Customer Reviews

A Time Before Crack

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If you were born between 1965 and 1975, this book will take you back to many forgotten memories. It is all at once an ode to fashion, an ode to attitude, and an ode to hip hop culture in its original form.

Pictured here are the days when the budding hip hop culture was special. Hip hop fashion and style had yet to escape the boundaries of the hood, and here we see ourselves in all our "fresh" glory.

The Puma sneakers with fat laces. The black goose "bomber" jackets. The sheep dog coats. The safari Kangol caps. And of course the Cazals...in every color. Its all here. This is a trip down memory lane that will surely make you smile.

Jamel Shabazz was at the right place at the right time with his camera to capture the essence of hip hop culture in its infancy. This is as much a nostalgic book as a historical document to a time long gone. It was a time when being cool didn't necessarily mean being "thug", it was just...cool.

Shabazz is an absolute master at capturing the raw grittiness of urban life while still showing the fun side. "A Time before Crack" is a necessary testiment to cultural evolution and is a must have for anyone that came of age in the hood in the late seventies and early eighties.

Okay...I'm only 30 but I was a little kid during this time period and I grew up right in the Boogie Down Bronx (South Bronx). I remember going to the skate key, seeing my uncles rocking sheep skin coats, addidas with the fat laces, Gazelle glasses. Seeing the birth of the Rap/hip hop game right before my eyes...from Curtis Blow, Luv bug Starski, to Kool Herc. This book will bring back things to your memory that will bring a warm feeling to your heart. This was the best time of my life and I wish I could go back...but now I can by revisting the pages of my life in this book.

i loved a time before crack!!! the author really captures the essence that was the 80's. though the book is mostly pictures i read so much more into it, not to mention the photos he took were great! i recommend this book for fans of the 80's era or if u just wanna know what it was like before that lil think called crack came and ruined everything.

For those who grew up with the Rap Attack on WNYC-31, or have been down with hiphop since the Inspector Gadget rap or "Friends, how many of us have them?" must get this book. As the title says, it was a wonderful and innocent time before the crack years, which I still can't believe NYC got through in the end.

I viewed this work and actually had the opportunity to hear Bro. Shabazz speak about this book at a recent viewing of his work. He said that at the time he took these photos he didn't realize that he had photos of enemies in the same book- sometimes even on the same page. He also said that since taking those pictures, so many people who were photographed in this book have been murdered as a result of the crack epidemic and others are in jail. I wish he would do a re-release of this book in which he documents all of this information so that young cats today could see vividly that the people in these photographs are more than just a picture, but learn that there is a story about each and every one of them and some are unfortunately now, just a memory.

When I saw these photos, I wasn't really comfortable being reminded of what New York used to be like. When you see the faces smiling at you from the page, you know exactly how things ended up just a few years later. Neighborhoods that were run-down and depressed became wreckage thanks to crack and AIDS.

I was surprised at first that Shabaz had waited so long to publish this book, but with all the 1980's nostalgia going on today, I guess the publication was timely.

This book brings back so many great memories. If you grew up in the 80's,
this book is a keepsake. It's a great gift idea.

Captures a time and place in New York's outer boroughs before Hip Hop took over the world.
These are the most honest photographs you'll ever see of this at the time burgeoning movement.

There aren't enough words to capture how well this book captures the essence of the elements of Hip-hop. I am a cartoonist working on an animated series and when it comes to designing clothing, "Jamel Shabazz - a time before crack" has proven to be a resourceful and inspirational library of images to get motivation from. Not to mention he has photos from my block in the Lower East side of Manhattan!
-David Heredia