To be associate editor of SLAM magazine at age 23 was one thing — an incredible thrill and a job I felt lucky to have (thank you, DP and Tony G.!), but one that I also felt I’d worked toward, having treated basketball fandom as a part-time job since I was 10 years old and having been paid to cover the sport for several years already. I’d also read SLAM since its very first issue dropped in 1994. But to inherit the same title at XXL — a rising hip-hop publication suddenly led by a gifted leader in the space, Sheena Lester — felt like a true gift. I was a basketball journalist but still very much a hip-hop fan. In a way, though, one prepared me for the other. As the XXL staff prepared for the Great Day and began to track who was going to show up on 126th Street, excitement mounted. Slick Rick is going to be there? Scarface?! Tribe?! The freakin’ Wu-Tang Clan?! I was going to be in the presence of artists I’d bumped in dorm rooms and cars, seen in concerts but never been, you know, face to face with. But I had my SLAM experience to lean on. SLAM had already sent me to numerous games to do countless interviews — I had even been in the Chicago Bulls’ locker room during the ’98 NBA Finals a couple months earlier. So I had learned … no autographs. No geeking out. Keep it professional! So when September 29 rolled around, and interacting with these amazing rappers face to face was my job — literally, Datwon Thomas and I were tasked with shooting Polaroids and getting signed releases from every single artist who came through — I was able to keep my cool. Except when Rakim showed up..

—Ben Osborne

Photos by Ben Osborne © iD8 Studios

More From Ben Osborne:

“I found these negatives of these photos years after taking them and barely remember just how vibrant the colors were that afternoon. Of course I remember the day, and I know I played a big role — that day and especially producing the issue — but to see this personal photo I took when my work was done, years after the fact, is an incredibly strong reminder that I was right there. Gives me goosebumps, to be honest.” 

–Ben Osborne

The post Hip-Hop’s Greatest Day — In Living Color by Ben Osborne appeared first on RESPECT. | The Photo Journal of Hip-Hop Culture.

“Through our publications and partnerships with museums, we continue to make discoveries in Gordon’s archive that reveal the breadth and impact of his work.”

Eighty years ago, while Gordon Parks was working in racially segregated Washington D.C., he visited the Howard University campus. For Gordon, the prestigious historically Black university represented extraordinary possibilities. Earlier this year, The Gordon Parks Foundation partnered with Howard on a historic acquisition of over 250 photographs. The Gordon Parks Legacy Collection at Howard University represents one of the most comprehensive resources for the study of Gordon’s life and work anywhere in the world. It ensures that future generations of students, artists, scholars, and activists at Howard will have the access and opportunity to learn from Gordon Parks.

This past year, the work of Gordon Parks Foundation Fellows and Prize recipients was celebrated through exhibitions, programs, and publications. In Pleasantville, we presented Fishing Was His Life, an exhibition of new work by 2020 art fellowship recipient Nina Chanel Abney. We also showed new work by LaToya Ruby Frazierfrom Flint Is Family In Three Acts, recipient of the inaugural Gordon Parks Foundation/Steidl Book Prize. In the weeks ahead, we will be releasing the second book awarded Prize, Jamel Shabazz: Albums as well as Ralph Ellison: Photographer, the first survey of this author’s lesser-known body of work, some of it made alongside Gordon Parks. We will also be announcing the recipients of two 2023 Gordon Parks Foundation Fellowships in art and the next Genevieve Young Fellowship in Writing. In 2023 we will also be featuring exhibitions by our 2022 fellows, Bisa Butler, Andre D. Wagner, and Nicole R. Fleetwood.

Through our publications and partnerships with museums, we continue to make discoveries in Gordon’s archive that reveal the breadth and impact of his work. This past spring, the Carnegie Museum of Art featured Gordon’s early photographs of workers at the Penola Grease Plant in Pittsburgh, and in the fall, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston opened Stokely Carmichael and Black Power, which featured never-before-seen images of the civil rights leader. We also published an expanded edition of Gordon Parks: Segregation Story, which features previously unpublished photographs and manuscripts from the series, and honored Ms. Cora Taylor, who was photographed by Parks for the book’s cover image. A selection of the Segregation Story images is now on view in Pleasantville.

Today, on what would have been Gordon’s 110th birthday, I am writing for your year-end support to help us continue to make this work possible.

All my thanks,

Peter W. Kunhardt, Jr., Executive Director of The Gordon Parks Foundation

The post The Power of the Lens: How GORDON PARKS’ Work Continues to Forces Change! appeared first on RESPECT. | The Photo Journal of Hip-Hop Culture.

