Fly sunglasses, gold chains, cool hats and massive boomboxes are just a few of the accessories that make the photographs in Back In The Days seem so fresh. Inspired by the television mini-series Roots, Brooklyn native Jemel Shabazz began photographing the people in his neighborhood, and ended up documenting the birth of hip-hop fashion. “My mission was simple,” he writes in his introduction, “Travel throughout the city and capture the beauty and true essence of a people, starting with the teenagers.” Shabazz took these photos between 1980 and 1989, and many of them represent hip-hop style before its look became codified into Kangol hats and unlaced Adidas.
Back In The Days has plenty of style, but it’s freedom of expression and the joy of youth that give this book its visual spark…
Listen: My Adidas [Run-DMC]
Listen: I Can’t Live Without My Radio [LL Cool J]
Listen: Stoop Rap [Double Trouble, aka Rodney Cee & KK Rockwell]
Tags: Adidas, Back In The Days, Double Trouble, Jemel Shabazz, KK Rockwell, Lil' Rodney Cee, LL Cool J, Roots, Run-DMC
27 July 2011 at 6:44 pm |
This is why we capture images…well done!