How '80s Hip-Hop Took Watch Culture to a Whole New Level¶
Published on Mon, 1 Mar 2021 11:00:00 +0000
Plus, how the strange Tissot Rock Watch made a bigger impact than you might think.
Synopsis¶
This special episode of Hodinkee Radio celebrates "80s Week" with two distinct segments exploring watch culture in the 1980s. In the first segment, host Stephen Pulvirent interviews Hodinkee writer Logan Baker about the Tissot Rock Watch, one of the most unusual timepieces of the decade. The Rock Watch was literally made from Swiss granite, representing an audacious marketing move by Tissot to re-enter the American market after the quartz crisis devastated Swiss watchmaking. Baker explains how this quirky timepiece, born from a night of drinking among Swiss watch executives including Dr. Ernst Thomke, required significant technical innovation and investment, creating 50 new jobs and pioneering the use of non-traditional materials in watchmaking that continues today.
In the second segment, Nick Marino interviews legendary photographer Jeanette Beckman, who documented the early hip-hop scene in 1980s New York after transitioning from photographing the British punk movement. Beckman's iconic images captured artists like Run-DMC, LL Cool J, Salt-N-Pepa, Public Enemy, and Tupac wearing watches as essential style accessories. The conversation reveals how watches—from Rolex Day-Dates to Seiko chronographs to Swatches—were integral to hip-hop fashion and identity during this era.
Both segments illuminate how the 1980s, often dismissed as a low point for mechanical watchmaking, was actually a period of creative innovation and cultural significance. The decade saw Swiss brands like Tissot experimenting with radical new materials and marketing approaches, while hip-hop artists established watches as symbols of success and style that continue to influence watch culture today. Together, these stories demonstrate that the 1980s deserve recognition as a transformative and underappreciated period in horological history.
Links¶
Transcript¶
| Speaker | |
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| Jeanette Beckman | Everybody wanted to look fly. People were wearing Adidas and gazelles and kangals and everybody had a watch on. You know, I think watches back in those days it was super important what kind of watch you were wearing you know said what kind of person you were |
| Stephen Pulvirent | Hey everybody, I'm your host Stephen Polverant and this is Hodinky Radio. It's 80s week here at Hodinky, which means that all week we're gonna be bringing you stories, videos, and yes, podcasts, related to watch culture in the 1980s, which maybe is the most underappreciated decade in watches. First up, we've got a conversation with our own Logan Baker about one of the weirdest watches in the 1980s, the Tissot Rock Watch. It's exactly what it sounds like. It's a watch made out of a piece of rock, but it's a whole lot more than that. And Logan gets into why this tiny little strange piece of horology tells us a ton about what was going on in Switzerland and the watch world during this important decade. After that, our senior vice president of content Nick Marino makes his first Hodinky radio appearance, interviewing photographer Jeanette Beckman. Beckman photographed the 70s British punk scene and then moved to New York and spent most of the 80s shooting the early hip hop scene, including a ton of household names like LO Cool J, Salt and Peppa, Flavor Flav, and a ton more. She focused on documenting the culture, style, and fashion of the era, and kind of unbeknownst to her at the time, that included watches. And Nick really opens her eyes to the ways in which her photographs document horological culture of 1980s hip-hop in addition to a ton of other things. It's also worth noting that both of these are sort of previews or behind-the-scenes looks at stories coming out later this week. So if you enjoy these conversations and interviews, uh be sure to tune back in later this week at hodinky.com and you'll be able to get an even more detailed look. We'll also update the show notes with those links as they become available. So without further ado, it's 80s week, let's do this |
| Logan Baker | . Hey man, welcome to the show. Good to have you. Uh thanks, man. Excited to be here. First first appearance on H Radio. Is it really |
| Stephen Pulvirent | ? Uh yeah, yeah, I believe so. It it to tookok eighties week for us to make this happen. Uh and not to blow your spot up too much, but you you were not born in the eighties, right |
| Logan Baker | ? Uh I was not. Yeah. I'm a I'm a nineties baby. So you know, I didn't get uh get the firsthand experience of some of you you uh old guys on the team. |
