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Last modified on Wed 23 Feb 2022 16.01 GMT
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Breakdancer doing the crab at the Roxy during auditions for Beat StreetBeat Street was a film which, when it came out in 1984, would provide a snapshot of the emerging hip-hop scene. Breakdancing was one of the four pillars of hip-hop culture, and the crab was a move where the dancer raised their whole body off the floor, just walking on their hands
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Mr Freeze stepping out with his boomboxMr Freeze was a champion breakdancer. A boombox, through which one could play hip-hop music while dancing, was an essential accessory. The attached sticker depicts the evil wizard Gargamel, a sworn enemy of the Smurfs
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Futura jumping a turnstile in the subwayBramly’s work documents all four of hip-hop’s elements: DJs, MCs, graffiti artists and breakdancers. Futura was a graffiti artist who started spraying artwork around New York in the early 1970s, then showed at downtown galleries along with Keith Haring in the early 80s
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Afrika Bambaataa and DJ Kool Herc at the Zulu Nation anniversary party, Bronx River CenterThe community centre was one of the crucibles of hip-hop in its early days. ‘Some people ended up being close friends and they helped me meet others all throughout 1982,’ Bramly says of her experiences of that nascent scene. ‘I was also religiously at the Roxy and every possible hip-hop party at all times, but not taking as many photos as I did the following two years, only because no media cared about the hip-hop scene at first’
Photograph: Sophie Bramly
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The rapper B-Side, Amad Henderson (co-founder of the Zulu Nation) and Afrika Bambaataa, in front of Greene Street RecordingsGreene Street Recordings was a recording studio in Manhattan where seminal records including Shannon’s Let the Music Play, Kurtis Blow’s The Breaks and Run-DMC’s It’s Like That were recorded. ‘Most of my hip-hop friends don’t recall me with a camera, I was a party girl in fishnets, so unless I was staging things they rarely noticed if I was with or without a camera’
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D.ST riding the subwayGrandmixer D.ST was one of the first DJs to use two turntables together as musical instruments. He says: ‘All these photos speak for a time that is so special, is never coming back and changed the world. It’s pretty much this experience that changed everything for ever. What makes it amazing, is that you hear stories about superheroes that changed the world, and that was us’
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Dynamic breakers at the RoxyThe Roxy was a club in Chelsea, Manhattan, which had a huge effect in disseminating hip-hop culture. Mr Freeze says, looking back: ‘The difference between breakers from the 70s in comparison to now is huge in two completely different ways. The breakers from the 70s heavily relied on style because that’s what the look was of this particular dance. Breakers today don’t have the style that we used to have, however the moves are far more advanced than we could’ve ever imagined’
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Zephyr + Fab Five Freddy with his beat box checking out the Beat Street audition at the RoxyFab Five Freddy was one of the first rappers. He remembers of the time: ‘Many people of colour living in urban areas in NYC were living below the poverty line. Like the pivotal rap song The Message says: “Rats in the front room, roaches in the back, junkies in the alley with a baseball bat,” and “Don’t push me cause I’m close to the edge”… ‘Those lines from The Message accurately captured what a lot of folks living in the Bronx and other hoods really looked and felt like back then’
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Futura and Keith Haring at the Fun gallery, in front of one of Futura’s paintingsBramly says: ‘Keith was at Futura’s opening, as they were good friends, and I asked them to stand back to back, as if in a western. There was something in common for me between a spray can and a gun, and I also thought that back-to-back fitted the way their careers were moving: Futura in the black world of hip-hop and Keith more in the white downtown world’
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Taking a break from the dance floor at the Bronx river centerThis was the scene of many parties deejayed by Afrika Bambaataa. Bramy says: “Because the guys on the picture are not dressed like b-boys, I guess I passed on it back then, but looking at it now makes it look like hip-hop took place back in the 60s! But it also really shows how Bronx River had a normal local crowd, like at regular block parties. It was about sharing the music with as many people as possible. In the summer, you could see small kids, girls chatting around, it was a great hang-out spot for the local community’
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The Beastie Boys (Mike D, MCA, and Ad-Rock)The Beastie Boys are pictured not long after transitioning from hardcore rock to rap. Standing behind Ad-Rock is Rick Rubin, who produced their first rap records
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D.ST in his bedroom, which doubled as his recording studioD.ST says: ‘At first I only had one turntable. I worked at McDonald’s to have two turntables. Finally I had a mixer and could hear it all at the same time. By that time I had developed the muscle memory of what I was doing. I was playing my mother’s records at parties. Hip-hop is nothing more than some records from your mother’s collection. The rap stuff is not even new, it’s our generation expressing ourselves through soul music with the technology of the time. That’s it. It’s the technology that makes it different’
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Muhamad, of the Magnificent Force Breakdance Crew and members of the NYPD at The Bronx River CenterMuhamad remembers: ‘I started b-boying when I was four or five years old. Ever since I can remember hip-hop was around me. Julie Fraud was the manager of the Magnificent Force. I auditioned and got down, and it was a true honour to be one of the foundational people of the spread of hip-hop culture around the world. I started touring very young, and saw hip-hop take off from there’
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Disco FeverThe Bronx’s landmark hip-hop nightclub in broad daylight
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