Editor’s note: ERNEST PANICCIOLI is an award winning photo-journalist and community activist. ‘The Other Side Of Hip-Hop’ is the film biopic of his life and the lessons he has learned through the artistic movement called Hip-Hop. This film won the Best Documentary award at the 2007 Big Apple Film Festival.
In Rock, there were a couple of photographers who caught images of a young Elvis, Jimi Hendrix, Joni Mitchell, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Bob Dylan, the early Beatles and The Stones.
In Hip-Hop there were a small handful of us who caught Bam, (Grand Wizard) Theodore, Lee (Quinones), Vulcan, graf kids and B-boys, as well as Public Enemy, KRS1, Rakim, Crash Crew, Cold Crush, Slick Rick, Tribe Called Quest, Latifah De La Soul, Zulu, Tony Tone, DJ Kool Herc, Grandmaster(s) Flash and Caz.
Unlike Rock photographers, those of us who caught the early Hip-Hop magic have not really profited financially. Most of us have done a book or two, and with the exception of Henry Chalfant’s ‘Subway Art’, those books have sold in fairly small numbers, to a very small audience.
Most of the money we’ve earned has come from sales to magazines or the occasional sale to a media outlet like a Vh1 or MTV. Once or twice I’ve received a call to supply images for a retro album cover or I’v completed the sale for a few hundred dollars of a photo in a gallery show. Any fame or celebrity status we’ve acquired is in reality among our peers and a very small circle of Hip-Hop’s true fans.
Now that Hip-Hop is 33 years old or sopmewhere in that range(no BeYonce fake Hollywood age) we would like to be able to relax and to say we were there, that we documented the early phase of this artistic movement, and we did it honestly, quietly and well. Perhaps get a few paychecks for doing a lecture or for licensing our photos to a sneaker company/clothing line, and maybe go to Vegas in a nice hotel for a 4 day package get away, but now a ugly Grinch has reared his head with threats, accusations and warnings of lawsuits. The Grinch in question is not one of the t.I.’s that typically use their lawyers like Michael Vick uses his pitbulls but none other than the alleged “Godfather of Hip-Hop”, the one, the only DJ Kool Herc.
As a DJ perhaps he should rethink his verbal assaults and ask himself if he has paid royalties to every artist, record label, singer, rapper or management group for the records he spins at parties and functions. He should also ask himself what if we as the original historians of this culture decide to write him out of the history (rightly, or wrongly) of Hip-Hop?
If in films, documentaries, magazine articles, speeches, interviews on radio and TV and DVD’s we decide showing images of him or even mentioning his name is too much of a hassle and headache, an outright waste of time?
As far as the law goes we are 100% within our rights to use our images of him in any way, shape or form we see fit (with the exception of using his image on clothing or merchandise), especially since none of our images were shot secretly or without his knowledge or consent and were of a PUBLIC FIGURE in A PUBLIC Setting.
Instead of DJ Kool Herc growing old gracefully and utilizing his fame, his unique position in a historic culture and notoriety as a vehicle to get paid properly by global entertainment vehicles such as radio, television and even the internet as Fab 5 Freddy does or doing DJ gigs that he could command top dollar for, or even getting his own radio show, he has decided to attack, threaten, abuse, hassle and harangue those of us who helped push his face, fame, name and reputation to the world long before the anyone knew or even cared about Hip-Hop.
If he decides to hire some sorry, inept, cut rate sheister to file papers against all of us, or even ONE of us photographers I suggest we unite and fight him with a fury. Not just to protect ourselves in this instance, but to allow us to freely practice our chosen craft that we have used to give so much to so many for so long and for so little.
In unity,
Ernie Paniccioli