| Stephen Pulvirent | I I I uh slid in there. I made it by like a few months. So I get to say I was born in the eighties, but like bare barely. Like I'm really a nineties kid, so you know, you're you're in good company here. There we go. But this, you know, this is your week. This is 80s week just for you. This is 80s week. Uh, and and the reason you're on the show this week is you know, we're doing a whole bunch of 80s theme stories this week all across the site. Um, and one story you've been researching and that you wrote uh stood out to me as just like one of the quirkiest and most fun and idiosyncratic 80s stories imaginable in watches. And so although the full story I'll run later this week, I thought it'd be fun to give people a little bit of a little bit of a preview this morning. What do you what do you think? Yeah, absolutely. Let's do it. All right. So the watch we're gonna talk about uh has a goofy name, and then when you start digging into it, you realize it's actually like even stranger than you think. Uh, and it's the Tissot Rock Watch. Can you can you just tell us kind of like at a high level what this thing is? Uh well it's it's a it's a rock. You know, I mean it's |
| Logan Baker | uh Okay. It's it's a chunk of uh granite um that Tissot in the mid eighties um came out with. Um you, know it',s a single piece of granite that they milled on both sides. Uh there's a quartz movement around back that's protected with a uh steel case back that's screwed in. And then there's the the dial. It's kind of a with a stepped bezel inside uh with sapphire crystal on top. But it's just this tiny little charming watch. You know, they produced three sizes, uh 22, 32, and 29, I think. So there's these three kind of main sizes, but it's just this tiny little charming kind of funky watch that is uh, you know, just one hundred percent of the eighties. You know, I can't really imagine it existing at any other point |
| Stephen Pulvirent | . Yeah, it's I mean, first of all, the fact that it's small is something I didn't expect. Like I'd seen pictures of them before, but until you know you and I had talked about this a little bit, like I I didn't realize how tiny they are |
| Logan Baker | . Yeah, they're they're really quite small and I think that's part of the charm. I mean this is this is the first watch made of natural stone. And you know, if you if it came out today it'd probably be seen as like a gimmick, you know, you'd probably see it on Kickstarter or something like that. But it would be like this 40 millimeter kind of piece of rock. You know, it would feel like weird on the wrist. But, you know, I think the the small size kind of works to uh to part of its in in its favor. You know, it's it's more targeted that way. It's kind of of its time |
| Stephen Pulvirent | . Yeah, I totally agree. Uh you know, and and you said it's granite. Is there is there a reason why that was the rock they chose? Like there there's many, many choices, but like the the main ones are granite, right? |
| Logan Baker | Uh yeah, the they they made a couple different um they used a couple different stones, but the first one they used was granite to do uh to go all in on Swiss made. So the granite that they used on most of the rock watches is sourced from the Swiss Alps. Uh that's cool. Which kind of makes it, you know, a very holistic Switzerland creation, bringing together, you know, one of their main attractions in um the Alps and one of their main exports in um watchmaking. Uh and even the the hands on the the dial are red and yellow. And uh they chose those colors because it's the same colors as the the trail markers in the Alps. Oh, that's really charming, actually. I really like that. Yeah. So it's you know, I mean there's there's some interesting it's it's pretty simple when you look at it. You know, it's it's a rock. There's not a lot of like |
| Stephen Pulvirent | I I I love the idea that there's like a whole bunch of not genuine rock watches out there that like somebody made a bunch of fake ones that are made of like, I don't know, like concrete or something, just with like some brown color in it, and they made it look it's like a fake rock watch |
