Chi Modu — at Porin taidemuseo / Pori Art Museum.
Enrico Moses with 7 Days Theory sits with Chi Modu as they discuss topics such as race, hip hop, the wealth gap, + more.
Chi first picked up a camera while a student at Rutgers. After honing his skills at the International Center of Photography, he landed a job at The Source, which was the definitive magazine of hip hop culture. It was here that Chi developed relationships with the biggest icons of the hip hop movement, including Tupac Shakur, Notorious B.I.G., Mary J. Blige, and L-L Cool J, most of whom were not yet famous.
In addition to shooting over 30 cover photos for The Source as their Director of Photography, Chi was able to capture the musicians in candid, unexpected moments, due to his disarming manner and unique perspective. His photos include some of the most groundbreaking, memorable images of that era, including Tupac Smoking and Biggie WTC(standing in from of the World Trade Towers). He not only chronicled and defined the most important phase of the hip hop movement, now a global force, he also was able to define the artists and show them as real people, rather than one-dimensional celebrities.
This is Chi Modu World respected-renound photographer, we are going to interview and get perspectives on how your feeling Chi I appreciate you being on the call with me.
Yea man, anytime, anytime. I’m glad your putting some light on the hip hop space and what our generation did, and what the current generation is still doing.
It’s a trip to see the transformation in hip hop to what it is today, from my perspective. I’m interested to hear your perspective. On where hip hop is today and what you’ve seen as far as a transformation?
The problem, the challenge let me say is that people use it to encompase all music that comes out of that’s within this genre right. but you don’t have to blanket judgement on rock and roll, you know, you don’t pass a blanket judgemnt on R&B, what it is you look for certain highlights in all generes, and so I get asked this question about the state of hip hop a lot.
I think the state of hip hop is fine. You know, there is still good music being made. If you’re judging the state of radio hip hop, then that’s a little bit different. You know, because what I think a lot of times what people are getting to hear isn’t always the best music, it’s what’s charting. And a lot of that is by design, I’ve never lost faith in the hip hop state because it’s a beatiful art form.
What would you say is different now where hip hop is from what you said is the golden era where you have Pac and you have Biggie, and you kinda have the first emergence of hip hop stars. What do you see the big difference now compared to back then?
Like you said, that’s the beginning, I try to explain to people.
It’s not the beginning of hip hop, the time I covered, it’s actually when it went to another level. Some people call it the golden era, I refer to it as the defining years. It’s kinda when it bumped up to another level. So any musical genre in that time of development is always alive, it’s exciting, it’s energetic, it’s fresh right? So you’re talking now 25-30 years later in some instances. So, things are going to be evolved, there not going to be as fresh. People really have to try hard to keep things fresh. Look at Snoop, I see Snoop now, and I first met Snoop when he was 19, you know, and Snoop is in his 40s now a kid a college age. That’s just the reality.
Some of the younger generation. What some of the kids are doing now. they’ve grown up in a world of technology and instant gratification so they’ve always known hip hop as a dominant music force. They’ve known black people being on the cover of the Rolling Stones, they’ve known, our generation didn’t come up with that. Like hip hop wasn’t getting Grammy awards. You know? So, we were doing our own thing. And in doing our own thing, it gives you a bit of confidence, and it also generates money. Then it became big business.
I think that’s a really important part of where things are at right now as far as I see it as a business man and an entreprenuer.
Yea I mean the part of hip hop that I covered. There was money being made, but a lot of it started with independant money. You know, people selling cd’s out of there car, djing parties, you know that kinda money. After my era, it moved to like product, sponsorships, you know, car endorsement deals. Every thing jumped up dramatically, like rappers on, hosting The Voice. You know like Americas Top Model. It becomes part of American and Popular Culture. And it wasn’t that at the earlier stages. But the earlier stages set the seed for it, and I think what can get lost as you transition an art-form is that those seeds were set because those people were really focused on creating good product and having a message. So, if you go too far away from that, then I think you lose all these other opportunities like a clothing deal, all the things that come off of the foundation of it, which was initially quite pure and focused. Whether you agree with it or not, hip hop was always pure and focused in what it said.
