The first Hip hop album I ever purchased was The Notorious B.I.G’s “Ready to Die”. That is when I fell in love with Hip Hop music and the culture… so much so it became a huge part of my life; I started breakdancing, I bought turntables and records and also DJ’ed for a while…. I have a huge appreciation for the “Golden Era” of hip hop, when it was raw, real, and not glamorized like it is today. As much as I love the next club jam, I always go back to the music I grew up on. Biggie, Nas, Run DMC, Aaliyah, De La Soul… you catch my drift.

A few weeks ago I got an email from a PR chick, her name is Missy B and She told me one of her clients Ernie, was having an exhibit at City Hall. After hearing a little bit about him, he sounded and looked really familiar to me. Ernie, “The Photographer” is a legend in the hip hop world. He’s photographed and documented the Hip Hop movement from the beginning. He’s interacted and taken the pictures of legends, including Biggie himself.

Ernie is a big deal and he agreed to meet me for an interview.

I met Ernie at City Hall and he walked me through all his photographs that are hanging on the walls outside the Mayors office.  As soon as I walked up to him he gave me a big hug and I felt like I’ve known him for years. For some reason I knew this interview would change me. I learned that Ernie is not just a photographer, he is a prophet, a healer. He just looked at me and was able to tell what I was going through, and what I needed to change to find happiness. After the interview we walked over to Beechwood Cafe to have tea and pie, and he taught me some valuable life lessons that I will never forget, he brought me to tears.

This was one of my most inspiring and life changing interviews. I am so beyond grateful to have had the opportunity to get to know you Ernie. Thank you.

When did you start taking pictures? Probably early 70’s.

What made you pick up the camera? It was preservation. I felt that there was nobody documenting what was springing up all over, which was graffiti. You go two days later and the graffiti is gone… the city would white wash it, or the building would come down… so I started taking pictures of it. People started calling me “Ernie, The Photographer”.

You started with the graffiti movement… what about hip hop? In the 70s there was no hip hop…it was disparate art forms. If I was a bboy, I had nothing to do with a painter, or a rapper, or a DJ. Bambaataa, Kool Herc, Lovebug Starski, Busy bee.. those are the people who have been given the credit for creating this ideology… mixing these street arts under the blanket… under the concept of hip hop.

KRS One recently explained what Hip Hop is…

“It means we are the hippest people in the world, and hop is we have the energy to move and flow”.

Why did you gravitate towards that culture? It was the energy. It’s why I documented punk… a lot of people don’t know I documented punk. I love energy… the energy is crazy. That’s were it began.

I think the reason why I was so successful was courage… where I came from was worse than anywhere hip hop was. I am a Vietnam vet, I spent 6 years in the military…these little street punks didn’t impress me.

The reason I got so much respect is I respected others… The more you give the more you get. That’s a universal law….

To the point in 2014 I was inducted into the hip hop hall of fame.

In 2013 at the 40th Anniversary of Hip Hop, the Zulu Nation and Afrika Bambaataa gave me the Human Soul Award, only eight of them have been given over the years. It was not so much for me, but for what I did, documenting all this. Besides being a photographer, and this is very important that you understand this… I am an activist. I am someone who reaches in and sees people on the edge and pulls them back. Young people with drugs and alcohol. I became that rock they can go to.

Tell me more about your pictures. These are all the pioneers of hip hop.

Just this picture here… Afrika Bambaata, Kool Herc, Grandmaster Caz, Melle Mel, Ice T, KRS One, Run DMC, Busta Rhymes, Salt N Pepa, Biz Markie, Public Enemy, Big Daddy Kane, Lord Finesse, Tribe Called Quest, LL Cool J, Yoyo, Biggie, Nas, Tupac, Mary J Blige, BMX, Aaliyah, Redman and Method Man, Da Brat, Lil Kim, Guru, Ice Cube, Easy E, Dougie Fresh, Rakim, EPMD, Queen Latifah, Naughty By Nature, Lauren Hill, Slick Rick, X Clan, TLC, Fat Joe and Big Pun.

Wow, Imagine they all got together for a track…. This one is JayZ when he was 16. He came up to me and said” I am going to be running this shit”. So I said “Yeah ok whatever…”. It was the first time I ever heard someone say that day haha. Everyone said it all the time.

