Contact High: A Visual History of Hip-Hop

by Vikki Tobak, Questlove (Foreword)

ONE OF AMAZON'S BEST ART & PHOTOGRAPHY BOOKS 0F 2018
AN NPR AND PITCHFORK BEST MUSIC BOOK OF 2018 PICK
ONE OF TIME 'S 25 BEST PHOTOBOOKS OF 2018
NEW YORK TIMES , ASSOCIATED PRESS ,  WALLSTREET JOURNA L , ROLLING STONE,  AND  CHICAGO SUN HOLIDAY GIFT GUIDE PICK


The perfect gift for music and photography fans, an inside look at the work of hip-hop photographers told through their most intimate diaries—their contact sheets.

Featuring rare outtakes from over 100 photoshoots alongside interviews and essays from industry legends, Contact High: A Visual History of Hip-Hop takes readers on a chronological journey from old-school to alternative hip-hop and from analog to digital photography. The ultimate companion for music and photography enthusiasts, Contact High is the definitive history of hip-hop’s early days, celebrating the artists that shaped the iconic album covers, t-shirts and posters beloved by hip-hop fans today.

With essays from BILL ADLER, RHEA L. COMBS, FAB 5 FREDDY, MICHAEL GONZALES, YOUNG GURU, DJ PREMIER, and RZA 

Genres: Music, Photography, Nonfiction, Hip Hop, Art, History, Coffee Table Books

288 pages, Hardcover

Published October 16, 2018

Reviews

[Sheila · Rating 5 out of 5]

Saw this exhibit today at the Annenberg Space for Photography in Los Angeles. The exhibit as well as the book was fantastic. Took me back to being a teenager in the late 80's

[Sam R · Rating 5 out of 5]

I just read an entire “coffee table” book in bed

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

woah!!! What an amazing collection of interviews and photos!! If you are any what a fan of Hip-Hop and would like some insight to some very iconic photos, then this is your book!!!!!

[Keen Reader · Rating 4 out of 5]

Starting off in the Bronx of 1979 with Joe Conzo Jr’s image of Tony Tone and Kool Herc, taking us all the way up to Phil Knott’s 2012 shot of A$AP Rocky, this collection does a grand job of capturing the urban grit and the many burgeoning talents which were slowly pushing through to a wider audience beyond the main cities of the US, particularly in New York and Los Angeles. Many of the artists and rappers are caught in the moments or the months just before they broke through to the mainstream and in many cases across the world.

We see the poseurs, pioneers and players, brimming with menace, vim and determination mugging for the camera and throwing shapes. There are private moments, stolen moments, staged moments and iconic moments all frozen in time and brought together to build quite an impressive and important record of the emerging and evolving scene as it grew from strength to strength through the decades.

In spite of the many cliches which blight the image of Hip-Hop there remains some diversity, which is caught in these pages, we get rich people pretending to be poor, poor people pretending to rich, white pretending to be black, black pretending to be white and many people trying to look serious who look very funny. Ultimately these are the works of something consisting of many parts, part cultural historians, part brand promotion and part myth creation.

The contact sheets and the more technical aspects will likely be more of interest to specialists but there’s still much in here to make this more than worthwhile reading for those fans of the genre. I particularly enjoyed the pieces on the 80s artists, the likes of Run DMC, Public Enemy, EPDM, Erik B and Rakim which gave some interesting background and context to the images now very much part of the wider culture.

[Rick Christiansen · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must have for the true hip hop heads and photgraphy fans alike.

The photographers give some interesting backstories about the artists and the origins of some of the most famous hip hop images of all time.

[Daniel · Rating 5 out of 5]

AMAZING!!

A photobook that goes through the history of Hip Hop, starting from its Graffiti and Breakdancing days up to early 2010s online collectives.
We get to see photos from performances, album cover shootings, magazine covers even their private life.
The special twist is that we also have scans of the camera contact sheets, allowing us to see some never-before-released and used shots. A nice peak into a photographers mind, seeing what the philosophy is of a good and usable photo.
But we don't just peak in their mind through the photograph, every page has some additional comments from them. Those range from simple technical details (camera model, lens size etc.) to funny anecdotes or their emotions and thought process during the photoshoot.
I think my enjoyment equally comes from the art of photography and the love of Hip Hop. It's great to see the process of shootings, but also really great to see my favorite artists in a loose historial depiction.
A couple of legendary people of the artform (Questlove, RZA, DJ Premier) were also invited to write a more in depth essay which is great.
My biggest problem is how the book ends in 2012. It does state that photographers moved on to digital photography, meaning there are no contact sheets anymore, but it would have been great to see some of the photoshoots of the mid 2010s too. Even if its not the sheets but just leftover digital photos.

The printing quality of Contact High is impeccable, this is the first photobook I have ever owned and I had no clue they are THIS good. It's so so sharp, and colorful and much so nicer to look at than a screen.
I am definitely going to look into other photography books for other topics and themes.

