Photographer Joe Conzo and his images of the birth of hip-hop in the Bronx

Hip-hop culture was born on the streets of New York City in the 1970s, largely in the Bronx and Manhattan, and photographer Joe Conzo was there, capturing the infancy of this cultural revolution.

Conzo, who was raised in the South Bronx and went on to a career as an emergency medical technician and union official, has been called, “The man who took hip hop’s baby pictures," by David Gonzalez of The New York Times.

Joe Conzo was a teenager when he started photographing the early hip-hop scene. His black-and-white images of the Bronx in the turbulent and often violent 1970's and 80's are considered an important part of that era's history.

He photographed hip-hop groups such as the legendary Cold Crush Brothers in early performances and depicted a scene that started on the gritty South Bronx streets, in high school gyms and small nightclubs.
Conzo’s photographs in "Born In The Bronx: A Visual Record of the Early Days of Hip Hop" became part of a permanent archive housed at Cornell University. More than 10,000 of his photographs of early hip-hop have been digitized and can be viewed online at the Cornell University Library’s hip-hop collection.

The Museum of the City of New York is featuring an exhibit of the images of Conzo, Martha Cooper and Janette Beckman until September 13, 2015. Hip Hop Revolution presents more than 100 photographs taken between 1977 and 1990 in the Bronx.

The Museum of the City of New York is located at 1220 Fifth Avenue near E 103rd Street and is open from 10am-6pm every day. (David Handschuh/Yahoo News)

Photographs by Joe Conzo/JoeConzo.com

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