In June 2005, Clay Patrick McBride—who’d done innumerable projects for magazines, dozens of album covers and print campaigns for multinational conglomerates—orchestrated the photo shoot which may be his defining set. “It’s still some of the best work I’ve made,” says McBride. “It’s the bar that I measure everything up against. Like, when will I do work that’s as good, better, that’s as well-executed and conceived as that work?”

On the surface, it seemed routine: to capture then Def Jam Records president Shawn “Jay-Z” Carter and his morphing Roc-a-Fella roster for the cover of XXL magazine. “I can photograph a big group like nobody else,” McBride says. “That’s my strength. I take control of situations.” Challenging himself, the photographer decided to imbue the shoot with gravitas and played up the “President Carter” angle by re-creating classic portraits from John F. Kennedy’s administration. “I’m always looking to photojournalism as a way of telling stories, because they tell stories all the time. They’re always bringing us the information.”

He thought to use the Oval Office set from the TV drama The West Wing, but in the end decided to build his own from scratch. The detailing was extravagant, down to the Roc-A-Fella logo in the carpet. Two “giant” studios were rented, one just for talent and crew and entourages, partitioned off with foam core. LeBron James showed up because, in Jay’s words, “I got reach.” Camera crews from national entertainment news outlets showed up. There was a lot of pressure. “But then you had Jay there kinda running the show,” recalls McBride. “As much as it was my photo shoot, he was the one cracking the whip, telling everybody to hustle.”

The photographer focused on capturing the perfect images; visuals that were both sacred and blasphemous—destined to inspire and infuriate. “I have to think of the people who those images might have pissed off, like any of those confederate flag–wearing, Ku Klux Klan, white supremacist, weird skinhead people,” he says. “I hope the pictures made some people think, because that’s what its intention was. It wasn’t just another picture of hip-hop. I think it was saying something about what a person’s potential is.”

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