Walk This Way

Walk This Way collects Sophie Bramly's photographs of hip-hop's founding scene, made in New York between 1981 and 1984, before the culture had a name most of the world would recognize.

Bramly left France at twenty to immerse herself in the Bronx and Harlem scenes then forming around DJs, MCs, and graffiti writers, photographing backstage, in clubs, and in the homes of the people she met. The book reproduces 55 black-and-white and 37 color images of Kool Herc, Afrika Bambaataa, Grandmixer D.ST, Jazzy Jay, Grandmaster Melle Mel, Kurtis Blow, Run-DMC, the Beastie Boys, and Keith Haring, with an introduction by Fab 5 Freddy. It was published in 2015 as a limited edition of 500, each copy including a signed and numbered photograph, accompanied by exhibitions in Paris, Marseille, Brussels, and Los Angeles.

Bramly's early Bronx photographs first surfaced publicly in the 2011 exhibition 1981 & +, and a broader edit of her archive followed in 2022 with Yo! The Early Days of Hip Hop 1982-84, published by Soul Jazz. Taken together, the two bodies of work stand as one of the fullest surviving photographic records of hip-hop before its commercial breakthrough.