In 1991 while still a student at CalArts I was asked by Mike Davis to do a photo essay on hiphop in Los Angeles. I didn’t realise then that this project would not only change my whole way of thinking about photography but it would change the way I thought about art making and indeed life in general.

This photo essay resulted in me meeting the Watts Prophets, becoming involved with Urb Magazine and ended up getting me a book contract with Verso Books. The book itself took three years and alot of hard work to complete. It had originally been tentatively titled Theres a Riot Going On after the Sly and the Family Stone record but after the events of April 1992 changed all that.

The book was received in wildly differing ways, it was attacked by cultural nationalists but Ice Cube liked it, it was slammed by Spin but Rolling Stone nominated it as one of the best music books of the year, The Daily Telegraph smuggly cast it aside but NME placed us on their writer picks for that year. It was a good experience and indeed it still has its own life, even if I feel somehow seperated from it now.
As an aside Jeff Chang was not only a huge help but he spent a week with me reediting the whole thing at the end after the publisher gave up. He went on many years later to write what to me is maybe the most important hiphop book, “Can’t Stop Won’t Stop, A History of the Hiphop Generation.”

Here is a selection from those days.