{"id":4126,"date":"2021-04-28T12:57:08","date_gmt":"2021-04-28T12:57:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/me\/?post_type=articles&p=4126"},"modified":"2021-04-28T13:09:42","modified_gmt":"2021-04-28T13:09:42","slug":"bigger-than-hip-hop","status":"publish","type":"articles","link":"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/me\/articles\/bigger-than-hip-hop\/","title":{"rendered":"Why The Contact High Exhibition is Bigger Than Hip-Hop"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Notorious B.I.G may have rapped, \u201cYou never thought that hip-hop would take it this far\u201d in the 1994 anthem ‘Juicy’, but few could\u2019ve predicted that by 2020, the crown he wore in Barron Claiborne\u2019s iconic King of New York portrait would go under the hammer for $594,750. Biggie\u2019s crown was among the hip-hop memorabilia at Sotheby\u2019s inaugural auction dedicated to hip-hop, with other priceless pieces including Salt-N-Pepa\u2019s ‘Shake Your Thang’ jackets, DJ Ross One\u2019s boombox installation The Wall of Boom<\/em>, and a sealed 12-inch single of ‘Beat Bop’ with cover art by Jean-Michel Basquiat, plus experiences such as a lyric-writing lesson with Rakim, and a private atelier appointment with Dapper Dan, the hip-hop tailor of Harlem. Proceeds from the auction, a total of $2,075,250, were donated to the Queens Public Library Foundation, to support its hip-hop programmes, and charities nominated by the artists themselves.
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The Wall of Boom<\/em> by DJ Ross One, an art installation featuring 32 vintage boomboxes as a working sound system sold for US$113,400 at the Sotheby’s Hip-Hop auction<\/span><\/p>\n

Fab 5 Freddy, whose 2013 painting Move The Crowd<\/em> and gold and diamond MTV ring commissioned for the show Yo! MTV Raps<\/em> went for well over their asking prices at $22,680 and $35,280 respectively, reveals, \u201cI had paintings come up for auction at Sotheby\u2019s prior, but the context of this show was unique because it looked at hip-hop culture across a broad spectrum. I thought it was really bold and kind of revolutionary, and I was super-impressed to see the works they curated. Sotheby\u2019s can sell a work on paper by any number of artists that are worth an astronomical amount of money, but that\u2019s typically what they do. This got them an avalanche of attention because it was so unique. And I was quite pleased with the outcome as well,\u201d he smiles.<\/p>\n

The visual artist, filmmaker and hip-hop pioneer is currently curating Contact High: A Visual History of Hip-Hop<\/em> \u2013 an exhibition based on the book of the same name by Vikki Tobak \u2013 at Manarat Al Saadiyat in Abu Dhabi until 31 May 2021, in association with Sole. \u201cOf course, obviously the big sale was Biggie\u2019s crown, which is still a part of the Contact High<\/em> exhibit \u2013 luckily Barron had another one done \u2013 so we see the sister to the crown that went for over half a million dollars.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The crown worn by Biggie in Barron Claiborne’s 1997 King of New York<\/em> shoot is part of the Contact High exhibition at Manarat Al Saadiyat in Abu Dhabi<\/span><\/p>\n

Vikki admits, \u201cTo me, the Sotheby\u2019s auction was incredible to see happen. It was definitely a milestone. I was also looking at it through the eyes of an archivist. What happens to these objects of hip-hop culture that came from a community, to how they\u2019re being made accessible to scholars, to people from that community? I guess you could say I was having mixed feelings about it a little bit. You know, happy, but also concerned in the long term, because I think this material needs to be accessible.\u201d<\/p>\n

The author continues, \u201cAnd I was so pleased that Fab\u2019s archives went to Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem, which is part of the New York Public Library, and will be accessible for years to come. I know a couple of the pieces from the Sotheby\u2019s show were bought by museums, so I was also happy that the culture is being treated with consideration by institutions, which also speaks to what Contact High<\/em> is about.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The eponymous exhibition in Abu Dhabi is based on the book Contact High: A Visual History of Hip-Hop<\/em> by Vikki Tobak (Clarkson Potter). SHOP NOW<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Published in 2018, Contact High<\/em> charts the history of hip-hop from the late \u201970s via the Golden Age, up to the present day via the archives \u2013 and anecdotes \u2013 of its most influential photographers. These include seminal album covers such as Drew Carolan\u2019s Follow The Leader shoot for Eric B. and Rakim; Danny Clinch\u2019s captures for Nas\u2019 ‘Illmatic’ \u2013 shot when he was interning for Annie Leibovitz and of course Barron Claiborne\u2019s iconic image of Biggie. \u201cIt\u2019s like the Mona Lisa<\/em> of hip-hop,\u201d Vikki explains. \u201cAt the time of that photo, Barron was a young Black photographer and he was very intentional with what he wanted to do on that shoot \u2013 he wanted to photograph Biggie as a king, as royalty, was in response to how young Black men were being portrayed in mainstream media, at least that\u2019s what Barron says. The inspiration was that he wanted to show a more nuanced image of a man, so I think that\u2019s equally powerful, given that Barron himself was a young Black man when he took that photo.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another moving moment is Armen Djerrahian\u2019s photo of Mos Def attending a police brutality rally in New York in 2000. \u201cActivism is a big part of the photos, and that Mos Def photo came right on time,\u201d Vikki points out. \u201cAll these themes in society that we talk about today, you can see in these photos. We were having those conversations. Frank Ocean talking about Black masculinity and what does that look like going forward. Photos of Cardi B and Nicki Minaj talking about how women in hip-hop evolved, and making a powerful statement of being in control of their careers and not having to look a certain way unless they want to, unless that\u2019s authentically them. So you can find everything in the photos, they\u2019re all right there.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Mos Def attends a rally against police brutality in New York in 2000, captured by Armen Djerrahian<\/span><\/p>\n

