Hundreds of photos starting with the first street party in the Bronx in 1973 with DJ Cool Herc, through ’90s and ’00s icons like the Fugees and Missy Elliot to today’s stars like Future, Asap Rocky and Cardi B. The exhibition, which opens on October 20, mixes photos, graffiti and 3D technology in a chronological timeline covering artists from both New York in the East, Los Angeles on the West Coast and the South where Atlanta has become an increasingly important center for rap.
— It’s a deepening of a culture that turns 50 and something where a whole family can ask each other who their favorite artist is, and which era they like best, says Mohamed Mire, who is the exhibition producer at Fotografiska in Stockholm.
Mohamed Mire is exhibition producer at Fotografiska in Stockholm. Press image. More than music
“Hip-hop: Conscious, unconscious” has previously been shown at Fotografiska in New York. The name refers to how hip-hop began as a subculture on a New York street to become the world’s largest youth culture and a multi-billion dollar industry.
— Today, the artists do much more than music. Hip hop today is the people, the art, the lyrics in songs, the producers, the photographers that we exhibit. It is very difficult to say exactly who is part of this great genre, says Mohamed Mire.
The Swedish hip-hop expert Ametist Azordegan, together with Jason “Timbuktu” Diakité, has contributed a Swedish perspective to the exhibition – through texts that explain what happened in Swedish hip-hop during the same period.
— In the United States, hip-hop is born in the Bronx and grows through the grass roots. It was a popular movement. Here in Sweden it is presented via public service. When SVT starts broadcasting documentaries about hip-hop, many children and young people discover the expression, says Ametist Azordegan.
Journalist Ametist Azordegan gives a Swedish perspective on hip-hop’s 50th anniversary at Fotografiska in Stockholm. Press image. Import from the USA
In addition to media, the culture was transmitted by a few people who traveled to the United States and brought dances and clothes back home.
— The first to discover hip-hop in Sweden found it difficult to practice it. They had to look for the artifacts, the mods and the tools to play and create the music, says Ametist Azordegan.
TT: Do you have a favorite period in American hip-hop?
— The beginning of the 00s. Typically I pick an era where I was around 20 myself but it was fun going out when the charts were dominated by the Neptunes and P Diddy. Then hip-hop music found its female audience and mixed fun dance music with rap.
Hip-hop’s pioneers and style-forming artists can be seen at Fotografiska’s extensive exhibition “Hip-hop: Conscious, Unconscious”. Pictured Wyclef Jean and Lauryn Hill in East Harlem, New York City in 1993. Press photo.