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CCCADI launches film photography exhibition on evolution of Black music in NYC

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As the world commemorates Hip-Hop’s 50th anniversary, the Harlem-based Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute (CCCADI) has launched its latest in-person exhibition entitled, Rhythm, Bass and Place: Through the Lens, with two grand opening events.

The organization’s first in-person exhibition since the 2020 pandemic shutdown, CCCADI welcomed 250 individuals to its East Harlem landmark Firehouse location (120 E 125th St., NY, NY 10035) to view the works of New York photographers Joe Conzo Jr. and Malik Yusef Cumbo that explore the moments in which musical styles were created in New York City’s African Diasporic communities.

“From portrait to photojournalism, this exhibition is a testament to a social movement, a cultural renaissance and a communally crafted sound experience that reverberates worldwide,” said CCCADI in statement.

Malik Yusef Cumbo speaks to exhibition viewers on opening night of CCCADI’s Rhythm, Bass and Place exhibition on March 17, 2023. Photo by Mario Carrion

“The American political and social climate of the 1970’s spawned a musical movement,” said Lynnée Denise, curator of Rhythm, Bass and Place: Through the Lens.“The dismantling of social programs lit a fire under the creativity of Black and brown youth across New York City Boroughs. There are stories that live between rhythm, imagination and innovation out of hardship. And yet, trauma is not the engine.

“Artists have found a way to mark this era through a series of interrelated cultural practices — breakdancing, scratching, rhyming, and painting — manufacturing joy,” she added. “Photography serves as a compass into these lively worlds. This photographic exploration mirrors what it means to be a selector at the decks painting a story with each song – even if the song is an image.”

For the exhibition, CCCADI said it has procured images with a combined history of over 50 years of visual storytelling for New York’s music culture.

Artists Malik Yusef Cumbo (r) and Joe Conzo Jr. (l) at artist reception of CCCADI’s Rhythm, Bass and Place exhibition on March 24, 2023. Photo by Mario Carrion

CCCADI said while Conzo’s work captures the Afro-Latin contributions and signatures to multiple genres of music from disco to house to Hip-Hop, Cumbo’s work captures the ’90s and ’00s element of New York Hip-Hop and artists who have left a mark on what could be called the New York City underground street culture.

By placing these photographers in the same exhibition, CCCADI said it seeks to inspire questions about the usefulness of a visual archive of the city’s music and cultural history.

The exhibition will be on display up to June 24, 2023 during the following gallery hours: Thursdays and Fridays 3 – 7 p.m., and Saturdays 12 – 4 p.m. at CCCADI, 120 E. 125th Street, New York, NY 10045.

Rhythm, Bass and Place: Through the Lens is part of CCCADI’s five-month series, launched in February, which celebrates the migration and creative evolution of Black music by highlighting the routes of rhythms and sound culture in a Diasporic context.

Entitled Rhythm, Bass and Place : Connections and Reflections on Music of the African Diaspora, the series constructs a living archive through engaging stories from neighborhoods, stages, studios and dance floors that shaped the sonic landscape in select US, UK and Caribbean cities over the last three decades.