Between 1982 and 1984, French photographer Sophie Bramly, who had arrived in New York in 1981, went to every hip hop party she could find with religious reverence.
Before the explosion of hip-hop, the people who photographed the new scene were mostly online and Bramly became one of them: friendship with DJ Afrika Bambaataa and Grandmaster Flash, the rap bands Run-DMC and Beastie Boys, the graffiti artists. DONDI and LADY PINK, the artist Keith Haring and the Imp 5 Freddy impresario who would later spread hip-hop around the world through the TV show “Yo! MTV Raps ».
“I was fascinated by the fact that at first no one was interested in this new world they were making,” Bramly confesses, in which her new album entitled “Yo! The Early Days of Hip Hop 1982-84 “is an impressive collection of photographs that capture the pioneers of this subculture.
At the age of 20 or so, he spent his first year in New York learning the city. One day, he saw a break dance group in Union Square. This encounter brought her into the still-behind-the-scenes hip-hop scene.
“New York had something magical, in the sense that it was as if we were all connected. They may mix with the arts, but be friends with musicians. You could go to clubs and galleries in all parts of the city and it was always different. There was a constant wave of people making things. It was funky and dirty, and people were in the mood to do a lot of crazy things and have fun. “Being motivated was being creative,” he recalls.
Bramly started taking pictures. “My work is very different from the other photographers of that time because I not only wanted to cover what they did on stage, I wanted to show how they really lived,” he says.
“I went to their houses, photographing the landscapes, recording everything related to the hip-hop scene. But I was seldom remembered as a photographer because I was always there, sometimes with my camera, sometimes not. “Friendship was what they remembered most.”
The album “Yo! The Early Days of Hip Hop 1982-84 “was recently released by Soul Jazz.
Source: ΑΠΕ-ΜΠΕ
