Critic’s NotebookBy the Book
by Sasha Frere-Jones
December 3, 2007
In too many instances, hip-hop has become a celebration of ruthless self-interest, delivered by performers who don’t dare crack a smile for fear of losing status. That’s not where the music started, as two new books of photographs make clear. In “Born in the Bronx,” by Joe Conzo, the d.j.s and m.c.s do their share of scowling (and occasionally brandish weapons), but they also smile, wear fedoras, dance, and look like the skinny kids they are. Though Conzo’s photographs document hip-hop between 1977 and 1982, a time line by the writer Jeff Chang asserts that the genre’s origins stretch back to 1963, when the Cross Bronx Expressway tore the borough in half. Janette Beckman’s “The Breaks” picks up where Conzo leaves off. Beckman, an Englishwoman, captured a variety of young performers in New York with a taste for bright colors: Salt ’n Pepa, the Native Tongues Posse, and Slick Rick. That this vivid local culture would become a big and slightly chilly business lends a strange aura to these remarkable books. ♦
ILLUSTRATION: JEROEN KOOLHAAS