Thank you Vikki Tobak and everyone involved

[Jane · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely stunning photography, with commentary from the photographers on what the artists wanted, which frames were favorites, insights into the personality and style of their subjects, etc. Includes contributions from some of the artists themselves, and includes stories behind some of the most iconic images in hip hop history, and some really poignant moments - Biggie right before his death, Tupac, Nas, and others at a club together before they blew up, Jay-Z when he's just starting to come up and fantasize about a life in the skyscrapers of New York, Nicki when she was still just putting out mixtapes, etc.

Fascinating, beautiful, a great add to any collection. Using the contact sheets to get a good feel for the overall shoot is genius, and sometimes ends up showing the other activities that photographer did that day (multiple shoots lead to a pageant winner on the same contact sheet as a shoot in one case). Definitely recommend.

[Armando · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fantastic visual narrative of various photographers who have documented Hip Hop artists since the advent of the musical genre. This is a must-have book for the music scholar or the Hip Hop historian. The portraits in the carefully curated book are strong & powerful, and the short stories from the photographers' accounts offer a nostalgic conversation to the reader. For those in Los Angeles, go and see the exhibition at The Annenberg Space for Photography.

P.S. Do yourself a favor and create a classic Hip Hop playlist that will play in the background while you browse the book. It enhances the experience of this wonderful book and will allow you to be immersed in the music.

[jonnnnn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Breezed through this in just over a week. I love The Culture, photography, and learning about the process behind these iconic photos. Learned about some of my favorite shots, and discovered so much more. I could think of a few more shots both recently (to pimp a butterfly album cover) and from the past (only built 4 Cuban linx cover?) that I would've liked seen here, but this is still a beautiful, essential document of the most important art form in American society today.

[Heather · Rating 5 out of 5]

An amazing collection of images—shown with the very rarely given context of the contact sheets. This forms an incredible overview of hip hop from its inception until fairly recently, and what's most striking about it is the inclusivity. There are so many women included here (rappers, photographers and producers alike) that you can't fail to notice how bad most other books and publications are at showcasing the women of hip hop. A proper joy to sit down with on a rainy afternoon with a beer.

[ambassadorofthemartians · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not just incredible photography but a concise history of Hip Hop

[Dan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I won't pretend to know everybody in this book. Fun to flip through and see 'behind the scene's kind of stuff. I thumbed through it for a couple of days.

[Kari · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cool visual history of Hip Hop/rap/ musicians.....

[JL Salty · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great introduction to the history of hip hop, not too intimidating because of the format, photography mixed with archive and history.
Some language. Some nudity.

[Monique Gonzales · Rating 5 out of 5]

Combination of 2 things I love. Hip hop and photography.

[Nicole · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic photos and snippets into the lives of so many hip hop greats!!

[Ron Maskell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great visual representation of Hip-Hop fun to read the behind the scenes.

[S · Rating 4 out of 5]

An irreplaceable piece of history. Amazing images and knowledge by people who not only love hip-hop but ARE hip-hop. One of the best visual books I've read on hip-hop thus far.

[Leslie · Rating 5 out of 5]

An amazing and beautiful book for old school and new hip hop fans.

[Markus Seaberry · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is great!! It’s so many cool photos of hip-hop artists from the 70s until the present day!! If you’re a fan of hip-hop, this book is a must-read!!

[kathryn · Rating 5 out of 5]

not better than seeing the exhibit in person but still incredible, also it being a book forced me to actually read the captions for everything bc my brain doesn't like doing that in museums

[Luka Miskic · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nothing short of amazing. Nicest hardbook I have.

[Jeffrey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Iconic moments during the most influential musical movement in history.

[Stefan Bendik · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was fun to read and good to know a BIT more about how some of the most iconic pictures in hip hop history were made.
Unfortunatelly, it is just a BIT. I really wished to read more about a lot of the individual pictures/rappers in this book, but the authors of the text seemed very reluctant to give us more than a paragraph in many cases.
The amount of space given to some artists as opposed to others seems disproportionate (that’s all they had for 2pac?) and some of my personal favorite ones are not mentioned in the book at all (KRS One, Common?).
All in all it is an interesting book if you are into hip hop but by no means is this a definitive or comprehensive take on the culture, nor it’s representation through photographic medium.

[Bill]

It wouldn’t be fair for me to rate this book as I mostly skimmed through it and had only a passing interest in it based on a recommending review. I’m also not familiar with the history of hip hop nor it’s early practitioners and proponents, but this book did give me a nice chronological overview. Many of the figures talked about and featured in the photos were familiar names to me, but many were not. My criticism, if it is such, is that the premise of the book, the fact that the well-known iconic photos are accompanied by the photographer’s contact strips of that particular photo shoot, isn’t really all that impressive as the main photo is not surprisingly the best one.