$ 45
Acclaimed photographer Jamel Shabazz of best-selling hip-hop photo book Back in the Days is the go-to set and fashion styling photographer for films (Planet B-Boy), episodic series (Harlem, Luke Cage), and fashion spreads for magazines and sites from the U.S., Europe, and Asia. For the first time ever, a direct line is drawn between Shabazz’s groundbreaking early work (the styling and fashion of the late 1970s through the early 1990s) through his recent editorial work for Vogue, The New York Times, DAZED, The New Yorker, W Magazine, Cultured Magazine, Brooklyn Magazine, The Art Newspaper, and many more. This is Drama & Flava.
Jamel Shabazz, photographer, artist, and mentor, burst upon the photography and Hip Hop scene some 25 years ago with the groundbreaking book, Back in the Days (still in print, btw).Over the course of the next few decades, Shabazz’ influence grew over more photo books (A Time Before Crack, Seconds of My Life, Last Sunday in June, even a coloring book based on Back in the Days), along with major editorial commissions from the words top magazines and pop culture sites.
Wanting to emulate the effortless style, hip poses, and slaying looks Shabazz achieved in Back in the Days (a bible of Hip Hop style and fashion), fashion spread editors and stylists hired Shabazz for the shoots, only unauthentically style the session, in the process achieving what they wanted for their spreads, but leaving Shabazz feeling…something was lacking. He dialed back the directives, and went to town on his own dime with his subjects (many famous or soon-to-be- famous), collaborating with them in trademark Shabazz fashion with accessories, backdrops, locations, clothing pieces, poses. The result is a breathtaking line between the raw and electric street shoots of the 1980s Back in the Days with the sophistication, polish, and elegance of his film and fashion shoots of the 2010s. The result is what you see now: “The Drama is the attitude and the Flava is the style,” says Shabazz.
Traveling back in time and forward across continents, ‘80s photo shoots backdropped by graffiti, boomboxes, Kangols, Adidas, and chains give way to present day cutting edge fashion in Paris, New York, and Tokyo. Joyful everyday people smiling and posing juxtaposed with sophisticated, artsy portraits of celebs including Dapper Dan, Spike Lee, Slick Rick, Naomi Campbell, Coco Mitchell, Nicola Vassell, Eugena Washington, Camila Alves, Alicia Keys, Swizz Beatz, Noémie Lenoir, Dan’ee Doty, Liu Wen, Alex Santy, Yasiin Bey, Venus Williams, Yasmin Warsame, Kylie Jenner, ILfenesh Hadera, Elvis Nolasco, Slick Rick, and Selita Ebanks. A cross-generational masterpiece featuring essays by historian Carlton Usher, professor Elena Romero, and photographer and writer Diana McClure, Drama & Flava is a love letter to everyday Black fashion and style. It’s pure Jamel Shabazz, man and spirit.
Jamel Shabazz is best known for his iconic photographs of New York City during the 1980s. A documentary, fashion, and street photographer, he has authored 12 monographs and contributed to over three dozen other photography-related books. His photographs have been exhibited worldwide and his work is housed within the permanent collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Studio Museum in Harlem, Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, the Fashion Institute of Technology, The Art Institute of Chicago, the Getty Museum, The Dean Collection and the National Portrait Museum, among others. Over the years, Shabazz has instructed young students at the Studio Museum in Harlem’s “Expanding the Walls” project, The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture “Teen Curator’s” program, and the Bronx Museum’s “Teen Council.” He is the 2023 recipient of the Lucie Foundation Award for his achievement in documentary photography, and the 2022 awardee of the Gordon Parks Foundation/Steidl book prize. As an artist, Shabazz’s primary object is to contribute to the preservation of world history and culture .His books published by his long time home publisher powerHouse Books include Back in the Days, A Time Before Crack, Last Sunday in June, Seconds of my Life, Back in the Days Remix, Back in the Days Coloring Book.
Carlton Usher is an Associate Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies at Kennesaw State University. Dr. Usher served as Director of The American Democracy Project (ADP), and among his many civic engagement awards is the prestigious Carnegie Faculty Fellow designation. He is certified as both a Historian and Political Economist. Most recently, his teaching activities include courses on Sustainability Studies, American Popular Culture, Student Success, American Political Processes, Diaspora Studies, and Labor and Workforce Trends.
Elena Romero is Assistant Chair and Assistant Professor in the Marketing Communications department of the Jay and Patty Baker School of Business and Technology at the Fashion Institute of Technology (SUNY). She is the co-curator of Fresh Fly Fabulous: 50 Years of Hip Hop Style at the Museum at FIT. Fresh Fly Fabulous: 50 Years of Hip Hop Style at the Museum at FIT, a comprehensive fashion exhibition and book exploring the roots and evolution of hip hop style coming early 2013.
Diana McClure is a contributing writer to the School of Visual Arts’ Visual Arts Journal and Pratt Institute’s Prattfolio magazine and has written for Art Basel, Cultured, Photograph, Afropunk, Art in America, exhibition catalogs, and artist monographs among other outlets. Her photographs are in the collections of The David C. Driskell Center at the University of Maryland and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History & Culture — and have appeared in exhibitions at The Philadelphia African American Museum, Edge Zones Miami, Baltimore Museum of Art, Andrew Freeman Home, and New York University. Diana is a graduate of Columbia University and the New School for Social Research and former part-time faculty in the Department of Photography & Imaging at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. She has been awarded grants and fellowships from New York State Council on the Arts, The New School for Social Research and the Abhaya Yoga Foundation.