| Logan Baker | . Yeah. Yeah, you know, I wouldn't be surprised if at one point, you know, there there were competitors that popped up. Um I haven't really seen too many, but like I said, you know, I I I think for its time this is really kind of a fresh idea, but today it would be kind of looked at like in 2021, you know, we wouldn't be talking about it on uh episode of Hodinky Radio. But because it's of it's specifically of the 80s like that, it kind of makes it interesting. And you know, kind of transitioning from there, I think what's really underrated about the Rockwatch is that it it kind of helped rebirth Tissot in kind of the the international imagination. Cause you know, as I'm sure everyone listening to this is aware, the the late seventies, early eighties weren't really a great time for Swiss watchmaking. You know, I mean um there was a lot of consolidation going on and Tissot was was part of that. And by the time the Rockwatch came out in 1985, Tissot hadn't what wasn't in the US market. They hadn't been in the US market for about a decade. And so they they actually used the Rockwatch as an opportunity to uh re-enter the United States. Their their first test markets were in Chicago, Boston, DC, which is kind of a similar path that uh SWATS, the SWAT Watch chose in 1983 when it uh tested in Texas before it launched internationally. So before you you know, even um the rest of Switzerland had a chance to see the the Rockwash, you know, people in Chicago, retailers in Chicago, Boston, and DC all had a chance to kind of see it. And um I read that, you know, Swiss Swiss Switzerland actually sent like T V crews to cover the launch of the Rockwatch in the US. So there was like this demand forming internationally for it, but only people in these these test markets in the US could get it in 1984 |
| Stephen Pulvirent | . Yeah, it's interesting that you draw the comparison with Swatch, right? Like I think people don't realize, you know, in 1983, like the idea of a Swiss watch was kind of dying. Like, you know, like the the most advanced watches were coming from Japan. And Swatch, as we've said many times on the show, on the website, kinda all over the place, like Swatch in many ways saved the Swiss watch industry. And this comes right on the heels of that, and it also comes from a lot of the same people, right? Like Dr. Tomkey, Ernst Tompke, who our our own Joe Thompson has written extensively about uh and we'll we'll put some links in in the show notes so people can check those stories out. But uh Tomke was kind of like the mastermind behind this, right? |
| Logan Baker | Yeah, he was kind of part of a team. You know, Tomkey who was, I believe, his position at that time was CEO of ETA, but kind of in the consolidation of SSIH and ASUAG, um, you know, he he joined the board of directors. Um, and I don't believe in 84 the SMH group had been officially named yet, but he would become eventually the first CEO of the SMH group. Um but he's he's a key player. Um Elmar Mock, um, Jacques Mueller, two veterans of SWATS 1983 were all kind of part of the the key development. And um one of my favorite bits about the the Rockwatch's development is that it came from a night of of drinking, you know, like Dr. Company and a couple other, you know, Swiss executives were just like hanging out drinking and, you know, talking about different things. And it kind of just came up like organically like, what if we made a watch of stone? And so they just kind of took that idea and ran with it. I'll actually I'll I'll read you this quote from um a book on Tissot that was published in 2003 that I just I find really charming. Yeah, please do. Uh so here's the quote. To relaunch the brand we needed a new product. During an evening in which we drank a great deal, we and our colleagues decided to make a watch in stone. Ernst Tonki's blue eyes are still laughing at the thought. When I proposed to the people at Tiso that we would sell this stonewatch, they said it must surely be a joke. If you insist, we'll try and sell three thousand. I said at least ten thousand. Otherwise I'll give it to another brand. They must have thought it was completely mad. Uh it's just I can just I mean I don't know. Uh Steven, you know, you've been you've been going to Switzerland off and on for years. Can you imagine like a bunch of Swisswash industry executives sitting around going back and forth on this idea like |
| Stephen Pulvirent | ki kind of like I mean it's funny like it makes it makes sense to me but as something from a different time like this was such a different world than the world we inhabit And I I think I don't know, one of the things that stands out to me from from the way you kind of describe this process and the product itself, and knowing a little bit about the hi the history of the industry at this time is like the the 80s get a bad rap for when watches were like boring and bad and like whatever. And that might be true from a mechanical standpoint. Like I think if you want to look at watchmaking as like a technical art. The eighties probably aren't great. Uh but like to me, the eighties feel like the generation when watches got fun, you know? Like in the sixties and seventies it was all like it was