Good morning, it went down a few weeks ago on the lower east side of Manhattan at the KI Smith Gallery. GOLDEN the brainchild of Eric Elijah Brumfield, one of the original creators of THE FADER magazine, a staple in HipHop for many years. Now OUR HISTORY I have known E or Eric for the last ten years and it was his dream to produce a show of this scale in a space like this. We would all sit around and dream about nights like this while curating our own Art shows, Fashion Shows, shooting films (E was also in my award-winning short film GIFT AND CURSE). William Floyd aka King Pop the mastermind behind the rebranding of RAP SNACKS and making it relevant again invited us all in to create and build at his place Royal Flush Studios which was located at 675 Metropolitan Parkway in the west end of Atlanta. E said he was inspired to make it happen after watching Pop and I do what we were doing with the assistance of the 675 Crew to many to name but I will try John Kelly, Travis Christian ,Jerome Robinson , Derek Hightower and E we slept on that concrete floor and ate noodles and built a lot of what you see in Atlanta as it pertains to Art and Fashion. Our STREET DREAMS art show and Documentary film was legendary in the city created by POP was attended by thousands of creatives that reside in the city now featured a few celebs. I can talk about that for hours but back to the subject at hand.

GOLDEN It was so cool to watch it come to fruition and in a small way know I played apart. I watched from afar as people paid homage to E and admired his work all I could think of was those nights looking at these images and being amazed at how dope it was having a brother like E with such a rich history in a thing we loved called HipHop. I mean he shot the greats before they were great, and they all remembered him and show love when they see him.

Ok enough about the past. WHAT WE SAW: My interpretation of the evening was

GOLDEN is a celebration of the golden era of hip hop from a photographer’s standpoint 100 plus of New York’s elites in the world of Fashion, Art, Music and Education were in attendance to see the works of the aforementioned Brumfield, Koi Sojer, T Eric Monroe and Danny Hastings. I got to interview everybody but Danny Hastings and ask those questions like where did you shoot this, what was the mood and how did you get this opportunity. Man, what a cool trip to NYC and to witness GOLDEN and see the reaction of people like me HIPHOP HEADS from all walks of life experience it firsthand. E told me he was going to just show his work and keep it personal, but he removed the Ego and made it about hip hop not him. Glad he did because it was a real dope event that everyone should attend bring the family, the photographers I named above are major in the game and the list of celebrities they have shot ranges from Mary J Blige, Wutang, Biggie and Tupac together and the late great ODB. If you're in New York slide over to the LES and check it out at KI Smith Gallery.

The full story and more pictures coming in the next issue coming this week