“Contact High: A Visual History of Hip-Hop” (Clarkson Potter; $40), edited by Vikki Tobak, overlaps slightly with his era, but mostly picks up where he leaves off. The photos are of varying intensity, by photographers with varying degrees of intimacy with their subjects. That’s the real value of “Contact High”: capturing hip-hop’s transition from improvisation to construction, from thrown-together fashion to stylists, from naturalism to poses. By the 1990s, when many of these photographs were taken, rap’s young stars were as meticulous about developing their visual images as much as their musical ones. “Contact High” includes some of Janette Beckman’s early hip-hop photography — she was a key portraitist in the 1980s.

Source: New York Times December 19, 2018 19:41 UTC