#Vikki Tobak

[dippedanddripped]

Vikki Tobak traces the role of jewelry in hip-hop culture | SOLE DXB 2022

[amnhnyc]

💎 Ice Cold: An Exhibition of Hip-Hop Jewelry is now open! This show is curated by guest curator Vikki Tobak, and guest co-curators Kevin “Coach K” Lee, and Karam Gill. The advisory includes Slick Rick, LENNY S., Mandy Aragones, Timothy Anne Burnside, Tanisha Ford, Alex Moss, Peter Nice, and Bevy Smith.

✨ Shout out to Mr. Flower Fantastic and DJ Clark Kent for helping us kick off the opening of Ice Cold.

[fashionbooksmilano]

Ice cold. A Hip-Hop Jewelry History

Vikki Tobak 

Text by Slick Rick, ASAP Ferg, LL COOL J, Kevin”Coach K”Lee, Pierre “P” Thomas

Taschen, Cologne 2022 ,388 pages, Hardcover, English edition with German and French translation as download, 25 x 34 cm, ISBN  9783836584975

euro 80,00

email if you want to buy booksinprogressmilano@yahoo.it

“Ice Cold: A Hip-Hop jewelry history" presents the bling culture of rappers and their jewelry. Using 40 years of iconic imagery and compelling stories, this visual history shines a light on the world of hip-hop, where mega stars from Run-DMC to Tupac and Jay-Z to Migos and Cardi B flash brilliant custom pieces to show status and personal style.  Ice Cold is a treasure trove of dazzling, inspirational style, featuring the work of leading photographers, including Wolfgang Tillmans, Janette Beckman, Jamel Shabazz, Timothy White, Gillian Laub, David LaChapelle, Danny Clinch, Chris Buck, Mike Miller, Phil Knott, Raven B. Varona, Al Pereira, Albert Watson and many more.

24/04/23

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[wordlifers]

Currentlly Flippin' Thru - Contact High (A Visual History Of Hip Hop). (By Vikki Tobak) The Hip Hop Heads Coffee Table Book, One We All Need In Our Library. This Book Is Almost Like A Hip Hop Year Book That Chronicles Over 30 Years. High Quality Visuals Of Some Of The Best Moments In Hop Hop History. Go Cop That! #contacthigh #vikkitobak #hiphopbooks #hiphop #hiphopheads #hiphophistory #hiphopfashion #hiphopculture ##sneakerheads #sneakerculture #80shiphop #90shiphop #eastcoasthiphop #westcoasthiphop #oldschoolhiphop #undergroundhiphop #classichiphop #boombaphiphop #vintagehiphop #wordlifers #thewordlifeclothing #thecratediggersunion https://www.instagram.com/p/CnGJM4vp-Lw/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[dankusner]

 ‘Ice Cold: An Exhibition of Hip-Hop Jewelry’, a cultural trip through jewellery design

‘Given hip-hop’s roots in New York, the chance to tell this story in this city is very special’

Hip-hop’s official 50th birthday was 11 August 2023.

And while there’s still time to celebrate that milestone, this party is not due to end any time soon.

‘Ice Cold: An Exhibition of Hip-Hop Jewelry’ runs at the American Museum of Natural History in New York until January 2025, and so there's ample time to join in.

Among the oversized gold chains and diamond-studded pendants is a glitter ball of legendary names – The Notorious B.I.G., Jam Master Jay and Erykah Badu among them.

But ‘Ice Cold’ aims higher, going way beyond the brilliantly audacious designs to illuminate hip-hop jewellery as part of a multi-layered trajectory of style, politics and sociocultural trends.

Following the success of Run-DMC’s 1986 hit ‘My Adidas’, Adidas struck a first-of-its-kind endorsement deal with the group, presenting each member with a 14ct gold sneaker-charm pendant. This version is by jeweller Erwin Hesz

As Sean Decatur, president of the museum tells me from New York:

‘The exhibition is not purely an academic or voyeuristic exercise, but one in which voices of the artists come through very clearly. And, given hip-hop's roots in New York City, the chance to tell a cultural story that resonates with this city in this very strong way was very exciting for us.’

