Run-DMC and Doctor Dre, outside of WBAU/90.3 FM, in the Adelphi University Center, Garden City NY, July 1983, Photograph © Harry Allen
Pebblee-Poo at Home, Photograph © Harry Allen
T La Rock, Benjamin Franklin H.S., South Bronx, Photograph © Harry Allen
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Harry Allen is the Media Assassin. Be it print, radio or digital; written or spoken word; or in the medium of photography Allen ihas had a hand in hip-hop culture dating back to 1982, when he first met Carlton “Chuck D” Ridenhour in 1982, when the two took an animation class at Adelphi University. Ridenhour, then a member of the Hip Hop group Sepctrum City introduced Allen Flavor Flav and Terminator X (who, along with Chuck D, would form the core of Public Enemy), Spectrum City founders Hank and Keith Shocklee (who, along with Chuck D and Eric “Vietnam” Sadler , would form PE’s legendary production team, The Bomb Squad ), future Def Jam President Bill Stephney, and Andre “Doctor Dre” Brown, best known for later co-hosting Yo! MTV Raps.
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It was during this time that Allen began his work in photography, capturing the local scene and visiting New York City stars, before he began writing professionally in 1987. Allen’s first published article was one of the first pieces to illuminate the political ideology behind Public Enemy. After a 1989 Washington Times interview with Professor Griff brought accusations of anti-Semitism against PE, Allen began identifying himself as a “hip hop activist and media assassin”, becoming the group’s publicist as “director of Enemy relations.”
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An early proponent of the Internet, creating an online presence for PE in 1991, Allen was recently named “social media curator” by Fast Company recently named Allen a “social media curator” and one of “11 People Who Could Make Your Twitter Experience More Interesting.” Currently hosting NONFICTION, a Friday afternoon radio show on WBAI-NY/99.5 FM (the flagship of the non-commercial Pacifica radio network), Allen has always had a great affinity for photography. It’s no small feat to host a radio show with photographers as your guests, and successfully convey the nature of their work through ideas, rather than images. But time and again Allen does this, and it is a testament to his innate ability to understand the various forms in which reportage takes place. I am grateful to have the opportunity to speak with Harry Allen about his career in the media, and spotlight his work as a photographer.
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Your title “Media Assassin” is incredibly powerful. I have lots of questions about this… How did you come to this idea early in your career? How has it developed over the course of time? Has that changed as you have become a part of the media? And, ultimately, what is your responsibility to your listeners and readers?
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Harry Allen: I created the title, Media Assassin, as a way of denoting a certain kind of aggression and intensity in my work. I see it as emblematic of the language employed by great thinkers I admire: Malcolm X, Frederick Douglass, David Walker, and others. Over time, the title has become better known, but I can’t say that my objectives for my work have changed in this regard. Ultimately, I consider my responsibility to not “pull punches,” and to communicate in a way that conforms with my operative motto: Educate and excite, inform and infuriate.
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You’ve always taken a very intellectual and political approach to Hip Hop, something that existed back in the days, but seems to have vanished as money become an object of desire. What is the impetus to maintain your integrity as the culture evolves in another direction?
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I can answer this question two related ways:
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1) I think my approach to hip-hop is a reflection of who I am, and what I value. I am very much in touch with my own thoughts, and I am confident about them. As such, “maintaining” the approach you describe is merely a matter of doing what comes naturally to me. See this April 2010 interview Dr. Craig Werner and I did with Wisconsin Public Radio
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2) I was brought up in, and continue to practice, Seventh-day Adventism as a spiritual system. SDAism has many values, but I think a core one is the idea that God-led people must commit to correct behavior, and not waver. Biblical characters who did this made a strong impression on me, early on, and continue to do so.
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But even more, a kind of relentlessness about one’s position, if one believes it to be right and honorable, has become an aspect of my character. Growing up, I did not learn that “money” had an unlimited value. I learned that correct behavior was of higher value than money, and that this notion had a Godly basis. So, practicing correct ideas, and holding to correct standards, as I understand them—a relative kind of inflexibility about this—may be part of what you detect.
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I love that you were taking photographs all along! It’s like discovering your house has another room you didn’t even know about. Where did your desire to photograph come from? Who are your inspirations and influences ? How does your visual work play into your mission? How did your subjects relate to you wielding a camera? And what has surprised you most about the public’s reception to your work when Bill Adler exhibited your collection, Part of the Permanent Record: Photos From the Previous Century?
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I’ve always enjoyed taking pictures, from the days of dropping B&W 126 cartridges into the back of a cheap camera we had in the house. It got turned up in high school, though, when I was loaned a Canon Canonet GIII-17 rangefinder for a project, and learned I dug the process of making slide shows.
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Around the time I left high school for college, I bought a Polaroid SX-70 Special Edition, and a Polaroid 600 SE. Later, I bought a used, match-needle Canon TX w/ a 50mm 1.8 lens and a Canon 577G “potato masher” automatic flash. It was with this basic rig that I shot the pictures you’ve noted.
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My inspirations are anyone who has shot and printed a B&W image beautifully. I love the work of Arnold Newman, Henri-Cartier Bresson, Helmut Newton, Ansel Adams, and lots of others.
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I think the connection between my photography and other work is that all are centered around the individual. That is, my favorite photography is portraiture. My favorite journalism is the profile, or the Q&A. The act of revealing a person, and their nuances, compels me, in all media.
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The people of whom I tended to take pictures possessed big personalities, to begin. so, making images of them tended to be a straightforward task.
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Part of the Permanent Record: Photos From the Previous Century was an immensely gratifying event. About 99% of the images we chose had never been printed before. I’d never seen them except on a contact sheet.
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Though it was, sadly, Eyejammie Fine Art’s final photo show, getting the exhibit gave me a greater sense of my work and its value. I’d always thought that I had some photographic talent, and that there were people who’d like my work, but seeing people actually show up to look at my pictures was a big moment. Having people buy prints took it to another level.
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Now, I’ve been taking some of those images around to colleges and universities, as part of a presentation titled Shooting the Enemy: My Life in Pictures with the People Who Became Public Enemy. See:
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http://harryallen.info/?p=7317
http://harryallen.info/?p=7360
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This has become an especially gratifying experience, as it gives me an opportunity not only to show the images, and to talk about them, but to discuss my ideas about hip-hop with interested audiences.
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You’ve been in radio for nearly 30 years! I love Nonfiction on WBAI. Who have been some of your most memorable interviews? And who are your dream interview subjects?
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I’ve been writing professionally since June 1987, and broadcasting since June 2003 on my Friday, 2 pm show, NONFICTION.
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I’ve interviewed everyone from Harvard African and African American Studies head Dr. Henry Louis Gates to Black Panther Party activist Kathleen Cleaver; director David Cronenberg to dance music diva Ultra Naté.
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I don’t have a favorite interview, or dream interviewee, but I most value those interviews where I learn something new and valuable that I didn’t know; where the subject reveals something of themselves that they’ve not said before; or where I ask them a question they say is so original that it stops them in their tracks.
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My business is cultivating conversations. It’s my passion, and it’s something, thank God, I do well. The next part of my life is bringing together my God-given abilities in a way that drives a bigger, deeper, more profound conversation about human culture. That is what I’m onto now and next.
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Grandmaster Flash On-Stage at the Ritz, NYC, Photograph © Harry Allen