Letter from RESPECT. Founder

I’m honored to curate along with longtime collaborator, Datwon Thomas, “Brooklyn’s Finest: Legends in Focus” — a civic installation opening February 4 at Brooklyn Borough Hall, presented as part of Black History Month.

This installation brings together a selection of photographs that honor Brooklyn’s sizable impact on hip-hop culture and the photographers who helped document it. Hip-hop is one of New York City’s great cultural gifts to the world, and photography has been essential to how that story has been seen, remembered, and carried forward across generations.

With a limited number of images, it’s impossible to represent every Brooklyn rap artist, era, or neighborhood that helped build the legacy. Instead, this installation focuses on a tightly curated group of works reflecting the spirit, pride, and influence of Brookly —celebrating Hip-Hop icons whose lives and cultural contributions are deeply rooted in the borough.

At the heart of this display is the work of Jamel Shabazz, the legendary Brooklyn-born street photographer whose images have come to define generations of NY life, culture, and self-expression. His photographs are inseparable from Brooklyn’s visual history and from the lived experience of street culture itself.

The installation also features contributions from Matthew Salacuse, Mike Schreiber, Sarah A. Freeman, Justin Jay, and Lisa Leone—documentarians whose work captured BK icons in their respective emerging moments. The display is anchored by one of the most iconic portraits in music history: Baron Claiborne’s timeless image of The Notorious B.I.G., a photograph forever linked to BK’s imprint on the world.

At the center of the installation is a sequence honoring The Greatest Day in Hip-Hop History—a historic moment I helped organize in 1998 that brought together one of the most extraordinary assemblies of artists ever captured in a single image. While Harlem is the Mecca, Brooklyn showed up—and this moment belongs here because the culture has always moved between boroughs. The image featured here was captured by Gordon Parks’ trusted protégé, Johanna Fiore, whose lens preserves that day from a rare and personal vantage point. There also two images by yours truly capturing Busta Rhymes and Rakim on that day in 1998. Being in the right place at the right time is often what makes photography magical.

Additionally, a proclamation will be given to Hip-Hop pioneer, Fab5Freddy.

As a proud Brooklyn native, and as a co-founder of XXL Magazine/xxlmag.com and founder of RESPECT., the photo journal of hip-hop culture, it’s an honor for my firm iD8 Entertainment to underwrite and curate this installation in a civic space where New Yorkers can experience these images together.

Thank you to the Brooklyn Borough Hall President’s Office (Donavan Swanson and Roslyn Campbell) and the Borough Hall team for making space for public cultural storytelling.

— Jonathan A. Rheingold
Curator / Producer / RESPECT. Founder

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Pharrell has told me to say I’m a singer/songwriter, because that’s what I really am… I would say any artist that is killing it right now as long since abandoned genre and expanded past certain labels.
– Frank Ocean

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A Photo Tribute to a Legend

In Memory of TAKEOFF.

The post RESPECT. In Peace. A Photo Tribute to MIGOS Legend TAKEOFF. appeared first on RESPECT. | The Photo Journal of Hip-Hop Culture.

The album Includes a  solo version of hit single  “LAST ONE LEFT” .

Guest appearance with other RESPECT. cover king G HERBO plus bars also dropped by Tee Grizzly and Soulja Slim!

Track Listing for UNLV

1. Pay For It ft TEE grizzly & Soulja Slim
2. Dog Azz ft JAYDAYOUNGAN
3. Ya Heard Me (Interlude) Ft soulja slim & Blvd Mel
4. Ya Heard Me (Complex)
5. “My Body” ft. B.O.G Vonnie
6. Say please
7. .Free Thug
8. Throw away ft G Herbo
9. Bee Crazy
10. Last One Left (solo version)
11. Come Home Cee
12. Hard 4 U
13. Hate Me ft Seven7hardaway
14. Anotha Victim ft ree up
15. Addy Remix Ft. Mouse On The Track
16. 2 death
17. F*ck Da  World

LISTEN HERE | WATCH HERE 

Diggin’ in the crates … read the RESPECT. Fredo Interview (May 2020)

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As our Hip-Hop diva cover girl, Doja Cat, solidifies herself with the most #1 slots for any female at pop radio of this decade, we dip back to her RESPECT. interview—released right at the time she dropped her sophomore album in November 2019, Hot Pink. The album was a platinum success with over 19.3 billion streams worldwide, which shot her to global fame. Taking chances RESPECT. crowned queen with the first ever RESPECT. cover featuring a female riding solo.

“the thing is when you’re going into the music industry knowing who you are and what you want it’s better. It is really important because if you don’t know they will figure it out for you. They will take that freedom and creativity and they’ll maybe try to do their own twist. Sometimes that can fall flat because a label is a bank and sometimes, they don’t have creative ideas” – Doja Cat

Click for DOJA CAT Interview!

WORDS: TRACY MITCHELL

IMAGES: MIGUEL CRESPO

RESPECT. FOUNDER: JONATHAN RHEINGOLD

STORY AND PHOTOS COPYRIGHT MUSINART LLC

Exclusive RESPECT. Photos

Watch “Vegas”

https://dojacat.lnk.to/vegasvideo

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