Who said it but actually made it? A few that I know of… Tupac, Biggie, Jayz and Puff. Puff used to say it all the time. Imagine an intern bringing you coffee and saying “You better take my picture, I am going to be running this shit”.

That’s really funny.

Can you define the way you photograph? One thing I always try to do, is first get to know my subject. It’s creative foreplay… I have to know who they are…. I talk to them. I believe in my heart that each of us have our own spirit, and therefore when you absorb some of their spirit, and they absorb yours it leads to creativity.

One thing that I do, when I shoot I try to think in terms of paintings. I have painterly approach.

What kind of conversations have you had with Flavor Flav? He’s been my friend for 30 years. I’ve been to his house, met his mom, she’s cooked for us… she cursed me out because I did a video of him when he was cursing… I also bailed him out of jail a few times. He called me first.

What’s the difference between hip hop then and hip hop now? Back then, Hip Hop was organic and now it’s corporatized….Back then people didn’t have 5000 music videos to copy from, they would just walk on stage and rap, everything was raw. You didn’t have a publicist, you didn’t have a manager… You took your ass out there and you talked, you did what you did, you told your story… even if it was corny, you did your thing, you got points for it because you were you.

My favorite rapper of all time is Biggie. Any stories? Biggie grew up 8 blocks from me…. I was the only man on the scene he trusted. He could tell me everything. If he lived you would have seen an album that put all the bullshit aside… he was actually very sensitive… he could’ve written love songs, and talked about his pain. There was a lot of character… When we first met he was starting stuff up with me, I thought we were going to fight…but he was actually just playing. He had that little boy thing, that’s why women loved him…

How did you feel when he passed? I cried. Same thing when John Lennon died…Bob Marley, Marvin Gay… I cried. These are not abstract figures, these are people I met and interfaced with them. 3 weeks ago I was at an event with Bobby Brown and he came off the stage and gave me a hug…. and now I am seeing this thing on what’s going on with his daughter… I knew Bobby when he was his daughter’s age.

Even when Left Eye died, Aaliyah…. I knew them.

Do you still photograph hip hop? Seldom. My whole thing is educating the masses… I do a lot of lectures.

When did you move to Jersey City? 1971. I was tired of being shot at in Brooklyn.

Where in Jersey City? I moved to the heights, and now I live in Greenville.

3 weeks ago I had Afrika Bambaata pose in front of this picture.

This shows that hip hop is not just young urban youth, it’s also native people. All the elements of hip hop come from Native People and Native Culture… Dance, Aerosol which is paintings, the drums which is the DJ and the story telling which is the M.C.

This picture here is the Holy Grail of Hip Hop… Kool Herc and Afrika Bambaataa. This pic was shot in my studio. This is like having Moses and Abraham in a picture. Afrika Bambaata is the first one who said “I like you guys to fight, I like you to battle… but I want you to battle with your skills and your art. If you’re a better at writing than me then let me challenge you…. you got a blog, let me beat you with mine…”

Kool Herc is the first one to do the first block parties and DJ Jams.

How did you meet them? How did you become such a big part of the hip hop movement? There were photographers, but there wasn’t anyone documenting. There was nobody that did it like I did… It was all organic…

Wow Lauren Hill. This looks like a painting. 

Hip Hop started in South Bronx, not in Queens or in Brooklyn.

Here is Flavor Flav and the World Trade Center… who would have thought, the WTC would be gone and Flavor Flav would still be around. That’s called ironic…. Life was rough for him, and you assumed he wouldn’t be around for long.

This is probably one of the most iconic DJ’s, Grandmaster Flash.

What is your favorite thing to photograph? I love the energy of people.

Here is Amy Winehouse, Andy Warhol, Frank Sinatra….

Let me take your picture.

Who shot ya? I did!

Where was this picture? You are asking the wrong question. The right question is, what is she looking into? If she looked ahead what would she see?

Darkness? And what happened to her?

She died. Isn’t the picture prophetic?

I have chills. That’s what it’s supposed to be. That is what I capture, prophecy of life and existence…the essence.

LL Cool J and Rakim, Slick Rick…James Brown…Dalai Lama…

I love this picture! I rule the world video shoot? Wow. One of my favorite songs.

