1980s, Janette Beckman, an expat punk photographer from London, amassed a portfolio of burgeoning New York rap acts like the Cold Crush Brothers, Big Daddy Kane and Public Enemy. It was a labor of love for Ms. Beckman, who had visited New York a few years earlier and was so entranced by the beginnings of hip-hop that she never left. She later collected those images in a book, but she challenges you to find a copy of it today.
“We couldn’t sell it to anyone,” Ms. Beckman said. “Back then, there was not one thought in my mind hip-hop would become this massive thing.”
Was she wrong.
Ms. Beckman’s early portraits are now on display in “Hip-Hop Revolution” at the Museum of the City of New York, alongside the work of Joe Conzo Jr. and Martha Cooper, photographers whose images from the 1970s through the 1990s document parties and dances that began in empty lots and playgrounds and went on to become part of global youth culture.
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