Summary: Since 2000 David Scheinbaum has photographed more than a hundred hip hop performers, both in concert and backstage. His black-and-white images present a nuanced and ultimately uplifting picture of this creative tradition. Scheinbaum has explained, "I am trying to give the viewers both a visual feel for the music and the musicians, a feel for the audience and crowd, and to give a face, an identity, to the many dedicated artists who perform this music and poetry." Scheinbaum has more than thirty years' experience as a photographer, a teacher, and an art dealer. While serving as an art professor at the College of Santa Fe, he has published five books of his photographs. Scheinbaum's portraits are a celebration of hip hop and serve to demonstrate that the negative stereotypes regarding hip hop represent only a small part of its larger significance. See the online exhibition at: http://www.npg.si.edu/exhibit/recognize . Recorded at NPG, February, 2008. Image info: Jean Grae, Indio, California / David Scheinbaum, 2005 / Gelatin silver print / Copyright David Scheinbaum
