Hip-hop's iconic images and the stories behind them – in pictures

Vikki Tobak spoke to the people behind classic hip-hop portraits, from Salt-N-Pepa to Jay-Z

Main image: Hip-hop royalty … Biggie Smalls, featured in the exhibition Contact High. Photograph: Barron Claiborne

  • Tyler, the Creator, aged 20, in Los Angeles, 2011

    Photographed by Jorge Peniche. Tyler came to fame as the leader of the west coast collective Odd Future. Lyrics written for the group prompted a still-upheld ban on his entry to the UK for ‘posing a threat to public order’. Vikki Tobak’s book Contact High: A Visual History of Hip-Hop is published by Penguin Random House
    A snapshot from hip-hop’s recent history: 20-year-old rapper Tyler, the Creator photographed in Los Angeles in 2011. Tyler came to fame as the leader of the west coast collective Odd Future. Lyrics written for the group prompted a still-upheld ban on his entry to the UK for “posing a threat to public order”. Says photographer Jorge Peniche: “I reached out to Tyler on social media and got to this guy Heathcliff. He told me, ‘Whatever you do, don’t try to give Tyler instructions on how to pose or ask him to smile.’”

  • Photographer Jorge Peniche says: ‘We linked up in Pan-Pacific Park in LA. There was a solid white wall on the street and he gave me all these great expressions, I didn’t force them out of him. Tyler comes from a generation where visuals are so integral to everything he does. Even when he started with Odd Future, he was designing the group’s clothing and thinking a lot about the relationship between music and visuals’
    Peniche: “We linked up in Pan-Pacific Park in LA. There was a solid white wall on the street and he gave me all these great expressions, I didn’t force them out of him. Tyler comes from a generation where visuals are so integral to everything he does. Even when he started with Odd Future, he was designing the group’s clothing and thinking a lot about the relationship between music and visuals. His music and his whole vibe are really unique, so when I photographed him, it was all about energy and emotion.”

  • Salt-N-Pepa strike a pose in New York City, 1987

    Says photographer Janette Beckman: ‘I met Salt-N-Pepa long before they made their first record. They were like sisters; funny, cool girls from Queens wearing big gold earrings and chains with fake Louis Vuitton bags’
    Salt-N-Pepa strike a pose in New York City, 1987. Says photographer Janette Beckman: “I met Salt-N-Pepa long before they made their first record. They were like sisters; funny, cool girls from Queens wearing big gold earrings and chains with fake Louis Vuitton bags. I did a small shoot with them for a British magazine and they later introduced me to their manager, Hurby ‘Luv Bug’ Azor, who asked me to shoot the album cover.”

  • Beckman adds: ‘On the day of the shoot, they came wearing leather baseball jackets created by the one and only Dapper Dan, with kente cloth hats, spandex and gold dookie-rope chains. They used fashion to express their strength and femininity. Dapper Dan’s creations turned up in many of my photos of hip-hop artists’
    Beckman: “On the day of the shoot, they came wearing leather baseball jackets created by the one and only Dapper Dan (designed by Christopher ‘Play’ Martin of Kid ’n Play at Dap’s studio on 125th Street), with kente cloth hats, spandex and gold dookie-rope chains. They used fashion to express their strength and femininity. Dapper Dan’s creations turned up in many of my photos of hip-hop artists. The influence he had on fashion and the culture overall is unmatched, and nobody has touched him since.”

  • Jay-Z, New York City, 2003

    Photographer Armen Djerrahian says: ‘This pose with the diamond symbol was synonymous with the Roc-A-Fella family and has become one of my best-known shots. But when Jay threw the sign initially, I was almost annoyed because it hid most of his face’
    Jay-Z, New York City, 2003. Says photographer Armen Djerrahan: “This pose with the diamond symbol was synonymous with the Roc-A-Fella family and has become one of my best-known shots. But when Jay threw the sign initially, I was almost annoyed because it hid most of his face. I knew that if I didn’t have Jay’s face, it wouldn’t make the cover of a magazine, so I made sure I at least got his eye in there or something.”

  • Djerrahian adds: ‘I was using my Nikon F4 with Polagraph film, which is a very special type of film made by Polaroid that allows you to create a black-and-white slide’
    Djerrahan: “I was using my Nikon F4 with Polagraph film, which is a very special type of film made by Polaroid that allows you to create a black-and-white slide. The slide selections are all very similar, but there’s one photo of Jay with a kid, and I don’t know who he is or how he got in the shot.”

  • MF Doom, Los Angeles, 2003

    Photographer Eric Coleman says: ‘I met Doom first as “Dumile”, the person, not the rapper, and was like, “OK, this is what he looks like.” When Doom put on the mask, things became surreal. Suddenly, I was photographing a mask and not the person; the guy behind it almost didn’t matter’
    MF Doom, Los Angeles, 2003. Says photographer Eric Coleman: “I met Doom first as ‘Dumile’, the person, not the rapper, and was like, ‘OK, this is what he looks like’. He was wearing a red Polo T-shirt because he was a ‘Polo head’. Once I ‘normalised’ him as a regular person, I could then photograph him with the mask. When Doom put on the mask, things became surreal. Suddenly, I was photographing a mask and not the person; the guy behind it almost didn’t matter. And that’s when the portrait happened. I shot about five rolls with my Fuji GA645 and Hasselblad against a white wall at the house.”