kind of serious. It was like tool watches and it was about ultra thin dress watches and complications and like innovation and all of this. And then like the quartz crisis hit and everybody had to rethink. And we got Swatch and we got the Rock Watch. And we got like these early kind of like what would now be swatch group creations were were products of people had to find something new and so they got creative and they had a little fun with it and they went out and got drunk with their friends and were like, let's make a watch out of that mountain over there. And like, that's a cool thing. And I I honestly I think the industry could do with a bit more of that just like flat out fun. Like don't take itself so damn seriously. Just have a good time with it. |
| Logan Baker | Yeah, no, absolutely. That's that's a really good point. And you know, um even after Swatch came out in 1983, uh the Swiss watch industry wasn't you know, we we like to say that swatch was the only thing that helped save the swiss watch industry but you know it was just kind of it was the first step in building it back you know swiss watch exports in 8384 were still at some of the the lowest levels since uh World War II. Um but then you know Tissot came out with uh the Rockwatch, which gave them kind of uh a better footing internationally. You know, they launched in the US, they launched in Hong Kong, uh, and they started building a distribution network worldwide. And you know, today Tissot is you know one of the Swiss watch industry's biggest players. You know, they produce more watches than nearly any other Swiss brand. And I just I think it would have been really interesting if in like that quote that I read, if Tissot hadn't taken it and you know another one of those early um SMH group brands had, you know, so like if in Tisso's place today we saw, you know, Rotto or Mito or you know one of those original um SMH brands, it it would just be interesting how kind of things things developed from the Rockwatch's success. Yeah |
| Stephen Pulvirent | . That's a really good point. That's a really, really good point. Is is things were so volatile at this period that that like this the impact of this thing, it's hard to know, but like it it probably is significant, you know, and it's it's it might seem like a novelty to us now, and and I know you mentioned that earlier. You know, if somebody came out with this today, we might kind of laugh at it. But uh and and I did just a minute ago say that the 80s technically weren't the most impressive, but like I also don't want to make it sound like I'm not taking this seriously or that this watch is like a funny curiosity and that's all. I mean, there were plenty of like technical problems that had to be solved. Like you can't just take a hunk of rock from the side of a mountain and put it in the same machine that you use to make steel or gold cases and make a watch case. Like rock is not granite is like not easy to work with on that scale and there's all kinds of problems that you have to solve and like these were creative, talented watch folk, you know, working on this and it was it was like a really serious th |
| Logan Baker | ing despite being fun, right? Yeah. Um, you know, Tissot and the SMH group actually had to invest like I think uh seven million Swiss francs in, you know, acquiring the machines and you know the the facilities to properly manufacture to machine the the granite out of, you know, the cases out of granite. They didn't really have, you know, stonemasons on staff or anything like that. But they had to go out and acquire kind of those capabilities. And then um they even, you know, in the in and in this time, um, you know, the industry was consolidating, people were losing jobs, but Tissot actually created 50 new jobs at its facility in uh Lalac um specifically to meet the Rockwatch's initial production goals. So before they'd even sold any, they kind of had placed this bet, this investment with you know millions of francs in creating the watches, 20 million Swiss francs into marketing the Rockwatch and 50 new jobs in in Switzerland. Um so you know they they were kind of investing a lot into it. Um and one other thing that I wanted to make sure we talked about is you know, I think this I think the Rockwatch really kind of influenced the trend we see today of these kind of unorthodox out-of-the-x materials being injected into cases, rotors, case bands, um, dials. You know, I mean we see we kind of take for granted like meteorite dials today but that wasn't around in the sixties or seventies I think the first meteorite dial was uh was a quorum I might be wrong on that but you know I think that was in the 80s um but you know without the the Rockwatch kind of and its popularity, I don't think we would be seeing the you know people adding uh historical pieces to like rotors and and whatnot, you know. So there's there's this kind of influence that you can track from um from the mid eighties to today. And again, you know, I mean people can feel kind of how they feel about those types of watches, but it's it's an important kind of part of our industry, you know, and I think uh it's interesting and the more kind of fun things the industry does, the better, like you were like you were say |
