Zulu Dawn

Zulu Dawn

The early days of UK Hip Hop 

Photography exhibition by Martin Jones

In 1983, Martin Jones was a youth worker at Hockley Port Adventure Centre in Birmingham when the first wave of New York Hip Hop hit the UK's streets. It had an instant, explosive effect on young people in the inner cities. For a while, street corners and city squares were filled with body poppers and breakdancers, contorting and spinning on lino, keen to emulate US heroes such as the Rock Steady Crew.
 
Birmingham, Wolverhampton and Coventry quickly produced their own dance crews and Martin organised the first UK Hip Hop Festival to celebrate the new culture at the Midlands Arts Centre in August 1984. Some crews became so good they turned professional and Martin acted as their agent, getting them work with agencies for TV commercials, videos and trade shows.
 
Later, as public interests turned from breakdance to street art, he evolved into an overall hip hop entrepreneur, acting as multitalented urban icon Goldie’s (Spray Can Art, Metal Headz) agent and organising Goldie's first gallery show in summer 86, as well as the first transatlantic street art show at Birmingham's library in 1987

All these of these stages in Hip Hop's evolution, have been documented by Martin with his stills camera (and on video). The result is a unique record of this extraordinary period when young people, especially those from ethnic communities, discovered a transatlantic culture that allowed them to express their astonishing creativity in art, dance and music.       

Exhibition and touring contact:

Cynthia Torto
0121 224 7444
cynthia@punch-records.co.uk