin; Queen Latifah, looking regal in one of her trademark headdresses, large earrings and oversized cuff, in a 1990 pic by Jesse Frohman; Eve, portrayed in 2001 by Sacha Waldman; Mary J. Blige at the very beginning of her career photographed by Lisa Leone after the artist had signed her first record deal and Lauryn Hill portrayed with Wyclef Jean on an East Harlem rooftop while shooting the music video for "Vocab".
Some of the icons celebrated in this section paved the way to contemporary artists: Missy Elliot is the main influence behind alternative rappers like Tierra Whack, while pussy rap icon Lil' Kim inspired Nicki Minaj, Cardi B, Megan Thee Stallion and Rico Nasty. Female photographers like Martha Cooper, Sophie Bramly and Catherine McGann are also celebrated.
"We made a thoughtful effort to have the presence of women accurately represented, not overtly singling them out in any way," Berman states about this section.
"You'll turn a corner and there will be a stunning portrait of Eve or a rare and intimate shot of Lil' Kim that most visitors won't have seen before. There are far fewer women than men in hip-hop, but the ones that made their mark have an electrifying presence - just like the effect of their portraits interspersed throughout the show."
Different forces - including fashion conglomerates and the luxury market - have been trying to absorb the style and contents of hip-hop and co-opt the coolest rap stars in the last few years to exploit the movement. The exhibition tries to rediscover instead the humanity and authenticity of hip-hop by returning to its roots and looking also at gang culture.
Jenkins sees it as the precursor to hip-hop in terms of creating an identity for yourself. "When you're a gang member, you can call yourself 'Bozo five-oh-five', right? And that became your identity separate from the identity that your parents gave you. And so hip-hop was the same idea. You came with a name for yourself as a rapper, you came with a name for yourself as a graffiti artist, and you took that name and you tried to make something of yourself and something of the name. So that idea of people who typically were not recognized by society, finding a way to make a society for themselves by creating an identity that they can own. Because ownership is really the key with hip hop. Young people were able to create something that they owned. If you were a break dancer and your name was Frosty Freeze and you were really good, you own the Frosty Freeze brand and people respected you for that."
The exhibition is accompanied by a rich programme of events, including panel discussions, film screenings and even a dance workshop.
After New York, "Hip-Hop. Conscious, Unconscious" will travel to Fotografiska Stockholm and Fotografiska Berlin. The event is also perfectly timed with another exhibition dedicated to the 50th anniversary of hip-hop, "Fresh, Fly, and Fabulous: Fifty Years of Hip Hop Style", opening next week at The Museum at FIT and exploring the cultural movement from the point of view of fashion and style.
Image credits for this post
All images in this post courtesy of Fotografiska New York and copyright of the artists.
1. Grand Master Flash, Debbie Harry, Fab 5 Freddy, Chris Stein of Blondie and friend, 1981, by Charlie Ahearn
2. Frosty Freeze of Rock Steady Crew rehearsing against a graffiti backdrop painted by T-Kid, for Henry Chalfant's event, "Graffiti Rock" at Common Ground performance space in Soho, NYC. The photo, by Martha Cooper, appeared on the cover of the Village Voice, April 22, 1981.
3. JDL, Skate Palace, 1982, by Joe Conzo
4. DJ Competition New Music Seminar New York City, 1984, by Josh Cheuse
5. Young members of the New York street gang Savage Skulls in The Bronx, 1972, by Jean-Pierre Laffont
6. Run DMC's feet under the table at The Fresh Fest press conference, 1985, by Josh Cheuse
7. PUBLIC ENEMY - Lafayette & Bleecker, New York City, circa 1986, by Glen Friedman
8. Notorious B.I.G. #01, 1994, by Geoffroy de Boismenu
9. Salt'n'Pepa Lower East Side NYC, 1986, by Janette Beckman
10. Missy Elliott, Photographed for Spin Magazine, New York City, 1998, by Christian Witkin
11. Queen Latifah, Sky Magazine, 1990, by Jesse Frohman
12. Wyclef Jean and Lauryn Hill, East Harlem, New York City, 1993, by Lisa Leone
13. Nicki Minaj originally photographed for Vibe magazine at Court Square Diner in Queens, NY on May 20, 2008, by Angela Boatwright
14. Eve, 2001, by Sacha Waldman
15. Tribe Called Quest, 1990, by Janette Beckman
16. Megan Thee Stallion posing for The Cut Magazine, 2022, by Campbell Addy
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