"Born in the Bronx: A Visual Record of the Early Days of Hip Hop,"
edited by Johan Kugelberg
As you turn the pages of this lovingly curated look at the birth of hip-hop in the "Boogie Down" Bronx of the 1970s and '80s, you can practically hear the snap of breakbeats, smell the fumes of spray paint, and feel the bodies bumping on neighborhood basketball courts. The book attempts to capture the volatile borough, which was both a vibrant melting pot and racial pressure cooker filled with social activists and destructive gangs, good music, and bad drugs.
Editor Johan Kugelberg lays out an eye-popping assortment of artifacts from this criminally under-documented formative period. Photos of early pioneers such as Grandmaster Caz and the Cold Crush Brothers, many by scenester Joe Conzo, contrast with stark images of burnt-out lots strewn with garbage and dotted by abandoned cars. A clutch of flyers illustrates how the scene morphed from house parties, with handwritten invites on lined 3-by-5 cards, to swanky affairs announced by the elaborate, Art Deco-inspired creations of Buddy Esquire.
A foreword by Afrika Bambaataa and a timeline by hip-hop historian Jeff Chang further tell the tale of how urban blight and youthful enthusiasm combined to create this new art form. Kugelberg also shares the personal soundtrack he used while putting the book together as well as lists of other must-have and hard-to-find artists of the era, many of whom never made the transition from vinyl glory.
While most of the names will be unfamiliar to all but the most hard-core hip-hop heads, this is history worth learning for fans of everyone from Kool Herc to Jay-Z.
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