Capturing Cool: Jamel Shabazz Acquired by Special Collections of the FIT Library

The FIT Library's Department of Special Collections and Archives, SPARC, recently acquired fifty of Jamel Shabazz's 11" x 14" photographs from 1980-2012. For those new to Shabazz's work (b. 1960, Brooklyn NY), the visionary street and fashion photographer began documenting urban street culture in the early days of hip hop before it rose to become a global phenomenon.

From SPARC's Material Mode blog: "In the words of Fab 5 Freddy, who wrote the introduction to Shabazz's photographic survey of his work Back in the Days, "These are the faces of the generation that gave birth to hip hop--not only the most dominant and inclusive youth culture in history, but also the most stylishly innovative and consistently advanced generation since the Rock n Roll era...If among the many emotions you feel while viewing these photos, cool comes to mind, heres why--back then, cool was all about having the right flavor and savoir faire."

See Material Mode for more images, and if you like, follow SPARC on Twitter!