Right. And you see that turning into Dr. Dre right making more money than any musician in the history of business and music. And what do you see the follow of that? Do you see that as something as the new normal how do you view that?
I think you have to look at the Dre situation with a bit of a grain of salt. It was basically a headset company, that ended up catching a wave. Partially designed by a very prominent sound engineering company which would be Monster right? Dre and Iovine took their headphones, had it on a lot of people around the hip hop space and the sports space and Apple came in with their move and did what they did. But I don’t really think that’s a fair assessment to where hip hop is. Because that kinda had nothing to do with hip hop. If you really ask me. Yea, maybe some of the product placement strategy. You already need to be dealing with a pretty decent amount of money to be able to manufacture headphones to distribute them globally, to build a brand that can sell for multiple billions of dollars. That’s a little bit of fantasy pie-in-the-eye stuff, I think, when people look at that situation. But, it’s kinda cool, that’s someone that you’ve know over the years and you come up with. But, I think the business aspect of hip hop is what you can do with the tools out there: the social media, the technology, the computers, the Pro Tools, the home studio, the distribution models, the ability to do transactions on your own. I think that’s what is really exciting and what a lot of people are using to make money. To move their clothing products, to move their music, their using Instagram to bring exposure to themselves, and some of these other channels like Tumblr and Square Space and different things to move their product. That’s hip hop.
Right, and technology being one of the major sources of change, and like you said distribution… Where do you see that going? I know that you have some heavy influence within the tech space, and you have some projects that you’re working on, so where do you see that? For hip hop and for yourself, just as a photographer and what you’re doing?
I think technology is some of the best tips that we’ve been given in the past 100 years, you know? It does create some problems, I’m not nieve to say that it doesn’t, but with technology, we’re able to deliver a message, a brand, or a vision, globally in an instant. You know, that never happened before. So that completely changes the whole model completely. Now I think you have to look at it and embrace it, now if i look at DJs right? I’ve always said, if I were a DJ, I’d try to figure out how to hit a couple of clubs, and they don’t have to be in the same zip code through online I’d DJ at one place, and pump into 3 locations at once or four locations at once right. So I’m basically licensing out my DJ skills. Now, whether people are doing it, whether that’s realistic or not, whatever, it can be done though, and that’s pretty unique, you know. That’s a game changer. Traditionally you DJ at one place and then that’s it you’re the guest DJ for that night, right? Why not do it at multiple place at once, so that’s just a small example, even on the photo side. I have a company ePhotos.com that I started and the thinking was, you can actually crowd source photography, the way Twitter crowd sources communication, I think you can even crowd source photography, where if you want to know something that’s happening anywhere in the world, you should be able to google the destination and find it. At a glance, right? It’s not really about the news channel you know, like Twitter started first as a new channel, a place to explore, a place to keep tabs, on what’s happening. I think there is a visual side of that, that’s missing. So that’s what ephotos.com is. And along with that, it gives some monetization options for people where they can make some money off of selling products, for their photographs. Mostly prints and licensing sales. To anybody, who wants it.
Word. Last time I was sitting there with you in New York, you told me the news that you were getting ready to show at your debut Museum showing and that’s major knowing where hip hop is going to me, from where I see hip hop. And, I’m curious to see how did that go and what’s perspective on that show and the importance of that show.
