Hip Hop Stacks: HH Stacks: Hip Hop Files, Photographs 1979-1984

Hip Hop Files

El Paso Public Library (EPPL)

Hip Hop Stacks

In 2011, we submitted a book, CD, + film list to the El Paso Public Library (EPPL) to begin building a "Hip Hop Stacks" collection. The list consisted of over 100 recommended titles. To document this collection I'm developing a PDF file visitors will be able to download that reference titles currently available at the EPPL from HHA's 2011 recommendations. I also plan to add future books, CDs, + films we're able to propose and stack for library patrons at the EPPL.

One of the books from the 2011 list currently available at the EPPL is Martha Cooper's Hip Hop Files, Photographs 1979-1984. This photographic journey is a wonderful snapshot into Martha Cooper's life through lens and an incredible "at the right place, at the right time" story detailing her contribution to capturing Hip Hop's early days of exposure.

The text is of good size to display some fascinating photographs from an internationally fearless photographer. The "Life in Photography" thumbnails which run along the bottom of the first and last pages provide readers a shot into Cooper's world beginning at the age of 5 (1948) with her "Baby Brownie camera at Baltimore Harbor" and to her travels in Thailand during the early 60s as a U.S. Peace Corps volunteer. Readers will see bits of Cooper's story in thumbnails of Cambodia, Thailand, India, Afghanistan, Iran, Russia, Germany, England, Philippines, Japan, Peru, and her arrival to the New York Post in 77'. It was Cooper's wandering interest to see the unscene and a craft that took chances out of respect for the lives & culture she became intimately connected to through photography.

The text begins with words from graffiti elder Zephyr on Hip Hop as social activism, its multi-cultural existence, and the art of compassion readers will discover through Cooper's character and the lives that speak for the photographs represented in Hip Hop Files. It's an incredible intro for Cooper's "active trigger finger" and the personal dialogue of Hip Hop's surviving alumni that provide narrative to those photographic beginnings. Cooper's undiscriminating lens gives clues to even the history before the history as discussed by notables such as DEZ aka DJ Kay Slay.

Cooper captures Hip Hop in motion, sneaking through the night with writers in the train yards, only to be on location of a platform to photograph the finished Krylon painting of passing AM trains. There is music in the descriptive language of the environments Cooper captures such as her shots on the "morning side" and "afternoon side" which play like the Side A and Side B of a record. I encourage you read this text to understand.

As a visual masterpiece, Hip Hop Files educates readers and helps to undo the forgetful nature of a vulture-like "music" industry. Through narrative captions from dozens of Hip Hop legends, readers get the story as if the speaker is observing the photograph alongside them. It's a text that personally speaks to my interest of photography and the work of photographers I've been inspired by such as Jamel Shabazz, Ernie Paniccioli, and D-Nice.

In addition to Hip Hop Files, Photographs 1979-1984, there are a number of other text and films referenced throughout the book, including the globally influential Subway Art published in 1984 by Martha Cooper and Henry Chalfant, Dondi White Style Master General: The Life of Graffiti Artist Dondi White by Andrew Witten & Michael White, and Jamel Shabazz's Back in the Days... this is only to name a few!

For more information on Hip Hop Files, Photographs 1979-1984 check out From Here to Fame Publishing at www.fromheretofame.com. I was unable to locate a website for Martha Cooper but suggest a number of YouTube interview videos that are available online. Below is video footage featuring Martha Cooper and Henry Chalfant.

To check out Hip Hop Files from EPPL: click here

Sunday, July 27, 2014

HH Stacks: Hip Hop Files, Photographs 1979-1984

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