An exhibition at the Delaware Art Museum featuring iconic pictures from the 1990s New York City hip-hop scene closes in early January.
During the 1990s, when soon-to-famous rappers like Tupac and Nas were making their names in New York City, T. Eric Monroe was an up and coming freelance photographer. He says back then, before the widespread influence of the internet and social media, artists spent more time on new releases.
“They had time to really work on their craft and season their craft, and also because there was no social media when a picture got published in a magazine, it was many, many months later,” he says. “It gave me time to take a picture, meet people, be around the culture, without having to speed along.”
Years later, Monroe dove into his archives and curated a collection of photos from that time, focusing on what he calls “unguarded moments.”
“A lot of what drove me is, the trying to always find an opportunity, finding a moment to photograph an artist, and just taking the most of any moment that was given to me and making it very sincere and capturing that moment,” Monroe said.
Monroe recalls a time in 1994 when he photographed Tupac in a Harlem neighborhood while the rapper was filming for a hip-hop music channel.
“He would take moments and talk to the kids and the people in the neighborhood and sign their autographs, spending real one-on-one moments with people,” Monroe recalls. “Not trying to be this larger than life character, but letting the kids know, ‘I went to school – elementary school in this area across from where we are now.’ And really, spending this kind of quality celebrity time that was non-celebrity in many ways.”
Hip Hop Moments Captured: T. Eric Monroe closes on January 5 at the Delaware Art Museum. See the museum’s website at delart.org for holiday hours.
Delaware Public Media’s arts coverage is made possible, in part, by support from the Delaware Division of the Arts, a state agency dedicated to nurturing and supporting the arts in Delaware, in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts.