Well the show was called Uncategorized. So if you go to uncategorized.com you can kinda see the images from it. But it was a really big show. It was the biggest exhibition I’ve ever done and I’ve done a few exhibitions but this was the biggest it was in a musuem, The Pori Art Museum in Finland and the space was 800 square meters, so in our dimensions that’s 8,000 square feet. So it was a massive space and it was a solo exhibition, just my work in the whole space. so it was really a chance for me to put a decent amount of my stuff in there for the world to see at least that of the Finish world. They received it really with open arms, it was really a big thing. In fact, I’m working on a book now with them, a catalog for that exhibition that we’re going to release this spring. So, it was pretty remarkable to go clear across the globe and get the kinda reception I received from Finland, I mean I was on all of their media channels, their radio, TV, news, magazines, newspapers, really complete coverage throughout the whole country of this exhibition. That’s really pretty remarkable, you know? So that right there says a lot about where hip hop is you know. And it was a photo exhibition, it wasn’t having any musicians there performing, on opening night we did something with a local artist and it was great he DJd and actually performed. But what drew people in was the photographs that they’ve never seen that big of these people they’ve heard about. That drew basically a record crowd for the museum in the past 25 years it was the biggest paid attendance for the museum and we did it during the summer season. Hip hop did that, that’s a pretty big deal. That says a lot about where it is. I think that says, keep on going and the time is ripe. Some of the photographs were 20 years removed from when I took some of them. Which is also, pretty remarkable but like anything else, that 20 year marker as actually pretty important. When you have the time of a generation distance from things, you tend to see them more clearly than when you’re living them. I think a lot of people are looking back to what we accomplished the hip hop generation, our version of it, and they’re like “Wow, that’s really pretty remarkable.” And they now, people have a new found appreciation for what we did. And that part is kinda cool, you know? That’s why I think there’s a connection to even the 20 year olds of today, because it’s a similar energy, even though we’re a little bit older, we were there 20 years ago, the energy is still there. Hip Hop is a very wide generation, the hip hop generation, you know? You can have a 50 year old, liking the same song a 15 year old likes. That never really happened throughout history, that you had wide- You can have a 60 year old liking a song a 15 year likes. That’s never happened before, you didn’t listen to your dad’s music, and he didn’t really listen to yours. But my kids will definitely listen to my music. So that’s a pretty interesting time to be around for.
Yea, and that’s major, that show and hearing about it, it does really show how far hip hop has grown from the 20 years you’re talking about, giving it that space. And I want to ask, what gaps, if any, do you think you’re bridging by putting your art across the world in Finland? You know, blowing up these images, of these icons, from the hip hop generation. What do you think that does and is doing, just to people, and to the world, if anything?
Well you know, the whole Uncategorized.com project I started it in New York, in the previous fall, it was the fall of 2013. That’s when I got the idea with my team, to start the uncategorized project, and what we did, we reached out to a billboard company and took 5 billboards thoughout the city over a 6 month period. We ended up setting up 6 billboards throughout the city. So the first start was 3 billboards at once, in one day. And we started to add on from there. And the project just had a photograph it said the word uncategorized and it had my signature in the corner. And the reason for it was, I said you what, “Let’s just take the art to the people. Let’s bypass any editor, any magazine editor, middle man, museum curator, let’s take it right to the public, art for the people.” So that was the idea behind the project. And when people are driving by on 6th Avenue and Spring Street in New York City, and they see a 25 foot-wide photograph of yours, it makes them double take. And they start wondering, “Who is this, and what are they doing?” And my intention was to take the art to the people, and a lot of times when you do that some one sees it and wants to make a move. And that’s how the Purum Museum found out about me. Someone brought my show in New York to their attention, and they said, “What can we do to get you over here?” And so, they quickly went into action shuffled around their museum schedule and within 9 months we had an opening in Finland of my work. Which I basically produced the whole exhibition from over here. I have an architect that I work with and a team. The built the 3d computer model for me and we laid out the show on the model. In Finland they pulled the files from my secure server over here and we printed the whole show in Europe, so when I landed in Europe, everything was pretty much hung. I just have to like do a little positioning and said, “Ok-perfect-done.” So, that’s technology. I’ve never been to the museum, until I went for my opening at the musuem. And I was like. So think about that right. That’s what’s going on now. The whole show was printed and ready to be hung when I landed and walked into the room. Everything was there.
What was the feedback of the people from Finland, you have these huge photographs of hip hop stars who are from America right, they’re looked at sometimes as gangsters, you can see how the world has painted African Americans, or blacks, or whatever you want to call the people within America, that come from slavery, how do you feel that show has anything to the stigma of African Americans in America or anything, do you feel that show had any effect to that regard on race?