While the ‘Ice Cold’ curatorial team included hip-hop great Slick Rick, industry label executives, film-makers, jewellers and academics, it is guest curator, the journalist and author Vikki Tobak, and her meticulous research for Ice Cold: A Hip-Hop Jewelry History, who inspired the show.

A YouTube Originals docu-series, ICE COLD, by Karam Gill, was also created.

A$AP Rocky jewelled Lego Man pendant; Tyler the Creator jewelled Bellman

Coloured gems are a recurring motif in contemporay hip-hop jewels: 14ct-gold, sapphire, ruby, diamond and enamel Lego pendant, designed for A$AP Rocky by Alex Moss X Pavē, 2022; diamond, sapphire and various-colour gemstones Tyler the Creator Bellhop necklace with operable briefcase, by Alex Moss, 2021

‘I've been in love with hip-hop since the early 1990s when my first job was working at a small record label with early artists including Jay Z and Gang Starr,’ Tobak explains. ‘So, I fell in love with the music even before I knew it would be a profession.’

Having worked on the management side, her interest in hip-hop jewellery evolved naturally.

‘I think when you have a love of hip-hop to the level I did, you understand the many layers beyond the music: the style, the politics, the socio-cultural elements.

So, I always recognised the fashion and jewellery as part of hip-hop’s evolving identity – a culture within the culture, if you will.’

‘Ice Cold’ crosses five decades of jewellery design in hip-hop, from the gigantic 9ct, hollow-gold chains that set rappers apart in the late 1970s through Flavor Flav’s comic 1980s clock pendant that prompted rap’s entry into the mainstream, to Roxanne Shanté’s ‘R’ signet ring, signifying her role as the only female rapper of Juice Crew collective.

The story weaves through 1990s diamond-set record-label pendants, demure opal and white gold grillz for Erykah Badu, and Ghostface Killah’s gobsmackingly gargantuan five-pound Eagle armband.

The current mood, meanwhile, is represented by Nicki Minaj’s Barbie necklace and Tyler the Creator’s CAD-drawn character pendants, signaling a return of the pop humour and outsize forms of the early designs.

Erykah Badu wears eagle teeth grillz; Slick Rick's diamond-studded eye patch and costume crown

‘People always think of hip-hop as remixing and reinventing things, and that goes across all aspects of it, including the jewellers,’ says Tobak. ‘Also, entrepreneurialism is very much in the spirit of hip-hop and, at the beginning, there weren’t any fashion houses who wanted to dress hip-hop creatives nor jewellers catering to the hip-hop crowd. And, though not necessarily by choice, a lot of the early jewellers, immigrants from the former Soviet Union, parts of Asia, the Caribbean, were in tune with hip-hop’s DIY spirit. The “Let's go for it, right? Let's be bigger, let's be bolder with our jewelry, let's show the world who we are” design drive is, in part, an extension of that entrepreneurialism.’ Today, as big brands understand its marketing power, Tobak believes: ‘you might say hip-hop, and the luxury world are lockstep’.

So how did ‘Ice Cold’ end up on show in the American Museum of Natural History?

‘We've had a gems collection at the museum since the late 19th century,’ Decatur explains. ‘But we have always used objects from the natural world to highlight their meaning in the context of human culture, and jewellery design is part of that.’

The notion of Ice Cold being an opportunity to do something particularly special, then, he says, was clear to everyone involved:

‘When some of the artists who've loaned works for the exhibition saw it for the first time, it was really moving to hear their stories of having come to the Natural History Museum as kids,’ says the clearly delighted museum president.

[sneakervangelist]

PONY Tails! Check out me and the esteemed Vikki Tobak sharing her stories about the PONY brand growing up in Detroit.

