Ricky Powell, the Zelig of downtown New York who with his point-and-shoot camera documented the early years of the rise of hip-hop, as well as a series of other subcultural scenes and the celebrities and marginal characters that populated the city, was found dead on Monday in his West Village apartment. He was 59 years old.
The death was confirmed by his manager and archivist, Tono Radvany, who said the cause has yet to be determined. Powell learned that he had chronic obstructive pulmonary disease last year and continued problems with his heart.
Powell – often referred to affectionately as “Lazy Hustler” – exuded New York’s vintage charm and courage. An inveterate hiker, he hit the sidewalk with his camera and took pictures of everything that interested him: superstars, well-dressed passers-by, animals.
Crucially, he was close to the rise of the Beastie Boys, who catapulted him into an unforeseen career as a tour photographer and principal member of the entourage, giving him a front row seat to the worldwide hip-hop explosion that started in the mid-decade 1980.
“Although Ron Galella was your hero – he was the original paparazzi – I used to tell Ricky that you also taste like Weegee,” said the once ubiquitous New York street photographer, Fab 5 Freddy, hip-hop’s first businessman hop and a longtime friend and Powell’s photographic theme. “He was always in the inner circle, one of the only – if not the only person – taking pictures.”
Powell’s photos were intimate and casual, a precursor to the impromptu hyper-documentation of the social media era. Often they felt totally inside the moment, living it instead of watching it. Their themes were varied: Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat, captured on the street in front of the opening of a gallery; Francis Ford Coppola and his daughter, Sofia, at one of his first fashion shows; Run-DMC posing in front of the Eiffel Tower; a pre-superstar Cindy Crawford in a nightclub; people sleeping on park benches.
“He wasn’t trained, he didn’t know how to compose a scene, he didn’t know what an opening was,” said Vikki Tobak, editor of the photographic anthology “Contact High: A Visual History of Hip-Hop” (2018) and curator of an exhibition itinerant with the same name, which included Powell’s work. “But you could feel your curiosity about the people you photographed, so none of that mattered. He made people laugh and feel at ease; you see it all in his pictures. “
Ricky Powell was born on November 20, 1961, in Brooklyn and grew up mainly in the West Village. He attended LaGuardia Community College in Queens and graduated from Hunter College in Manhattan with a degree in physical education.
His mother, Ruth Powell, was a teacher – he didn’t know his father – but also, more importantly, a downtown club goer like Max’s Kansas City, where she would take Ricky while he was still a child. She is your only immediate survivor.
“I grew up fast, man. Quick, ”says Powell in“ Ricky Powell: The Individualist, ”a documentary about his life that would have its premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival last year, but has been delayed by the coronavirus pandemic. It is already scheduled for this year’s festival in June.
Josh Swade, who directed the documentary, said Powell had raw social and cultural intelligence, “because he was only on the streets of New York in the 1960s and 1970s, defending himself.”
Actress Debi Mazar met Powell when they were both teenagers riding bicycles through downtown Manhattan. They were, she said, “children of the city”. Together, they went to Paradise Garage, Mudd Club and other hot spots. “All the doors opened for Ricky,” said Mazar. “When we were going to join a club, we were the cool kids. He had this savoir faire, this electricity. “
Fab 5 Freddy recalled that “New York was a polarized place when we first met”, but that Mr. Powell “was comfortable with black children at a time when you were not just going to other areas”.
He became a constant presence at Fun Gallery, Dance Club, The Roxy and more, moving alongside graffiti writers, rappers, punk-rockers, artists and other creative eccentrics who populated the vibrant and uneven world of downtown New York. York. He played on the Futura 2000 graffiti softball team, the East Village Espadrilles.
“It was almost as if he was also invisible,” said Futura, as he is now known. “He was always evaluating, looking for a photo he could take.”
After graduating from college, Powell sold ice cream on a street cart for a while, offering to spice up the rum treat for an extra dollar. He photographed people on the street during his shifts, including scene stars like Basquiat. He was already friends with the Beastie Boys, who had just signed a recording contract with Def Jam, and one day he bought a plane ticket to join them on the road – they would be opening for Run-DMC on the Raising Hell Tour – and never looked back.
Mr. Powell has become a crucial part of the Beastie Boys ecosystem – partying a lot, sometimes controlling his luggage, playing one of the nerdy protagonists in the video “(You have to fight for your right (party!)” And much more. The name was verified on “Car Thief”, a track from the group’s 1989 album, “Paul’s Boutique”, and was well-known enough to have its own groupies.
“When he came, that was when the party started,” said Radvany.
As he took pictures, they quickly became essential artifacts. Mr. Powell was a documentary filmmaker from a demimonde who was often too busy living high to stop and reflect. Over the years, his images have appeared in Paper, Ego Trip, Mass Appeal, Animal and other magazines. He also released several books, including “Oh Snap! The rap photography of Ricky Powell ”(1998),“ The Rickford Archives: Classic Photographs of New York ”(2000) and“ Public Access: Photographs of Ricky Powell 1985-2005 ”(2005).
“I liked being part of the team, just hanging out. The entourage, by itself, but also being a photographer taking relevant photos simultaneously, ”said Powell in the documentary. “I think you have to major in humanistic behavior before you can master the two together.”
Futura said: “He had the gift of speaking, very New Yorker. He summed it up for me. I know my own kind. “
For several years in the 1990s, Powell had a publicly available television program, “Rappin ‘With the Rickster”, in which he traded a camera for a video camera, but kept the unpredictable energy that it gravitated and generated in his own . (A DVD of the program’s biggest hits was released in 2010.)
He was with the Beasties for a decade, but he separated from them in 1995, when the group was leaving its turbulent, disturbing and coarse old ways behind. “It has matured,” says Powell in the documentary. “They did what they did, but I still stayed.”
After returning to New York, Powell struggled to find a purpose and, for a time, struggled with drug addiction.
He was not always sure how to leverage his crucial archive from an under-documented era. “He could have turned the connections into a profitable operation,” said Swade. “But you have to show up for this.”
Finally, he started working with Radvany, who started organizing his files and collaborating with brands that licensed his old work or commissioned it for new projects channeling his New York-eau energy. He also narrated live slide shows of his old images, telling the stories behind the photos.
“When I started with him, he was discouraged and I had to help him generate income,” said Radvany. “He loved social media. He was the lazy dealer – he could sit on his futon and sell prints. “
And he never moved out of his small apartment in the West Village, which was teeming with the effluvium of a life immersed in the city’s epicenter: contact sheets, sneakers, basketball shirts, vintage magazines and records, endless memories of the development of contemporary creativity. New York culture. He was, even after all these decades, one with the scene he captured.
“You didn’t see him as a photographer,” said Fab 5 Freddy. “He was a nice boy who would take the camera, take some pictures, save it and say: ‘Pass the joint here.’”