Radical Vertical

an iconic photograph that’ll stay forever, ala the Che Guevara iconic
photograph, or the pictures of Tupac tying his bandana.
It’s not just that the subject is good-looking. They also have
to have some brand, and energy behind them, that comes across
in photographs. And that’s why people want them for years and
years to come.
HH Comparing hip-hop artists today to artists in the past, are
there any differences that affect your work?
CM Well, I don’t really spend that much time photographing
artists of today. I get a lot of requests and I know I have a lot of fans
among younger rappers. But I really feel that there are a lot of quality
photographers out there shooting from this generation that can
capture them quite well.
With rappers today, a big difference that I notice from the past
is that they don’t really let the cameras into their worlds that much. It
seems like the images are a little bit more on the surface. You can list
them: Drake, Kendrick, a lot of big time stars, Beyonce. You know them
as a performer but you don’t really know that much about them visually.
And you don’t really know the rest of their world.
I think over the long haul, that affects artists because once you
leave the public eye, meaning once your music is no longer hitting, all
people have to recall of you is what they already know about you. And
what they know about you is really about your private life.
But it’s very, very tricky, because part of why Tupac has so
much love from the public is, he lived his life on his sleeves. You knew
what he was going through at every moment. So you could either dislike
him or like him, but I think both things are with equal intensity. So the
people that like him, really believed in him. And that’s part of why he’s
still here, 20-something years later.
So there is something to be said about being a little bit more
open about both your successes and your flaws. It’s more really being
who you are and letting the public decide whether they’re going to
take to that or not.
HH In the times of Instagram, artists seem very much focused
on how they look. Looking at your work from the past, do you think
authenticity has become a rare commodity nowadays and is more
difficult to achieve?
CM I think authenticity is the same as it’s always been. If
you’re authentic, people will know. You can’t fake authenticity. So as
far as looking good in photographs, it depends on what you call
good, because I find that when you have pictures of artists and
they’re overly styled, it’s more about the style than the subject.
And we know styles change.
It’s this whole argument about ‘is fashion art’? I actually think
fashion is art but not the same way a lot of people think of it as art. I
think that people who come up with the really creative pieces are the
ones who actually are the artists in fashion, like the one who made the
Nehru jacket, the person who designed the pencil skirt, the original
black pump. That’s the artist.
And the reason why is that fashion changes twice a year. It’s
supposed to in the spring and the fall, right? So if something is supposed
to change twice a year, it’s not really meant to be permanent, whereas
visual art is actually quite permanent.
If you’re spending too much energy in defining your fashion
and your look, well, it’s going to change in six months. It’s going to
change in a year. So I find for people to really follow you, they need
to know that you’re going to be consistent six months out and not
change with the seasons.
So it’s not really about your surface, your clothes, your brand,
your image. It’s really about you. And that doesn’t really change with the
styles. That stays consistent, decades out, much like how my work has.
HH In regard to the recent trend within the fashion industry aiming
to embrace the cultural power of American Hip-Hop—for obvious
reasons since it is one of America’s greatest cultural exports—do you
consider Hip-Hop as a lifestyle now, rather than the art form it started
as ages ago?
CM That right there is a big challenge and debate that’s going
on in hip hop, I think, because ... I’ll tell you where I draw the line on it.
I don’t call hip hop a culture. I don’t quite understand what that
means when people say the culture, because I think ‘culture’ grays it
out too much.
Hip hop is really the message and the voice of the people.
And you have to be very clear. And a voice can’t always say dumb things.
A voice has to actually say some smart things at times.
So I think that it’s good that other people embrace hip hop,
but it’s not just about making up words that sound good together. It is still
about delivering a message. That’s the base of hip hop. Of course, you
can have different versions along the way. But you should not really have
chart-topping music not staying true to its core, because that means
eventually it’s going to die out. And that may be what we’re starting to
see, and will witness over the next 30 years. When you look at the charts
and the famous rappers don’t look anything like the people that started
it, like what we have with the DJs today, that is the beginning of the
dilution of an art form.
HH How much do you consider the importance of clothing styles,
which seems an important signature of the hip-hop genre?
CM Well, if you look at Louis Vuitton and Balenciaga making
sneakers, now you have an idea of what hip hop has done to the world.
We’ve basically completely turned upside down how people look at
fashion. And it’s not just for us. You see a lot more people wearing
high-end sneakers than you ever did before. But we’ve been wearing
sneakers for 40 years.
And so it’s just funny to see how we’re on the front end of a lot
of this change. And the fashion world eventually taps into it, but we just
did hear that Vogue hasn’t hired a black photographer in its 126-year
history. So that’s what we’ve been dealing with. And that’s part of why
we created hip hop, because we weren’t actually welcome. And we’re
barely even still welcome. But we’re driving the globe. And since we’re
driving the globe, you have to pay attention to us.
But, they want to take certain elements of hip hop influence
without you, and that’s where hip hop has to be careful, because, yeah,
Louis Vuitton can make sneakers and Balenciaga can also do the same,
but if you’re pricing them at $1,500, that’s not really hip hop.
HH You once mentioned some references in terms of your
photography going back to the 1920’s. Everyone now seems to live
in the moment not knowing anything about the “roots” - whether it is
about fashion, film, music or photography. Are we losing our past and is
there only enlightenment in the moment?
CM No, we only lose the past by choice. And I think why
people like to eliminate the past is because they don’t want
to be compared to the past which sometimes makes people
want to break away from their roots. But, there’s a challenge of
breaking away from the past, because the past actually has some
foundational qualities that you’re tapping into, whether on a
conscious or subconscious level. So the past is still there whether
you acknowledge it or not.
I think the mistake that is often made is that we don’t give
enough credit to the past. When I see many photographs of rappers
today, I can see influences of my photo styles from 20 years ago being
used by younger photographers today, and it’s a good thing. It’s
supposed to happen like that. But a lot of them don’t know where it
came from, but eventually they’ll figure it out.
And that’s, I guess, what the beauty of Instagram is, because
as I’ve been sharing my work, it’s allowed people to really see my
collection over the past three years. I’ve been putting up a photo daily
and it’s been quite successful because it’s very different from a magazine
or a newspaper publishing your work periodically. They can only publish
your work every now and then but on Instagram, I can put a new picture
up every day that no one has ever seen before, so it’s quite a tool.
If you have quality work now, you cannot be hidden. In the
past, even if you had the work, an editor could decide not to hire you
or a gallery could decide never to show your work. But now if you have
the work, there’s nowhere to hide. People will find you. So it’s changed
the game a lot.
HH In that conjecture, can going back also become part of the
future, and how does that work?
CM Well, you’re basically watching it in real-time, right? My
photographs are 20 to 25 years old. And a lot of people look at my
photographs like I took them yesterday, because my photography style
is somewhat timeless even though my subjects are older. And like I say
a lot, I’m not a big fan of nostalgia. Even though I work with pictures
from the ‘90s, I make them relevant today. It’s not like a throwback, or
a “ I wish I was there” thing I’m doing. I’m saying, no, these pictures
still matter by today’s standards. These artists are still powerful, even by
today’s standards. And that’s what so remarkable about the era I covered,
because here we are 25 years later, and the people I photographed
are actually larger stars than some of the people that are around today.
That’s hip hop.
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THE REAL MCCOY