Katie sits down with the man behind Hip Hop's Baby pictures Joe Conzo JR.
In an article published on October 4, 2005 by The New York Times, reporter David González heralded Joe Conzo Jr as “The Man Who Took Hip-Hop’s Baby Pictures.” The long and perilous journey of his photographic images had finally captured the gaze of mainstream America.
Born and raised in the Bronx, Joe Conzo Jr. acquired a passion for photography as a young boy attending the Agnes Russell School on the campus of Columbia University. He continued his formal artistic education at the School of Visual Arts (NYC).
During his early development, “Joey” bore witness to the volatile state of South Bronx community activism, and to the vanguard world of New York’s Puerto Rican cultural music scene. On any given day, he could find himself at the heels of his grandmother, the late Dr. Evelina López Antonetty (a dynamic leader and passionate activist ), engaged in a defiant act of civil disobedience for the educational rights of minorities in the South Bronx. On another day, he’d find himself clinging to the shirt-tail of his father, Joe Conzo Sr. (longtime confidant and biographer for the legendary orchestra leader and musician the late Tito Puente), behind-the-scenes with the giants of Latin music like Machito, Charlie Palmieri, Johnny Pacheco and Ray Barretto. These two vivid realities would have a profound effect on how Joey viewed his environment through the lens of a camera.
Like most modern photographers, Joey has undergone the transition from film to digital. His work from behind the lens continues to reflect the main tenets of Hip Hop culture. As he once said, “Just because of a camera…,” he has traveled the USA coast-to-coast and has crossed oceans to parts of the world he thought he would never see, and everywhere he went the unfathomable spread of Hip Hop music, culture and dance was irrefutable.
Joe Conzo Jr. continues to lecture, meet with young people, exhibit his work, and attend international events.
Did you know that his father was the historian for Hector Lavoe?
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