You know, well I tell you it set the attendance records for the past 25 years, that tells you something about how it was received, it set a new standard of attendance. So they want to see it. So people sometimes forget about photographs especially when they’re life-size photographs is you’re looking in the face of a human being. That’s not a rapper. That’s not a 20 year old, that’s not a- all the labels move away when you’re dealing with a human. But in my photography, you’re looking at a person. And yes, this person happens to be 2pac, or happens to be Biggie, or happens to be Snoop, right? But, you’re actually looking in the eyes of a person. And once you see someone as a person, it completely changes what you think about them, in an instant. You know? So, that’s the importance of allowing people to look at things at their own leisure, in a context that they’re familiar with. As apposed to on the nightly news, around some story at dinner that someone is having. No, go look in this persons eyes, and tell me if he’s a bad person. And, there is not one person that comes out of that thinking yes. They all come out of that room thinking, no. You know, these are actually good hard-working people. That’s the power of photography. It takes all the hype away, strips it away. And that’s especially the type of photography that I like to do. Some photographers in their work, they have an asthetic or a style that they want you to see, I call it, it’s a little bit of ego, they want their signiture to shine. And the style of photography that I do is more documentarian. So, I’m there to record it. Record it as it is. So in doing that style you sort of want to stay out of the way of what’s going on, you just want to be there to capture it.
Right, and I’ve seen some of your photos that you take, while on some of your worldly travels, and I do- I see that. And that leads me to my next question, like, what do you want to express through that and in relation to what I see when you’re traveling and I see the diverstiy, how does that reflect on what’s going on in America today, in kinda like the trials of Eric Garner and Michael Brown, you can see you’re putting your shows up in Finland, then you look at back home and it’s like, “Wow!” Things are still in a state of flux if you will over in America, how do you see your world travels and mixing that with what’s going on in America, like how do you see that in connection?
I mean like, things are in a state of flux, you know? They’re not- The times aren’t great, but they’re wonderful times. Because change is needed. And I think if there’s anything to come out of all the chaos that’s been going on, it’s that this thing has to be addressed, this useless thing called racism. There is no place in the world for it. No place. So, it needs to be irratocated. And that’s what all of this is pointing to. It put’s people against people, that should actually be friends and allies. And there is no reason for it. So when I travel and when I come back home, I get correspondences from people, that are from countries of where I’ve been, and they’re telling me, “Wow, be safe. What’s going on?” I’ve been to some pretty, you know in quotes, hectic places around the world. You know, like I travel into the Middle East, I travel up Sout-East Asia, everywhere. You know, so I’ve been to Syria, I’ve been to Yemen, I’ve been to Cambodia, Indonesia, I go in! You know? And, they’re saying to me, “Eh you gotta be safe over there.” That’s kinda crazy, if you think about that, if you think about it right, it’s kinda crazy. But I think that to many from the black community, that has been that case all along, and now with technology, everyone else is having to now deal with it. And really come to terms with, “Oh my gosh, how’d we let it get to this place.” Some people are hunkering down, but either way it’s going to be fixed. There has to be a correction. So as far as that goes, I think it’s positive, where we are. There has been a lot of pain and hardship within the community to get to this place.
And that’s Globally as well right?
Yea, it’s global. You see what’s happening over there in Europe, you know, you see. Look at all the places around the world that are bubbling, there’s kinda one thing in common for all of them, you know, right? It’s like let’s call it what it is, like it’s usually places that have been colonized, so they are chopped up into odd sections, you know? And eventually, it bubbles, and it’s been bubbling for a while here. I think, that’s what I see, but you know, as a photographer man, my job is to show you what I see, and you draw your own opinion. From what you’re looking at, right? It’s not for me to guide you. People sometimes ask me, “Why do you take a picture with someone with a gun, or with someone smoking?” And, my reaction is always, are you trying to tell him to put away the gun, or are you trying to highlight the fact of why does this 19 year old actually need a gun to where he is in his neighborhood. That’s the bigger question, right? That’s always been the bigger question to me, right? “What type of society do we have that an 18 year old kid has to carry guns to stay a live. That’s not a healthy society. And you can say, “well he shouldn’t do that.” And it’s like well, you’ve never walked a mile in that person’s shoes, where they live. They may actually need to. Think about that. Some people can’t even imagine a community where carrying a weapon may be necessary, you know. Because that’s not their world. That wasn’t the world I grew up in, but I could definitely see how in some communities it could be. And I think that requires a collective shame. Because it’s not right.