| Stephen Pulvirent | ing. Yeah. No, I totally I totally agree with you. And I I I do think that last point you made that this is one of the first non-like steel or gold or platinum watches out there. Like it's it's really that that's a thing that sounds crazy to us today when we have watches made of everything from like ceramic to literally made of like cheese, right? Like we've seen a cheese caste watch, you know, it's it's been that full gambit, right? And this was this was first or or early, you know, if not first, it was early and influential. Um and you know, you you and I have chatted about this a bit offline, but like, you know, in the years immediately after the Rockwatch, we saw things like Mother of Pearl, we saw things like wood, we saw things like ceramics, and you know, some of the ceramic stuff is down to the technology became available, but also I I would be shocked if, you know, when the folks at Omega made a decision to invest in ceramics, they didn't have a conversation with one of their colleagues who worked on the Rockwatch to say like how how do we do this and like how do you make this successful and how do you convince people so again like it's kind it is fun and it is a little bit silly and goofy. Uh but these like tiny stone watches I I really think have an outsize impact. At least you've you've at least convinced me. I don't know if we've convinced our listeners, but you've convinced me that this this matters, you know |
| Logan Baker | ? No, I think it it uh it absolutely does. And, you know, we spend a lot of time at um you know, at Hodian Key, but not not even at a hoding key. I think, you know, watch enthusiasts in general are so focused on the idea of, you know, vintage and the these watches from the fifties and sixties, and you know, they're wonderful. I, you know, I can't get it. I can't get enough of learning about vintage watches. And I I chatter with uh I bother Brandon and Sayori and Rich all the time about like, you know, what we have coming coming into the the hood and key shop. You you and me both, man. There's this really interesting period where there was just a lot of innovation, not just in you know traditional horology or you know material sciences, but in how um the watch industry approached marketing and communications. And you know, I'm not gonna say that the the rock watch is the end all be all when it comes to that, but like you said, this is a small kind, of silly, fun little, charming piece of granite really kind of has uh an outsize influence on uh what we do today. Ye |
| Stephen Pulvirent | ah. All right, last last question for you. I know you picked one of these up on eBay as you were researching this story. Uh have you been have you been wearing the rock watch? Have you been rocking the rock watch a lot lately |
| Logan Baker | ? A little bit, you know. Um it's pretty small. It's definitely the smallest watch I've ever owned. But uh you know I wear and it's it's interesting. I get into this a little bit on my in my article, but you know, on the wrist, you kind of you don't forget that you're wearing it, but I don't like fiddle with it. Like I I like to fiddle with my watches whether you know, I wear a bunch of dive watches and I'll fiddle with the bezel. If I'm wearing a chronograph, I'm pressing the pushers all day, every day. I don't find myself playing around with the rock watch as much because it's just this smooth, perfect circle. But it's not like I I forget that it's there either like you might a ultra thin vintage watch. So it's kind of it has a different wearing experience than I anticipated or really kind of than anything I've felt before. But it's a, you know, I recommend you you can find them on, you know, the traditional kind of online marketplaces for, you know, 100, 200 bucks, um, even less if you kind of dig around a bit. Um so I you know, I recommend people find one that kind of strike strikes their their fancy. Oh, and I I should mention that every rock watch is unique because the the veins of the stone um you know that they're cutting from make each watch.. Yeah, yeah So if you you find one, know, you look around a little bit and you find one that speaks to you, uh go for it. You know, I think it's uh it's a cool, fun piece of history that um is pretty affordable |