  • Jeff Jank adds: ‘Doom seemed so obscure then; no photos, albums under different names, his records in and out of print. He and Madlib were both like the anti–pop star. If there was ever a chance to try and define someone with an image, this was it’
    Jeff Jank: “Doom seemed so obscure then; no photos, albums under different names, his records in and out of print. He and Madlib were both like the anti–pop star and that’s exactly how the album was shaping up. If there was ever a chance to try and define someone with an image, this was it. Instead of focusing on the mask as an object, I wanted it to evoke the man wearing the mask. I definitely don’t think of the photo we selected for the cover as just an image of a mask. It’s a photo of a complex man who just so happens to have a metal mask on.”

  • Queen Latifah, New York City, 1991

    Photographer Al Pereira: ‘I believe the artist’s ideas inform their image, so I love collaboration. It was actually her idea to do the smoking gun kind of pose. She did all the heavy lifting with that shot and really brought power to it. She was the Queen in command’
    Queen Latifah, New York City, 1991. Says photographer Al Pereira: “I believe the artist’s ideas inform their image, so I love collaboration. It was actually her idea to do the smoking gun kind of pose. She did all the heavy lifting with that shot and really brought power to it. Dana was always a visual person and understood the power of media and photography. She was an unapologetic champion for black feminism, pride and Afrocentrism, and it was all expressed in her lyrics, her style and her media image. She was the Queen in command.”

  • Pereira says: ‘I shot this on the set of the Fly Girl video with a Pentax 645 Medium 2¼-in negative using a manual focus with a 75mm/2.8 lens. Latifah’s mom was a big part of her career and made sure Dana (that’s what I called her) was always above board’
    Pereira: “I shot this on the set of the Fly Girl video with a Pentax 645 Medium 2¼-in negative using a manual focus with a 75mm/2.8 lens. Latifah was on Tommy Boy Records at the time. Her mom was a big part of her career and made sure Dana (that’s what I called her) was always aboveboard. She was at the shoot as well, and on the contact sheet you can see her with Dana and her dancers. You can see that some of the light was leaking in here too – I almost lost that shot”

  • A$AP Rocky, Harlem, 2012

    Photographer Phil Knott says: ‘When I was hired to shoot Rocky’s album cover, I decided it was important to shoot with him in his neighbourhood in Harlem’
    A$AP Rocky, Harlem, 2012. Says photographer Phil Knott: “When I was hired to shoot Rocky’s album cover, I decided it was important to shoot with him in his neighbourhood in Harlem. I went location scouting along 127th Street, where I met one of A$AP Rocky’s boys. We walked around for a while and I remember there being some talk of a bridge scene from the movie Juice that was shot nearby many years earlier. Even though these guys were babies when that film was made, it still resonated with them and had become this stuff of urban lore.”

  • Knott adds: ‘On the day of the shoot, Rocky showed up with the flag and we moved over to a nearby studio to get the cover photo, which I shot with a Canon 5D. I didn’t think anything of him bringing the flag. We shot it upside down to signify a state of unrest’
    Knott: “On the day of the shoot, Rocky showed up with the flag and we moved over to a nearby studio to get the cover photo, which I shot with a Canon 5D. I didn’t think anything of him bringing the flag, as it just seemed like a natural statement that he wanted to make. We shot it upside down to signify a state of unrest.”

  • Kanye West, Harlem, 2003

    Photographer Danny Clinch says: ‘Kanye was someone who clearly had a vision for what he wanted. By the time I did the cover of this album, I had already done a lot of classic covers and knew how to respect an artist’s vision’
    Kanye West, Harlem, 2003. Says photographer Danny Clinch: “Kanye was someone who clearly had a vision for what he wanted. By the time I did the cover of this album, I had already done a lot of classic covers and knew how to respect an artist’s vision.”

  • Clinch adds: ‘His style was just really unique, not typical of other hip-hop visuals at the time. He envisioned a high school yearbook theme. I got the sense that he really wanted to take a chance with this debut’
    Clinch: “His style was just really unique, and was not typical of other hip-hop visuals at the time. He envisioned a high school yearbook theme. I got the sense that he really wanted to take a chance with this debut, and the portrait on the bleachers became this very symbolic image.”

  • Biggie Smalls, New York City, 1997

    Says photographer Barron Claiborne: ‘The symbolism of the crown was meant to convey greatness and something bigger about hip-hop and this man who had made it to the top of his game’
    Biggie Smalls, “King of New York”, New York City, 1997. Says photographer Barron Claiborne: “The symbolism of the crown was meant to convey greatness and something bigger about hip-hop and this man who had made it to the top of his game. I used to love Richard Avedon and Irving Penn and how disciplined their photos were, so I really planned out this photo and I had a definite vision for what I wanted.”

  • Claiborne: ‘A few days after Biggie died, someone called to tell me that the image was being carried through Biggie’s funeral procession in Brooklyn. That was meaningful to me. When people die young, as Biggie did, they are mythologised through imagery. As a photographer, to have a photo that everybody knows is rare’
    Claiborne: A few days after Biggie died, someone called to tell me that the image was being carried through Biggie’s funeral procession in Brooklyn. That was meaningful to me. It meant people perceived this image as representative of Biggie. When people die young, as Biggie did, they are mythologised through imagery. As a photographer, to have a photo that everybody knows is rare. It’s so different from my other work that many people don’t realise I even took the photo.”
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