You famously took pictures of Pac and remember some of your stories about your time you spent with him, and that’s the energy that created Pac and is creating the Chief Keefs of today right? And that’s almost the beauty of what hip hop can do is show almost the same truth that you’re showing through your photography and my question is. What’s next for America and globally as well? As far as moving forward. What can people do? I know that people want to move forward I feel that.
You mean with some of the racial challenges that the world has?
Yea, racial and even with class, remember the 99% and the 1%. I think that people want to figure out how to help and how to be a part of positive change.
I would agree, but they’re not all one collective issue. And we have to be careful to make them all one collective issue. Because the issues of the 99% effect multiple peoples. The issues of race effect those that are actually impacted by racism. Who could also be impacted by the same problems that the 99% have as well. You see, it’s like the race one is always the extra one on top. And that is why it really the greatest travesty of all because once you treat certain groups that way, then it’s easy enough to start treating other people in in-human ways. And that’s when the 99% starts to get to a critical mass. But, you always have a warning time when you have a canary in the coal mine, and the canary in the coal mine has often times been black people, and people of color. Who the job situations is always bad or worse prior to it touching everybody else right, poverty hits us harder before it hits everybody else, so in a human society, those waring signs trigger change so you can then impact on the parts of society that will be the most effective. We’re only triggering change once it reaches over and touches you too, and that’s dead wrong, once you see a community in turmoil, that’s when you go into action. Not when it spills over now your effected by increased unemployment, now unemployments a bad thing. Well, unemployment has always been a bad thing, but it just wasn’t touching you. So you didn’t notice it. So that’s the problem. People got to make the move before, just because their life is good, they can’t exist looking over at someone else’s life who’s not good and think that, “Oh well, at least it’s not touching me.” Cause eventually it does touch you. And now that other guy can’t help you anymore, because he’s now fallen off the edge of the cliff and your next right.
I agree. I went down to New York and I wanted to see what was happening with the occupy movement when it was going on. And I will say that it was a lot of people that I feel were expressing hey, now I can’t get a job, and I should be able to get a job. And I do feel that, that energy, it felt privileged. It felt like people have been sitting in that situation for a long time and now people want to start standing up and I think that it was good that it happened, I do feel that that was a lot of the energy that was down there, which didn’t feel united to me.
Well, it’s the reality of what the country has to go through. It’s gonna be bumpy but it will be- the correction will occur once we really are our brothers keepers. You know? I bring up the example, there’s a place Princeton New Jersey, I grew up down in that area. There’s a town in the middle of it called Lawrenceville and then there’s another town next to it called Trenton right? Princeton High, the public school system in Princeton is probably one of the best in the nation, right? Public school system. The public school system in Trenton High is probably one of the worst in the nation. And their about 8 miles apart from each other. Now I may be extreme to say one’s the worst, but they’re pretty far apart in quality. So how does that work in a society? Where, Trenton High, 8 miles away from Princeton High has that big of a difference in what it means to graduate from it. So, until we start addressing those blaring issues and points. And rather than talk about they’re too difficult, then you’re never going to have a healthy society, because that’s what a healthy society requires. It requires you to look at your growth situation, and figure out, “How can I really be living this way and this person is living so badly and so poorly. I think that’s what makes it a challenge for people in the “have position”, because they’re going to have to now look at people as human beings, and not as their divine right to have their foot on their throats, you know? It’s like no that’s a human being, no God didn’t say that you should have 100 million times what some person has. Any human being has more wealth than 3.6 people in the world combined. No, that’s silly. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to know that that’s not a sustainable model for society. Absolutely not! So, my questions are really more basic? I don’t think you really have to be that smart to ask these questions. You just have to have courage to solve them. Or encourage me- maybe that little cushy job that you have because you’ve been protected, and that’s why you have it, you may lose it. The thing about having that job, and being unqualified and still having that job, is that there’s a qualified person that may be on their way out of their apartment because they’re going to be homeless. Because dude is some type of nepotism or something, you’re able to hold a position you don’t really deserve. And then what happens is that society doesn’t operate at full capacity too. You know because some of the best and brightest and smartest are marginalized and then fall off of a cliff, right? In the jail system, broken homes, we’re losing too much of our brilliant minds through this nonsense. So that’s what my photographs try to do, try to kinda show you the faces of what’s getting lost with this nonsense.