The fact that the culture\u2019s most enduring images have found their way into a gallery in the Middle East comes as no surprise to Fab 5 Freddy, who\u2019s been an advocate of hip-hop as an art form and was pushing the idea of elevating graffiti from the sides of trains in Brooklyn onto canvas since he starred in the breakthrough film Wild Style in 1982. \u201cI just had a vibe that that was the right thing that needed to happen at that time,\u201d he shrugs. \u201cI wasn\u2019t trying to take it off of the trains,\u201d he clarifies. \u201cI just think it expanded the arena, the audience, the challenge, if you will. To take the work into another space is what I felt needed to happen, so that\u2019s what I was about helping to facilitate.\u201d<\/p>\n

And if there was any doubt about his impact in hip-hop\u2019s cultural crossover, take it from Debbie Harry, who namechecks him in the lyrics to the Blondie song ‘Rapture’ when she raps \u201cFab 5 Freddy told me everybody\u2019s fly.\u201d He recalls, \u201cPersonally, when I became connected with people in the Downtown New York cultural scene, people like Blondie and people in bands and other underground filmmakers had a similar sensibility. So, at the time when no one really embraced any of this culture \u2013 the rap, the painting, the dancing \u2013 I felt like that would be an audience that would have an open mind, creatively and on many different levels, and I was right about that. So that was really a big challenge, because I saw that what they were doing culturally was crossing over into mainstream, or getting mainstream recognition, and that included The Clash \u2013 the British new wave and punk guys \u2013 who I was very close to as well,\u201d he adds, painting a picture of quite the coterie. \u201cThey all embraced what we were doing, as did similar people in the Downtown New York scene. Once I\u2019d won over people in that audience, they became supporters. That helped to tell a story and that helped to push the narrative along.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The rare 12-inch of Rammellzee vs K-Rob\u2019s 1983 single ‘Beat Bop’, with cover art designed by jean-Michel Basquiat, which sold at auction for US$126,000, courtesy of Sotheby\u2019s<\/span><\/p>\n

On his role as a connector of cultures, social classes and musical movements, he concedes, \u201cI\u2019m just an artist, trying to make art, trying to create a space for myself and for my homies, which was my intention back then. I was inspired by other historical art movements, particularly in Europe \u2013 the Constructivists from Russia, the Futurists in Italy, the Surrealists. They had these kinds of ideas about really doing something focused, radical and game-changing. I found it fascinating and wanted to do something similar with graffiti and other artists. So I was able to gather a bunch of people \u2013 myself, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring and Futura \u2013 and we all had a similar goal. And then we looked out for each other, turned each other on to different stuff and we built enough of a groundswell of support across an interesting spectrum of creatives that helped knocked down barriers for people who were just too dumb to get it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another \u2019hood hero Fab 5 Freddy introduced to the world was Dapper Dan. Fab remembers, \u201cRap magazines still hadn\u2019t happened when Yo! MTV Raps<\/em> began, but I had a hit show with a national audience, so I thought, \u2018Let\u2019s show people what goes into making music, making the culture. Let me figure out who the style maestros are,\u2019 and Dapper Dan was that dude. Dapper Dan was the couture designer of the moment. He was designing outfits for the artists you see in Contact High<\/em> \u2013 Eric B. & Rakim, LL Cool J, even KRS-One, Dapper Dan made all of that stuff. Salt-N-Pepa too, he made those outfits as well. It was just at the point where we reached a mainstream audience outside of the inner circle of the \u2019hood in Harlem and the hip-hop world.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The contact sheet for Salt-N-Pepa’s <\/span>shoot for the ‘Shake Your Thang’ single cover lensed by Janette Beckman in 1987\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Long before the luxury brands ventured into athleisurewear, Dapper Dan was creating bootlegged logo-strewn looks, thus making the codes of the European fashion houses available to his community \u2013 much to the consternation and legal wrath of the likes of Gucci, Fendi, Louis Vuitton, and MCM, who eventually issued cease-and-desists that forced his operation underground.<\/p>\n