[citylifeorg]

92NY Announces Educational Initiative Teen Gems and Hip-Hop Jewelry Talk

THE 92ND STREET Y, NEW YORK WITH THE SUPPORT OF DE BEERS GROUP, ANNOUNCES A SPARKLING PANEL DISCUSSION APRIL 21, ICE COLD: A HIP HOP JEWELRY HISTORY, WITH RAPPER SLICK RICK, HISTORIAN VIKKI TOBAK, DESIGNER JUNE AMBROSE AND VOGUE’S JANELLE OKWODU  AND, WITH DE BEERS’ SUPPORT, 92NY EDUCATES THE NEXT GENERATION OF EMERGING JEWELRY ARTISTS IN ITS NEW EDUCATION INITIATIVE, TEEN GEMS  Join us Friday,…

[yaasalaholing]

Vikki tobak

[woknbook]

Contact High: A Visual History of Hip-Hop - Vikki Tobak

[deadthehype]

Ice Cold. A Hip-Hop Jewelry History by Vikki Tobak

[newyorker]

From the perspective of today’s young hip-hop fan, the most unfathomable aspect of the past might be that fans were once starved for photographs of their favorite artists. Vikki Tobak’s new photography book "Contact High," offers a glimpse into a time when nobody quite knew where hip-hop could go.

Read the full story, “How Hip-Hop Learned to Pose for the Camera,” here. 

[thefugitivesaint]

These are shots of Bad Brains playing at Valley Green in Washington D.C. in 1979 by the photographer Lucian Perkins.  "Mostly shot wide, the images on the contact sheet illustrate just how immersive and sweat-drenched Bad Brains’ shows were, almost zero division between audience and band. The image of H.R. arms raised in euphoria between two cymbals is sheer power. Babylon turned on its head with seismic vibrations. At one point, a young African-American kid in the crowd grabs the mic, swept up in the moment. The look of shock and wonder on some of the faces in the audience is priceless. The night, equally formative and subversive, is now the stuff of legend." ..... "Perkins wasn’t a punk rock insider but he trusted his senses when it came to documenting culture. He worked at night at the Washington Post to develop the film, showing the images to Bob Woodward, the storied journalist who broke the Watergate scandal and, at the time, the Metro editor at The Washington Post. Woodward’s response: “Does this really exist in Washington? ”It’s important to talk about the significance of this night in context to what was happening in the nation’s capital in the late 70’s/early 80’s. The 1968 riots (which began after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.) ushered in a decade of economic hardship and social division. “Our nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white—separate and unequal,” was the famous edict of the Kerner Commission. Subsequently, D.C. saw a massive demographic shift that branded DC as the “Chocolate City” in the 1970’s. On the cusp of the Reagan presidency. D.C.’s soul was a spilling out into the streets. Go-Go, D.C.’s answer to hip-hop developed during the mid-1970s but the political and social climate was nothing short of polarizing. Perkins photographed the Bad Brains and the Punk scene on and off from Sep of 1979 to Jan 1980. Valley Green meanwhile was razed in 1991, replaced by single family homes and townhouses—but the legacy of that one single night in Valley Green remains, mythologized on silver gelatin…" Source

[fashionbooksmilano]

Rebels

From Punk to Dior

Janette Beckman

Drago, Roma 2021, 240 pagine,  23 × 28 cm, English, ISBN  978-88-98565-46-7

euro 60,00

email if you want to buy :booksinprogressmilano@yahoo.it

Janette Beckman and Drago Publishing are proud to present ‘Rebels: From Punk to Dior,’ the first-ever monograph from the British-born, New York-based photographer. Covering four decades of photography the book serves as a stunning snapshot of Beckman’s significance in the world of art, photojournalism, music, fashion, and popular culture – but most prevalently, it’s a testament of her unique ability to extract beauty from the outliers of society. With written contributions from Beckman’s peers including academia’s Jason King, Chair of NYU’s Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music & Vivien Goldman Author & Professor at NYU; journalists Vikki Tobak, and co-founder of PAPER, Kim Hastreiter; visual artist Cey Adams; music legends Sting, Run DMC, Paul Weller, Salt-n-Pepa, Belinda Carlisle, and Slick Rick; and fashion’s Dapper Dan, Dior’s Maria Grazia Chiuri, Levi’s Chad Hinson – From Punk to Dior showcases Janette Beckman’s influence in her realm. In addition to publishing five books, Janette Beckman’s work has been exhibited in galleries worldwide and is included in the permanent collections of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, the Museum of the City of New York, and the British National Portrait Gallery. She is represented by the Fahey Klein Gallery.

