Jamel Shabazz

The Red List. http://theredlist.com/wiki-2-16-601-806-view-street-1-profile-shabazz-jamel.html.

• Born and raised in Brooklyn, New York.
• First started photography when he was 15.
• Inspired by photographers Leonard Freed, James Van Der •Zee, and Gordon Parks.
• Was very interested in the documentation of the African •American Community through photography.
• The Subway and Streets were a lot of times a part of his backdrop for his photography of youth culture and different social conditions.
• His goal is to contribute to conservation of world history and culture.
• Shabazz has documented urban life – including the birth of hip hop youth culture – in his hometown and around the world.
• His work went mostly unseen until a few magazines published his work and he later published his book, Back In The Days.
• Most of his work consisted mainly of impromptu portraits of mostly African-American New Yorkers taken on the streets of Brooklyn, the Bronx, Harlem, and lower Manhattan in the late-1970s
• He has been called the “finest documentor of the urban lifestyle”.

 Photography Book: Back In The Days

Highlights the “cool” style of early hip-hop culture. Less documentary and more yearbook style.

Shabazz, Jamel. Back In The Days. New York: Powerhouse Books, 2001.

Photography Book: A Time Before Crack

Shabazz delivers another set of photographs taken of hip-hop culture circa 1979-1985. Most photographs are of young people in the streets.

Shabazz, Jamel, Claude Grunitsky, James Koe Rodriguez, Charlie Ahearn, and Terrence Jennings. A Time Before Crack. New York: Powerhouse Books, 2005.

Shabazz, Jamel. Jamel Shabazz Street Photographer. Film. Directed by Charlie Ahearn. , 2013.

Other Examples of Work: