FOREWORD
Jason King Chair, NYU's Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music
Janette Beckman has spent decades creating iconic photographs of larger-than-life, stratospheric rebels in music, fashion and beyond. An alumnus of Central Saint Martin’s and the London College of Communication, UKborn Beckman kicked off her career at the tail end of the 1970s working for Melody Maker and The Face as a leading documentary photographer of then nascent music scenes like punk rock, two-tone, alternative pop, and new wave. By 1983, Janette migrated to New York, where she photographed hip-hop at its commercial outset, shooting some of the earliest and most defining images of soon-to-be-legends like LL Cool J, Salt-nPepa, Roxanne Shante, and Slick Rick.
What gives Janette’s photos their arresting flair is that the images often seem unrehearsed, raw, and unairbrushed—not unlike like the spontaneous wildness of 1970s and 1980s music subcultures themselves. Whether Janette’s images are grainy or slick, black and white or saturated with color, they’re never pretentious. Instead, we recognize a vivid familiarity in her subjects’ eccentric faces and in their stylized poses. Her photos ripple with quiet tension, stemming from her ability to capture her subjects’ complex inner lives—like her tender image of free-spirited rocker Debby Harry by the light-streaked
windowsill. Whether Janette is shooting rock stars like Billy Idol and Tracy Chapman or cast members of the more recent FX television series Pose, the enigmatic substance of her subjects’ inner lives oozes out of the image. The people in her photographs seem ennobled, dignified even, by the complexity she strives to capture.
The diverse photographs in this collection straddle decades, eras, and continents. What connects them is that most of the subjects of Janette’s lens are, in one way or another, rule breaking rebels. In the 1970s, ‘outlaw’ styles like punk and hip-hop were more than just music genres: they represented ethos, a way of beingin-the-world. Punk was made by working-class young people who lived ‘punk,’ just as hip-hop was made by working-class people who lived ‘hip-hop.’ In the midst of ruinous economic collapse and urban decline, and the immediate and real-effect that economy had on people’s lives, young people in both movements began to refuse norms and resist musical and stylistic conventions. Hiphop’s irreverent ethos is what made sonic trailblazer Grandmaster Flash, for instance, ‘assault’ a vinyl record by scratching it, and punk’s scrappy ethos is what made The Police pick up musical instruments and decide to sound like nobody else.
HOW TO SEE Vikki Tobak
Contact High“What does it mean to visualize the inception of a sound? Janette Beckman was that rare documentarian who saw the creativity, the people, the style and the scenes - ‘rebel cultures’ as she calls it - taking shape. She documented the birth and evolution of not one but three subcultures that changed the world: punk rock, new wave and hip-hop. But it wasn’t enough just to recognize the transformative insignia of cultural movements - a trait that is the hallmark of Beckman’s images – but to also recognize the magic unfolding in front of her lens. I can imagine Janette taking the subway to Hollis, Queens to photograph Run-DMC and being fascinated by the kids on the train as she traveled, Hasselblad in hand. Janette is just as likely to turn the camera on the audience at a show as she was the artist on stage; to shoot the no-name kids on the street as much as the popular ones.
The street was her front row seat front to how vanguard movements were created, the kids who rebelled against societal norms, the outsiders, youth culture, the weird ones who would set the tone for ‘cool’ in the future. Her photography changed not only music history but the course of pop culture as well. Punks hanging around outside BOY and Worlds End. Mods in London and Ska
girls in Coventry. Joe Strummer backstage and The Specials in Southend. Los Angeles’ girl-group, the GoGo’s sipping sodas outside a West Hollywood hot dog stand. A 15-year old LL Cool J brandishing a boom box in his first ever press photo. A suited Slick Rick, one hand on a bottle of champagne, the other grabbing his crotch. The spectacular Dapper Dan-made leather suits and big earrings of the self-styled Hip-Hop trio, Salt-n-Pepa. She earned the trust of the kids on the street as well as some of the most influential artists in the world. How she managed to capture people and places with honesty and truth is a testament of who she is at her core.”
BESIDE
Run-DMC contact sheet, New York City 1988
PREVIOUS PAGES:
The Specials, Seaside Tour, Southend, 1980
TOP: Ska girls, Coventry, 1980
BELOW: 15, 16, 17 London, 1980
Mod Girl, Streatham, London, 1977
How could anyone know this would be one of the most recognizable and iconic photos in music history?! Janette Beckman not only captured our intensely powerful super woman fashion statement but also the essence of who we were at that moment, young vibrant women on a mission to conquer this male dominated genre of music called Hip Hop, mission accomplished. Thank you Janette, we are forever grateful for your talent and contribution to our legacy.
Salt (Salt-n-Pepa)
Salt-n-Pepa, New York City, 1987
Huge thank you to all the musicians, fans, artists, creatives, writers, DJ’s, bikers, gangs, demonstrators, and all the amazing people who have allowed me to take their portraits over the past four decades. Thank you to the art directors and photo editors who assigned me to capture these portraits.
Special thanks to everyone who helped, encouraged and inspired me to make this book : Cey Adams, Bill Adler, Nicholas Fahey, David Fahey, Paulo Von Vacano, Nicola Scavalli, Julie Grahame, Sara Rosen, Vikki Tobak, Vivien Goldman, Sean Corcoran, Chad Hinson, Jason King, Maria Gracia Chiurri, Olivier Bialobos, Dapper Dan, Jelani Day, Sting, Paul Weller, Belinda Carlisle, Daryl ‘DMC’ McDaniels. Cheryl ’Salt’ James, Slick Rick, Adam ’Adrock’ Horovitz, Vincent ‘DJ Maseo’ Mason, Dave Shelley, Laura Romanos, Sam Barzilay, Carl Saytor, Nicholas Cloutman, Aaron Zych, Justin King, Kim Hastreiter, David Hershkovits, Candice Lawler, Arthur Fournier, David Strettell, Miwa Suda, Jose James, Talia Billig, Mike Hartley, Stella Kramer, Debra Scherer, Neville Brody, Marcus Agerman Ross, Bob Ahearn, Shawn Waldron, Cristina Guidetti, Deborah Baker, Sir Paul Smith, Marilu Lopez, Leora Khan, Alice Ghinolfi, Domatilla Sartogo, Karl Templer, Michael Quinn, Nadjib Ben Bella, Marcus Samuelsson, Marc-Aurèle Vecchione, Lyor Cohen, Def Jam Recordings, Sleeping Bag Records, Next Plateau Records, A&M Records, powerHouse Books, Morrison Hotel Gallery, HVW8 Gallery, J.C. Gabel, Craig Atkinson, Tali Udovich, Gary Pini, Monica Lynch, Zoe Brotman, Carlo McCormick, April Walker, Trish ‘DJ Misbehaviour’ Mann, Gudrun Georges, Cathy Crawford, Benjamin Oliver, Ian Wright, Ginger Canzoneri, Stephen Rothholz, Matt Weiss, Shea ‘Go Hard Boyz’ Evans, Eve-Marie Kuijstermans, Polina Osherov, Gary Lichtenstein, Melissa Marr, Alice Mizrachi, Ces, Chino BYI, Claw Money, Crash, Cycle, Doc TC5, Eric Adams, Faust, Futura 2000, Jester, Jules Muck, Keo, Lady Pink, Lee Quinones, Mike Davis, Mode 2, Morning Breath, MRS, Part One, Queen Andrea, Revolt, Sharp, Shirt King Phade, Shoe,T-Kid 170, Todd James, Trike 1, Zephyr, David Corio, Martha Cooper, Jamel Shabazz, Danny Clinch, Merri Cyr, Joe Conzo, Charlie Ahearn, Jane Dickson, Shepard Fairey and the many great people I have collaborated with along the way.
Celebrating the election of President Joe Biden, Washington Square, New York City, 2020