Who Shot Ya?: Three Decades of Hip Hop Photography

From the Gordon Parks of hip hop, a fully illustrated, four-colour photographic history of the most popular music movement since rock and roll, as captured by its most prolific and critically acclaimed photographer. With an introduction by Kevin Powell, hip hop's most eloquent spokesperson. Nearly thirty years ago, Ernie Paniccioli began photographing the graffiti art throughout New York City as well as the young people creating it. Armed with a 35-millimeter camera, Paniccioli literally recorded the beginning salvos of hip hop, today the most dominant youth culture on the planet. Be it Grandmaster Flash at the Roxy, a summer block party in the Bronx, the fresh faces of Queen Latifah and Will Smith, the cocksure personas of Tupac Shakur, The Notorious B.I.G., and Emimem, or the regal grace of Lauryn Hill, Ernie Paniccioli has been there to showcase hip hop's evolution much in the same way Gordon Parks recorded the Civil Rights Movement, or akin to the manner in which James Van Der Zee, the great photographer of Harlem in the 1920s, met the energy and spirit of his times. Who Shot Ya?

Three Decades of Hip Hop Photography is the first major pictorial history of hip hop culture based around the work of one photographer. Culled from a vast archive, the approximately 150 images in Who Shot Ya? represent the visual diary of a generation, essentially following this socio-political art form from the streets of New York City to the billion-dollar global industry it has become. While some of these iconic renderings have graced the pages of magazines and fanzines through the years, most are published here for the first time. This is for the generation that has only known hip hop; the generation for whom Sugar Hill Gang's Rapper's Delight is as cherished and remembered as the Beetles White album. They're black and white, brown and yellow. They live in cities and rural areas. They go to private academies schools and public schools. They've heard of rock and roll and R&B-it's something their parents enjoy. Their passion has inspired a similar reaction from Japan to France.