“The chicks like Usher, but you don’t see him flaunting chicks. I guess he was married for a long time. I just thought it would be cool to put him in this context that I’ve never seen him in: Women like this dude; let’s put him in between a girl’s legs. I don’t know if Jonnetta, his mom, would be happy, but it made sense to me. The girl was a random model who shot for editorial for GQ, but they never used that shot. I was looking at the print and I was like, ‘This looks like where Usher should be.’”

Usher photo by K. Capello featured in RESPECT #2 published 2010.

About Kenneth Cappello

While working as a “drunk barback,” he “began building sets as a hired carpenter for this guy named David LaChapelle,” he shares. “I had no idea how huge he was when I got hired. I got onto his set and was like, Oh, shit, this is where photos come from—this is a photo studio, this is a stylist, this is where photos are made. That really cracked my head open to take what I had always done just as ‘this thing’ to another level.”

RESPECT.

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Pusha T as seen in RESPECT. magazine. Photo copyright Karl Ferguson Jr..

PUSHA T

New York City, 2013

“Pusha’s album My Name Is My Name had recently been released and he came up to Hot 97 to promote it on DJ Funkmaster Flex’s show. I was there to capture his portrait before he had to leave for his Gramercy Theater show. You can always count on Pusha to be cooperative, he’s so used to the process.”

 

– Karl Ferguson Jr.

From the RESPECT. Archive: Karl Ferguson Jr. photo feature. Issue #18 Nov 2013.

The post Photo of the Day: Photographer KARL FERGUSON JR. Captures PUSHA T Like Nobody Else Can appeared first on RESPECT. | The Photo Journal of Hip-Hop Culture.

Lyrics. Flow. Power. Beats. Storytelling. Photogenic…

The post LLOYD BANKS Drops Socialize Visual as RESPECT. Looks Back Thru The Lens of Photographer JIMMY FONTAINE appeared first on RESPECT. | The Photo Journal of Hip-Hop Culture.

Image Copyright Justin Jay

Artist: Jay Z

Photographer: Justin Jay https://www.justinjay.com

Date:  Saturday, December 13, 2003

 

“He leads by example. Everything that he does, he makes good decisions. One thing that people don’t understand is that he’s, like, the hardest-working person in music, period.” —Wale on Jay-Z, MTV, November 2009

The post RESPECT. Throwback Featuring Jay Z / Words: Elliott Wilson & Image: Justin Jay appeared first on RESPECT. | The Photo Journal of Hip-Hop Culture.

Legendary skateboarder Stevie Williams announced his AYC apparel company’s new Skateboard Fresh collection featuring a limited edition Eazy E and Mike Miller collaboration. The new t-shirts feature an iconic image of NWA’s star Eazy E holding his infamous Natas skateboard in the parking lot of Ruthless Records, captured by photographer Mike Miller, a legend in his own right who captured some of the images that would come to define L.A. Hip-Hop. The new collection is now available online and in retailers.

Legendary Photographer Mike Miller

Originally designed for professional skateboarder turned actor, Jason Lee, the Natas skateboard seen in the image is notorious for its symbols of violence, horror, and sex. “With the gun and that Natas board, this photo is some evil gangsta shit,” notes Stevie Williams (@steviewilliams). Lil Eazy E, the legend’s son, says seeing this iconic image reminds him how much he really misses his father. He says this photo being brought to life through AYC apparel makes him think of “his father’s legacy on a different viewing and how his impact goes far and beyond just Hip-Hop.”

“Back then skating and Hip-Hop did not mix,” recalls Mike Miller (@mikemillerphoto). The new collection is symbolic of the unprecedented impact Eazy E and NWA had on the skateboarding world. “The world doesn’t know, but us inner city Compton kids in the early age of life, enjoyed the sport on the skateboard my father gave me. I learned how to skate from him!” says Lil Eazy E. The huge, raw beats, underground punk rock ideology, and shared contempt for authority was what every skater never knew they were always waiting for. The echoes of that explosion still resonate in every corner of skateboard culture in their apparel, soundtracks and their outlook on the world.

Pro Skateboarder & AYC Founder Stevie Williams

Williams is proud to announce the new Skateboard Fresh collection, described as a line that evokes pure, uncut nostalgia, and that pays homage to the artists, styles and musicians that have influenced skateboarders and helped to define the soul of skateboarding itself.

The post Stevie Williams, AYC Release Iconic Eazy E & Mike Miller Apparel Collaboration appeared first on RESPECT. | The Photo Journal of Hip-Hop Culture.