hahamusic

A small part of what my day-job entails is reading a variety of Jewish weekly newspapers. I don’t exactly relish the task, as many of the papers are full of far right-wing close-minded politics and really stifling religious content. It is always interesting to see what those opinions are, if not just to see how different they are from my own, but it can be a bit much sometimes.

The one that I actually enjoy reading is The Forward, a more leftist paper. The real pleasure of reading The Forward (which I always save for last) though is their arts section, which always has genuinely fascinating articles about Jewish art and artists. This week, I read an article about a middle-aged Jewish photographer named David Scheinbaum, who, after taking his 13-year-old son to a Del tha Funkee Homosapien concert, became fascinated with hip-hop and hip-hop artists. His work is being shown (along with Jewish painter Alex Melamid’s) at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC in an exhibit titled “RECOGNIZE! Hip Hop and Contemporary Portraiture” through late October.

The photos range from live action concert shots to more formal portraits, but they’re all stunning and remind me a lot of Herman Leonard’s photos of jazz luminaries (here). It makes me happy to think of people fawning over photos of hip-hop folks down the line the same way that we look at stuff like Leonard’s.

Go here and check out Scheinbaum’s work. And if you’re in the DC area (I know some of you are), head over to the Portrait Gallery and check it out in real life.

And here’s some music to rock while looking.

Del tha Funkee Homosapien - Don’t Forget (Buy It)

posted by Adam