Fashion/Artist Profile: Jamel Shabazz - NYC Urban Street Culture

"A Time without Crack"

Jamel Shabazz is one of the original street photographers who documented street life and style in and around New York City, focussing primarily in 80s Brooklyn, a borough which became synonymous with hip hop culture. His subjects were everyday people, commonly featuring oversized ghetto blasters, Richard Simons shorty shorts, door knocker earrings, and cazel glasses. The backdrop: the street, the subway, the barber shop. What he did for hip hop culutre is unmistakable and he work lives on as a legacy, a tribute to those bygone days. His book "A Time Without Crack" put him on the map, and established him as one of the pioneering street photogaphers, a movement that has taken much precedence in how we percieve culture in our minds today. Shabazz takes simple everyday scenes and documents them to create a story, a myth, a narrative around the street. His photos are human and undeprived of rawness and highly devoid of pretentiousness, so rife in street life photographers of today. In this day and age when everyone can be an artist, Jamel Shabazz led the way, creating icons out of street hustlers, laymens, freestylers, rappers, everyday broads and the kool kids just by going out and doing. Acording to Shabazz, he would approach a subject with the line: "Excuse me, brother. My name is Jamel Shabazz and I’m a photographer. When I see you, I see greatness. I see the future.”, with that alone Mr Shabazz, may I say that back to you.