Radical Vertical

Chi Modu
People
Interview by Holger Homann
Photos by Chi Modu
6
6
“What kind of
gangsta rapper
has a stylist?
A stylist?!” - Ice T
HH In your career as a photographer,
you’ve had the chance to capture the steady
rise of hip-hop culture from almost its
beginning for almost three decades, and shot
portraits of the genre’s most famous figures
including Biggie, Tupac, Nas, ODB, and many
others. When did all this start and how did you
get so close to them?
CM Well, my first work as a photographer
was freelance work at the Amsterdam News—a
small newspaper in Harlem, New York in the
early ‘90s. I think it was like 1990. And that was
right around the time that the founders from
Harvard moved down to New York and started
to bring The Source Magazine to a more
national level. I went down to the magazine
and had a visit with them. And they didn’t
really have anybody on staff that actually really
understood photography. At that time, I was
already printing my own prints in my own dark
room, so I was really ready to rock.
This is now post-college. I went to
Rutgers University in New Jersey, I moved
up towards New York City, which is when I
started playing around with my own darkroom
supplies and enlarger that I’d purchased.
From there, my prints got better. I did the
work at the newspaper, then I segued into The
Source since they didn’t really have anyone
that was at the ready. I had a beeper at the
time. So if you called me I would show up. So I
was basically the on-call guy for the magazine.
And then the artists started to see me as the
guy. So they knew if they would sit for my
camera, cooperate, they’ll probably end up
in the magazine. I was always pretty sound
technically, and I brought a higher level of
technical ability to the space, which I think
lifted the whole thing up a bit. This was right
around the early ‘90s. And then I had a run
of about seven years of having my bit of time
to shape the space visually and shape how
people perceived hip hop.
HH In regard to all those personal
encounters, are there any that stand out as
most memorable?
CM It’s tough to single out any one. But
you can imagine, most of them probably are
memorable. We were young men and women
in our 20s, and we were at the front end
of this movement that no one really knew
where it was going. But people knew it had
a lot of energy.
We were running free and running
wild, but we were actually also producing
something that ended up being the
foundation for the multi-billion dollar industry
of hip hop. It kind of rocked the whole globe.
It was important not to get distracted by the
enormity of what we were doing so the work
would stay pure.
So Tupac was always a good subject and quite
cooperative and understood the camera. So it
wasn’t hard to get him for photo shoots and
to perform or just be himself and not perform.
And it worked out well.
Biggie was a good friend of mine
because he’s from the east coast, so he would
always come and cooperate. I did Snoop’s
first album. So I definitely worked with a lot
of these guys early in their career. I’d say all of
them were actually quite memorable.
HH Who was the most difficult to
work with?
CM As a photographer, you don’t really
know what you’re dealing with when you roll
up on a subject. So as far as difficult, everyone
can be at times... Most people don’t really
like having their picture taken. So it’s our job
to make them comfortable and help them to
relax. But it’s also our job to not leave without
a photograph. So I had to bend a lot of
people’s arms over the years to eventually do
a picture after they said they weren’t going to
when I arrived.
The most difficult one was probably
Mike Tyson, because I remember I showed
up at his place in Youngstown, Ohio, and he
was training for a fight. It must have been
1996 or so. And Mike showed up and said,
“I’m not taking any pictures today.” And you
can imagine what that’s like, right? I knew
I was going to get him to take a picture
no matter what.
I softened him up with conversation,
got him to sit down, we ate some food, we
talked for a bit, he cooperated and I was
able to get my images. We saw each other a
year later and laughed about the experience
and we ended up as friends. So I think that
when subjects are difficult, it’s usually other
things in their world that make them difficult.
Photographers know not to take it personally,
and adjust to whatever the challenges are
in any situation, but more importantly, we
must leave with a photograph. That’s priority
one for a photographer. If you don’t leave
with a photograph, you didn’t do your job.
If you don’t do your job, you probably won’t
be hired again.
HH In these times when almost
everybody seems to have the technology for
taking photographs in their hands, what does
one need, to be considered a photographer
from your perspective?
CM Well, the fact that cameras have
become ubiquitous ... I actually like the fact
that everybody has a camera because what
it’s done for photography is it’s made people
appreciate the skills required more, because
more people now see how hard it is to do it.
And it’s not really about the equipment; it’s
always about how you see the world and
your composition. You can get the technical
aspects of photography behind you fairly
quickly if you focus on them. But that’s not
entirely what creates a good picture. A good
picture still consists of the photographer
deciding what stays or leaves the rectangle.
I think that’s what people have learned now
that they all have cameras.
So to be a good photographer, I
think you really have to know how to look in
those four corners and make that decision in
a millisecond of what you want in and what
you want out, and then you press your shutter.
Once you get that down, and the more
often you’re able to do that and not just get
lucky periodically, then, okay, now you’re a
good photographer.
It doesn’t matter whether it’s a
camera phone, like a Sony a7, or a 4x5, it’s
all still the same process. Light exposing film
or exposing a sensor, timing, composition—
that’s photography.
HH What does a photo need, to
become iconic?
CM I think a number of things have
to line up. I can really speak from a music
photography space. There is something to
be said about superstar artists who pass away
at a young age, because they are preserved
in the photographs that we have of them. So
when people look at pictures of Tupac and
pictures of Biggie, they use the word iconic
around them because they haven’t been here
for about 20-something years.
But I think it’s not just the subject,
but it’s the combination of the subject and
how the photographer chose to portray them,
because a lot of times people’s image is really
how the photographer saw them. They’re the
ones looking at the subject. So we look at you,
and we decide when to press the shutter to
capture you where you’re looking right.
That’s kind of our job. We’re your
mirror, in a way. If you are “that” person, we
have to know how to see you as that and
then press the shutter to capture you at your
best. If you line those things up where you
capture someone as they are, and that person
to the public is a superstar or someone the
public believes in—if you line all that up with
a well-exposed image, that’s how you create
THE REAL MCCOY