Uploaded October 2015 | Updated September 2026, 10 hours ago
In the infancy of hip-hop, Brooklyn-born photographer Jamel Shabazz documented the pioneers of music and style who would launch an enduring worldwide phenomenon. In JAMEL SHABAZZ STREET PHOTOGRAPHER Charlie Ahearn (director of the seminal graffiti movie Wild Style) pays tribute to both Shabazz and those who defined hip-hop before it had definition. More than just vintage shots of kids rocking sneakers and savvy street style in Times Square and Fort Greene Park, Shabazz’s photographs have hundreds of stories behind them, and Ahearn’s film gives voice to these images with intimate interviews with Shabazz himself, graffiti pioneer and hip-hop historian Fred “Fab 5 Freddy” Brathwaite, legendary rapper KRS-One, and many others.
In the infancy of hip-hop, Brooklyn-born photographer Jamel Shabazz documented the pioneers of music and style who would launch an enduring worldwide phenomenon. In JAMEL SHABAZZ STREET PHOTOGRAPHER Charlie Ahearn (director of the seminal graffiti movie Wild Style) pays tribute to both Shabazz and those who defined hip-hop before it had definition. More than just vintage shots of kids rocking sneakers and savvy street style in Times Square and Fort Greene Park, Shabazz’s photographs have hundreds of stories behind them, and Ahearn’s film gives voice to these images with intimate interviews with Shabazz himself, graffiti pioneer and hip-hop historian Fred “Fab 5 Freddy” Brathwaite, legendary rapper KRS-One, and many others.
