Ernie Paniccioli

Author of “Who Shot Ya? Three Decades of Hip Hop Photography,” Ernie Paniccioli first made his foray into hip-hop culture in 1973 when he began capturing the ever present graffiti art dominating New York City. From there, and armed with a 35-millimeter camera, Paniccioli has recorded the entire evolution of hip-hop. Much in the same way Gordon Parks recorded the Civil Rights Movement, or the way James Van Der Zee documented Harlem in the 1920s, Paniccioli met the energy and spirit of the times head on with his picture-making. From Grandmaster Flash at the Roxy (a popular Manhattan nightclub of the late ‘70s and early 1980s), to the athletic moves of the legendary Rock Steady Crew, to the fresh faces of Queen Latifah, Tupac Shakur, The Notorious B.I.G., Eminem, and Lauryn Hill, Paniccioli has been at the forefront documenting the greatest cultural movement since Rock and Roll.

Paniccioli is the recipient of the UNIVERSAL ZULU NATION Human Soul Award and is creator of “THE OTHER SIDE OF HIP HOP” which won the Big Apple Film Festival Best Documentary in 2007. His archive of over 100,000 photographs has been acquired by Cornell University, as part of their Hip-Hop Collection, and he was also inducted into the Hip Hop Hall of Fame. A true renaissance man, Paniccioli is also a painter, public speaker, and historian.