Contact High

In a genre of music where identity, swagger, skills, and status are everything, it only takes one pose or one photograph to tell the world who you are or where you came from. Contact High highlights the work of some of the most legendary hip-hop photographers in the business, providing a rare glimpse into the symbiotic relationship between music and film, and revealing how the style and taste of an artist in one medium can influence and define the persona of another. Told through the contact sheets of 125 legendary photoshoots, Contact High is a visual history of the pinnacle years of hip-hop, a time when the genre was being made by everyday people on street corners and in dance halls and clubs. From Barron Claiborne's "King of New York" shoot in 1997 with Biggie Smalls, to Kanye West's The College Dropout album cover, shot by Danny Clinch, this gorgeous coffee table book tells the stories behind the iconic photographs that became the t-shirts, album covers, and posters coveted by rap and hip-hop fans today.