Let me tell you a little story about Tupac. I go down to Virginia to photograph him, and I get the Digital Underground together… and he wasn’t around… I said “Where is he?”. We where in a stadium, and I go into this giant room and it’s pitch black and I don’t know where the lights are. I am fumbling and I hear loud breathing… so I am like “damn Tupac is getting busy….” I turn on my flash and I see he wasn’t getting busy, all I see is legs, breasts and thighs…. I saw his mouth on one of the girls, he was blowing up the blow up dolls that they use on stage! He did it in the dark because he didn’t want anybody to see….I got a picture of him with the blow up dolls.

Is it here? No, it wasn’t approved for City Hall.

How did you get these pictures in here? Missy B, she hooked it up. She is my publicist. She is a saint.

This is one of my favorite picture. This girl came up to me out of the blue in a club… and she asked me to take her picture… I said sure. I looked at her, shot the picture and later she disappeared and never saw again. Most beautiful picture I ever shot… there’s this natural beauty…This one is also a favorite.

The picture of Biggie? Because right after that he was killed in this jeep….a few weeks later. The other thing that was so beautiful about this picture is that we were listening to Tupac.

Wow. I asked him about him and Tupac. He said he loved the brother. Underneath all the bullshit, he loved me. Love is a funny thing.

This is in Toronto. I do a lot of healing with young people. They ask me to go up, I do a talk, and then I go into the communities and speak to these kids. Tell them I am the least likely to succeed, but I did it, against all odds… I am nobody special, I am a simple humble man.

These are some of my drawings and paintings. This maybe the most political statement I’ve ever made… Each of those stars represents a state and each of those states were taken from native people by bullets and force.

I also had a show in Paris with 100 + images, we had 2,000 people who came out, the mayor of the city came out… it was a big deal. I am at a point in my life where I believe in miracles… the fact that I am alive is a miracle, the fact that my art is finally being understood and appreciated is a miracle.

I don’t think it’s a miracle. You are part of the Golden Era, where hip hop music was at it’s best. I think now people are going back to that era, and appreciating it more…. Especially with the way hip hop music is now. When it became polluted with Puffy haha.

You don’t like Puffy? I love Puffy, I was his photographer. What his time created… even though I love Biggie, something happened, and you can identify it with him and the shiny suits… even Jay Z and the corporatization. It’s all Hip Hop, but it’s like, what do you do with that energy? KRS One said it better than I did “Hip hop, art and knowledge are like a knife, you can cut butter with a knife or you can cut a friend with a knife… so it depends what you use the knife for”. Anything is neither good or bad it’s how it’s applied. I could use my voice to heal you, to educate you, share things with you or curse you out. Same voice, same mouth, same ears… Hip Hop being an organic, native reality… It’s always been here. Not since 1974… always. We’ve had that vibe. I guess I got infected with that virus. The creative virus.

Anything else you want people to know about you? Research me. I have twelve books, you can check out lulu.com. Understand that I am more than a photographer… I am human being working to do good things with people. Trying to repair broken people… We are in a strange time now. The Chinese have a curse “May you be born in interesting times” .

How come you stopped taking pictures? I haven’t really stopped. Months ago, I got a call from a stranger in California, who wanted me to shoot an album cover. He sent me tickets and flew me out there…. But that is rare. I will always be a photographer, a painter and healer….

Healer? I feel energies, without scaring you, I see things in the other dimensions… I am looking at you know and I see a certain energy.

What energy do you sense? It’s good, but it’s also like you’ve been bruised. There is a lot going on there. In this little girl body and funny hat there is a lot going on… I see things like that. That’s where the art comes from, the healing, you have to be able to look at someone and know what’s broken in order to fix it.

There is a song that I want everybody to listen to that made me cry. It’s by Tom Waits, it’s called “On the Road to Peace”. This song will draw you, and I think it’s the deepest thing I’ve ever heard…

Any future plans? I turn 68 February 26th.

You don’t look it!! What’s your secret? Loving life, loving sunsets, loving babies… Go on Youtube and look up under my name a poem called “Thank you”. It tells you everything you need to know about how to survive this life. I would like those two words to become a vernacular, I want it to come back. Look in peoples eyes and say thank you.

Thank you Ernie. This was truly an inspiring interview.

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The exhibit is currently in City Hall till the end of February.