An uncredited homage to one of Dapper Dan\u2019s designs on the Gucci Cruise catwalk by Alessandro Michele in 2018 eventually led to a peace treaty, which resulted in a Gucci x Dapper Dan collaboration, with the Italian brand building an atelier for Dapper Dan in Harlem. \u201cI think it was just great and, in a sense, long overdue,\u201d Fab admits. \u201cIt was a smart move that Gucci made, as opposed to fighting the force, which all of those luxury brands did in the beginning. They didn\u2019t want to have Black and Latin street people wearing high-fashion super-exclusive luxury brands. They have now come to the table, which is a beautiful thing. It really frames the whole topic that Virgil Abloh runs Louis Vuitton menswear, a multibillion-dollar fashion brand. This is a dude that six or seven years ago was making streetwear and T-shirts for Kanye West. Now, he\u2019s running Louis Vuitton,\u201d he laughs.<\/p>\n

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Eric B. and Rakim\u2019s ‘Follow The Leader’ album cover shoot, New York City, 1988, by Drew Carolan<\/span><\/p>\n

For Vikki Tobak, the making of Contact High<\/em> was the beginning of creating an archive of hip-hop\u2019s visual legacy. \u201cPhotographers like Jamel Shabazz and Joe Conzo were documentarians, and now all these years later are thinking about what to do with their archives. Part of the process of Contact High was going through these contact sheets \u2013 which a lot of photographers hadn\u2019t looked at for many years or hadn\u2019t organised \u2013 and I started to realise how important it is that these images are preserved and stored, long-term. After these photographers pass away, who\u2019s going to have these archives?<\/p>\n

There are a lot of private companies trying to control these images, so it\u2019s a big decision.\u201d She continues, \u201cIt\u2019s really more of a technology play. Digitising archives is very labour intensive and it\u2019s going to take a large-scale cultural archiving initiative and bringing in the likes of Google or a company that has the capabilities, the manpower and the money to archive it so they can be accessed by the public.\u201d<\/p>\n

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On set of Queen Latifah\u2019s ‘Fly Girl’ video shoot, New York City, 1991, lensed by Al Pereira<\/span><\/p>\n

Ironically, Contact High<\/em> has fresh appeal and significance in the digital age. Vikki notes, \u201cThere\u2019s been a huge resurgence in vinyl records and analogue photography lately. I think what people are drawn to is the humanity of it. We live in this world where Instagram and digital media and Photoshopping and a lot of what we see in this world is perfect. And so when you start seeing a contact sheet, with its mistakes and messiness; when you start hearing all the little hisses, bumps, scratches on the record, it connects you to the shared human thing of imperfection,\u201d she marvels.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really important to show that, especially in this day and age. I think it\u2019s something that young kids are really connected to because they grew up on perfection and finished products. It\u2019s important to share the mistakes and the messiness and these aspects of being human. There\u2019s nothing like holding a record in your hand and turning it over and reading the liner notes. There\u2019s nothing like figuring out on your analogue camera, and having the flash go off maybe accidentally to see what that does. And definitely, I feel like that\u2019s new almost to this generation.\u201d<\/p>\n

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On set at Snoop Dogg\u2019s first video shoot, Los Angeles, 1993, lensed by Lisa Leone<\/span><\/p>\n

So far, Manarat Al Saadiyat has been the only stop on the Contact High<\/em> exhibition tour outside the US, but Fab 5 Freddy and Vikki have plans for world domination. \u201cIt\u2019s really important for me to have this show travel globally so that I\u2019m putting that out there in the universe to places like South Africa and Egypt and London, to keep the message going.\u201d Vikki adds, \u201cI feel like every city now across the world has a local hip-hop scene, has its own kind of history and community and I feel like every city will have its own special interpretation of the show.\u201d And if you don\u2019t know, now you know.<\/p>\n

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An installation view of Contact High: A Visual History of Hip-Hop<\/em> featuring Cardi B shot by Hassan Hajjaj in 2017\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Visit The Contact High: A visual History Of Hip hop <\/em>exhibition at Manarat Al Sadiyaat until 31 May 2021. <\/span>Book nOW<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":217,"featured_media":4128,"template":"","format":"standard","categories":[349],"yoast_head":"\nWhy The Contact High Exhibition is Bigger Than Hip-Hop - Grazia Middle East<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/me\/articles\/bigger-than-hip-hop\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Why The Contact High Exhibition is Bigger Than Hip-Hop\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Notorious B.I.G may have rapped, \u201cYou never thought that hip-hop would take it this far\u201d in the 1994 anthem ‘Juicy’, but few could\u2019ve predicted that by 2020, the crown he wore in Barron Claiborne\u2019s iconic King of New York portrait would go under the hammer for $594,750. 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