'GREAT DAY IN HIP HOP' CROWD FUNDING

Just launched an Indie Go Go campaign for a long overdue documentary

On September 29, 1998, legendary photographer, author, and filmmaker Gordon Parks Jr. took the most famous photograph in hip hop history. On that day 177 rappers, DJs, producers, dancers, graffiti artists, record executives and a few lucky fans, gathered in Harlem in front of the same 17 East 126^th Street building that, in 1958, served as the backdrop for the A Great Day in Harlem picture of jazz performers. Organized by upstart hip hop magazine XXL, Parks' photo is both a time stamp and a gateway into hip hop’s journey to global ubiquity with Camron, Fat Joe, Rakim, Busta Rhymes, A Tribe Called Quest, Slick Rick, Scarface, Mack 10, Grandmaster Flash, Kid Capri, Da Brat, Shaquille O'Neal and Jermaine Dupri amongst the 177 people captured in the picture.

The photo was taken twenty-five years after the unofficial birth of hip hop. The culture was in flux. The pioneers were losing relevance. Bap Boom was still commercially viable. West Coast gangsta rap was ebbing in importance. Increasingly the South had something to say. I was a forty-one-year-old journalist and author in 1998, working to transition from print media to full-time filmmaker. With enthusiasm and no money, I convinced the publisher of XXL to grant me exclusive access to the 126th Street location where Parks was to shoot. With a small crew I shot 7 hours of video footage on mini-dv cameras. The bulk of that footage has remained unseen.

Our goal is to shoot interviews with artists who attended, reporters who covered it and XXL staff members who helped organize the shoot. We’re raising money to shoot interviews that will be wrapped around the archival footage and for post production.

We’ll explore the questions of How did this iconic moment happen? How many actual hip hop artists were in it? How did sunlight determine its final form? How did two huge stars not end up in the photograph? But the story is much larger than the photograph. Hovering over this event like the stink of death were the murders of Tupac Shakur in 1996 and Christopher Wallace aka the Notorious BIG in 1997. Whether directly or obliquely, hip hop figures from around the country referenced the deaths in framing why they participated in the photo shoot.

RUN of RUN-D.M.C. arriving late for the photo shoot, which plays a key part in the story of the day.

September 29, 1998 was Tuesday and in the record biz of that era Tuesday was the day most new albums were released. Arguably this was one of the greatest Tuesdays ever for new rap music –JAY-Z’s Hard Knock Life, Outkast’s Aquemini, Mos Def and Talib Kweli Are Black Star, A Tribe Called Quest’s The Love Movement, Brand Nubian’s Foundation were all released that day.

Unfortunately, this meant many artists couldn't attend. No Jay-Z. No Andre 3000 or Big Boi. But, as we’ll see, several important NYC MC’s did make it. It’s important to note that September 29th, 1998 would be one of the last great release days in recorded music history. Less than a year later, in June, 1999, a peer to peer file sharing application would be launched, enabling customers to share MP3 audio files. This service, known as Napster, would change how people consumed music forever. We didn’t know it that day in Harlem but the age of physical media was over.

The photograph was also a byproduct of the battle among competing hip hop magazines. The Source was the champ. Founded in 1988, at one point the Source was the biggest selling music magazine on American newsstands. The well-funded chief challenger was Vibe, which was founded by music legend Quincy Jones and financed by the Time-Warner conglomerate. And then there was XXL magazine, which in September 1998 had only been in business a year. To make noise XXL needed something epic and organizing this photo was their Hail Mary pass. With the 30^th anniversary of the photo shoot coming up in 2028 we’re aiming to have the film completed to celebrate this historic photograph.

We have a number of incentives for those who donate, so please check them out.

Below are pictures from that day, a video about the film and a link to my Indie Go Go page.

Sitting on an 126th Street stoop next music executive Faith Newman on September 29, 1998.

Gordon Park’s iconic 1998 XXL magazine cover shot at 17 East 126th Street.

Art Kane’s 1958 A Great Day in Harlem photo of 57 jazz musicians was shot in front of the same 17 East 126th Street as the XXL photo.

Gordon Parks on the day of the shoot with a security guard.

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/a-great-day-in-hip-hop-the-film/x/11010058#/