MADE YOU LOOK: How Hip Hop Impacted Creative Culture in Europe
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Made You Look - Documentary
It’s inevitable to see the impact Hip Hop has had around the globe. While there has been a lot of reference material educating us about it’s emergence from a US perspective, there are still many untold stories about how this movement made its way across the North Atlantic Ocean to Europe, where the music genre was adopted in the early ‘80s.
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I think what happened with Hip Hop is, it was one of the first forms of music that arrived where you could look at it and be like, those people who were making it look like me. They think like me. They come from the same social circumstances as me.
Charlie Dark MBE
Polaroid in partnership with some Europe’s most prominent communities has explored the influence of Hip Hop on creative culture in London, Paris and Amsterdam. The documentary takes the perspectives of art, music, lifestyle and photography, through a variety of disciplines and generations, featuring the stories of Charlie Dark (founder Run Dem Crew), Edson Sabajo (co-founder Patta), James Dridi (founder Paperboy), Joseph McDermott (founder Victory Lap Radio), Solomon ‘Soulz’ Boyede (co-founder Places+Faces) and others.
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It's holistic, we saw the whole package. It was fashion, it was attitude, it was graphic design, it was graffiti, breakdance. It's an art in itself. It's an art-form.
Farida Sedoc
The Polaroid medium has been used for decades to document the rise of Hip Hop since its emergence from the Bronx, New York, allowing for important milestone moments in the movement beyond just album covers to be preserved. Today’s Hip Hop influenced communities in Europe, amongst many other creative circles, are still embracing the heritage of Warhol era portraits and the unfiltered DIY nature that drew them into the movement in the first place.
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Made You Look - Documentary
Kids growing up with access to all technology and everything at their fingertips is super liberating now. But maybe in ten years kids are wanting to return back to human touch, and analog, and what will be seen as archaic.
Joseph McDermott
MADE YOU LOOK first debuted during three screenings hosted by communities in Amsterdam (April 13th), London (April 25th) and Paris (May 17th). All screenings were accompanied by an photography exhibition featuring a wider curation of local creatives shot on Polaroid film by Elisabeth Ouni and Randy Soewarno. The documentary will see its public release via Wax Poetics (www.waxpoetics.com) on May 18th, 2024.
Credits
Starring
Charlie Dark MBE, Edson Sabajo, James Dridi, Solomon Boyede, Joseph McDermott, Farida Sedoc, Gurinder Singh Kumar, Engy Saint-Ange, Ashley Röttjers, Noé Christin, Theodor Black
Polaroid Photography
Elisabeth Ouni, Places + Faces, Mike Schreiber, Randy Soewarno
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