Which effects everybody, right? Looping back so I see technology as this new tool. You said at the beging of the conversation of how important it is in connecting us, and we saw the emergence of social media helping to get Obama elected and I ask with technology where it is and you’re a photographer, what do you have for the youth? What can they know from your perspective on where things are compared to where they were when you were coming up and what guidance do you have for the youth? The generation that is coming behind us.
I carry a fairly small camera bag that has 2 camera bodies sometimes 1, sometimes 2… and a laptop computer with an external hard-rive. The bag is still very small, I can carry it on my waist on my shoulder I go walk around, right. In that bag, with that bag, I can go anywhere in the world, and work. Anywhere. You know? That never happened before. ((Laughing)) Literally that bag, and my passport, I can go anywhere and deliver high level of photography, you know? I can file it, it store, do something with it, market it, or give it to someone to sell, right? Like, that’s a whole another ball game. That means I don’t even have to process the film, I can plug it into my computer and go. You know, that changed thing dramatically. The digital element to this game. And the fact that I can share it globally in a millisecond. I sometimes play a little game on Instagram my instargam is feed how I do that. I put up photographs from the 90’s, and I put them up 3 at a time. And, it’s amazing how fast the likes get to like 600. At times it happens within 20 minutes or within an hour. And I don’t have a whole lot of followers but the reality, it’s really the fanbase of the artist that find you. I have like 10K, 11K followers, and I don’t pursue any, I just keep putting out my photographs. You know, then someone sees it and they tell someone else to come look at it, and they start following me, and it just keeps going right. So, that shows you the power of hip hop. People will do whatever to get more of it. You know, so here’s someone who has a lot of it like I have. I can always move a crowd somewhere, with these photographs. And as you see, like I don’t really repeat the photographs, alright. I could put 3 photos up that no one has ever seen, every day for probably for like the next 3 years. ((Laughing)) It’s a lot of content.
Right, Word, that’s dope. For somebody who’s a photographer, who’s sees your work and loves what you’ve done, what words of wisdom do you have for them, as they’re looking at a new world, right… You were working with The Source when magazines were big? What do you have for words of wisdom for new photographers in this digital age.
Well let’s first be clear about what you like to and want to photograph. It kinda starts from that, right? Then you have to figure out, what the market it for what you like to photograph, and then you can tap into how to monetize what you’re doing like the ephotos.com property I built. Because, as newspapers and magazines are getting a little bit thinner right? Time magazine is pamphlet and Newsweek is thin or not even in production. The outlets are changing, but the demand for photography is greater than it’s ever been. There are 1.3 trillion photographs taken last year. Since the beginning of the camera, 1860s there have ben 5.3 trillion. So that means in the last year we did 1/5 of the world’s total photographic numbers to date, think about that. So that means within 3-5 years we will double all the photography since the beginning of the camera, it will be doubled in the next 3-5 years. That’s a whole other ballgame man. I look at a photograph as a data-point of information. So if you know how to draw down information out of data, there’s a lot of money in that. So, for me, yes, looking at what’s in a photo as an aesthetics thing, but it’s also using a photograph as strategy and positioning. And doing other kind of things from what’s in that photograph.
Word. Yea, that’s wassup. So what’s next for Chi Modu? What do you see on the horizons for yourself?
I have some big projects in the works that are going to be coming out in the next 3 to 9 months. And then I want to do a 2pac book that’ll coincide with the 20th anniversary of Pac’s death next year. He’ll also be entering the Rock-And-Roll Hall Of Fame, so I have a lot of pictures that no one’s ever really seen before. I went, “Why not put that together into like a 50 picture book? And share it with the public. You know? and with the fans.” I’ll work on ephotos.com and continue to travel. I have some trips to take this year, so, that’s it, work.
Word. That book with Pac sounds real dope. I can’t wait to see that. Your work continues to be an inspiration for myself and I know many other people that have changed hip hop forever. I honor you for that, and I appreciate you being on this call with me and taking the time out of your day, to share your wisdom with my audience.
No problem Rico, keep doing what you’re doing, alright?
Thank you brother, you too!