13/01/23

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[thewordisbond]

KTLA Unscripted interviews Contact High's Vikki Tobak...

Posted on https://www.thewordisbond.com/ktla-unscripted-interviews-contact-highs-vikki-tobak/

KTLA Unscripted interviews Contact High's Vikki Tobak...

  A post shared by LA Unscripted (@ktlaunscripted) on Oct 5, 2020 at 4:46pm PDT On Monday as part of their #LAUnscripted series, KTLA 5 Los Angeles interviewed Contact High's own Vikki Tobak to talk about her amazing book

[dippedanddripped]

The “King of New York” crown that the Notorious B.I.G. wore during his last recorded photoshoot is going up for sale. Sotheby’s is auctioning the iconic headpiece as part of the first-ever dedicated hip hop auction at a major international auction house.

The auction features 120 lots with artefacts, contemporary art, and photography that reflect the impact hip hop has had on art and culture from the late 1970s through the “Golden Age” of the mid-1980s to mid-1990s. And few objects hold as much meaning and interest as the late rapper’s crown.

The assassination of Christopher Wallace (aka Biggie/Biggie Smalls and Notorious B.I.G.) remains one of the most significant events in the history of hip hop, and his ‘K.O.N.Y. (King of New York)’ portrait session, just three days earlier provided one of the most famous images of the late rapper. One that would immortalize him as the “King of New York.”

Below, we’ve looked at the story behind the coveted auction item.

What’s the story behind the crown?

On March 6, 1997, Notorious B.I.G. arrived at photographer Barron Claiborne’s studio at 100 Greenwich street near Wall Street. According to Contact High: A Visual History of Hip-Hop Biggie was ‘open to whatever’ Claiborne had in mind for the photoshoot that day. Claiborne, working on a commission for the cover of Rap Pages magazine wanted to portray Biggie as a king. “Claiborne decided to immortalize him with a tilted crown nonchalantly placed on his head.”

Big is believed to have gone straight from the shoot to the airport for Los Angeles. Three days later, he was killed in a drive-by shooting outside of a Vibe mag party at Peterson Automotive Museum in LA.

Why is it so significant?

In an interview with Claiborne, writer Vikki Tobak explains that the “King of New York” photo has become one the most recognized images in hip hop history because it serves “as a symbol of greatness and remains one of the most iconic representations of the genre’s proliferation into America’s visual culture.” She suggests that “the photo is about legend. It’s about being the best. And it’s about the mythology created around our greatest heroes when they die young.”

Although, not everyone was as impressed by the crown imagery. According to Robb Report, Bad Boy Records owner Sean “Diddy” Combs didn’t like the photo spread. He reportedly thought it made the emcee look like “The Burger King.”

Where has it been since 1997?

The crown has remained in the possession of Barron Claiborne since the legendary 1997 photoshoot. The interior of the crown bears the inscription “Crown from Biggie KONY Shot NYC 3-6-97” and is signed by both Biggie and Claiborne.

When does it go to auction?

The live auction will take place at 6PM EST on September 15 at Sotheby’s New York. Included in the lot are three specially sized (36 x 40″) prints – all 1/1 printed and signed by Claiborne – of the ‘K.O.N.Y’ photograph, the 10th-anniversary K.O.N.Y. photograph, and the contact sheet. The auction house expects it to sell for between $200,000 and $300,000. You can register to bid, here.

A portion of the buyer premium will go to will benefit Building Beats, a non-profit focused on DJ and music programs.