Thirty years after the first mainstream rap song, Rapper's Delight, hit the US charts, what effect has hip-hop had on New York and wider American society?
Joe Conzo gets misty eyed when he recalls his teenage years in the South Bronx.
In those days, taking pictures was his hobby - one which led to him photographing black and Latino youths dancing to a new type of music, with its own distinctive forms of dance and art. The scene would later be christened hip-hop.
More than 30 years on, this New York fire service paramedic is a celebrated photographer best known for his book Born in the Bronx.
Mr Conzo, who the New York Times dubbed "the man who took hip-hop's baby pictures", recalls MCs, DJs, graffiti artists and breakdancers forming a "collective body of different elements that created the culture" of youth in the Bronx in the late 70s.
"The energy during those park jams was unreal. I was dumfounded by the breakbeats - the collective sampling of different kinds of music," he says.
He was "kidnapped" by the nascent culture that germinated at sun-kissed parties in 1977 and 78, he explains.
The Full Story
No comments:
Post a Comment