| Stephen Pulvirent | . Amazing. Well, I now know exactly what I will be doing. Uh when we turn the microphones off. Um my credit card does not thank you, uh, but my wrist probably does. So uh thanks for joining us, man. This was fun. I can't believe this was the first time we had you on the show, but uh we we''llll have to make it make it a more frequent thing and uh people should look forward to your full detailed report of this uh later in the week and we'll we'll update the show notes once that goes live so uh people people can find it.. Sounds great Awesome. Thanks so much. Awesome. Cool. Thanks, man. Take care. Up next we have Nick Marino talking to photographer Jeanette Beckman |
| Nick Marino | . Hey everybody, Nick here. Uh before I entered the world of watches. Um, I spent about the first decade of my career as a music writer. And back then and still now, um, I loved hip-hop in particular. It's the music that I grew up on as a kid in Florida. And as we were thinking about our 80s week coverage, we realized that a lot of watch culture came out of hip hop that that moment in music history was really linked to that moment in watch history and that a lot of what the artists were wearing back then holds up now as super emblematic of that decade, actually just as much as the music they were making. Um it's fun, a lot of fun to go back and listen to that music, but you get some of that same enjoyment just out of looking at the pictures. Uh, and what we have for you today is a conversation with someone who made a lot of the pictures that we think of when we think of 80s hip hop. Uh her name's Jeanette Beckman. She was born in London, but did most of um her hip-hop work in New York City. Uh, and she took a lot of super iconic images of rappers wearing watches. And it's it's a little unusual for a hodinky radio to do something like this, but I think as you listen, you'll start to see the connections between hip hop culture and watch culture in the 1980s in a whole new way. Jeanette Beckman, welcome to Podenky Radio. Thank you for having me. It's very exciting. Let's go back to the beginning. We're we're here today to talk about this amazing portfolio of hip-hop photography that you made from the 1980s. How are you in position to shoot all this stuff to begin with? |
| Jeanette Beckman | Well, that's the question. So uh basically I was born in London and I grew up there and punk was happening and it was just all around, and I started photographing punk kids on the street, and then I started photographing bands and fans and everything. And I was working for a weekly music magazine called Melody Maker and shooting all these different bands for about five years. And in 1982, the New York City Rap Tour came to London and we had never seen rap before, we didn't know what it was. And you know, British punk is kind of dark and gloomy and all very negative energy in a way, although it was great. Bands like The Clash were really amazing. But um so this new york city raptor came to town and i went to photograph it for the for melody maker so that day i saw mcs, DJs, graffiti artists, rappers, double Dutch girls, all on a stage together, all making this incredible art form which I'd never seen before. And it really was a kind of a renaissance moment for me, if you will. And a couple of months later I moved to New York. You know, then 1983 I find myself in New York and all of this stuff is happening on the streets. Kids are walking around with boom boxes, the trains were all coming graffiti. It was so exciting. I just started going around to record labels trying to get work because I'd already by that time done a police album cover, first police album cover. And um, you know, I had all these punk bands. I thought I would get work from these big labels, but they were not keen on my work. They thought it was too gritty. And um so eventually they gave me a job and there was a you know it was a rap group and uh they were called the Fearless Four. And I that was my first rap album cover. They started say calling me up, going, hey, you know, there's this group run DMC, have you heard of them? No, never heard of them. 1984. You know, they'd give me this number from England, it turned out to be like Jam Master J's mom's house. I call up and go hi you know I'm from England blah blah blah and I'd get just go out to Hollis and start you know taking pictures and that's kind of how I started to get into it |
| Nick Marino | . You know, our interest in hip hop is of course through the lens of watches, but I see watches as sort of part of a larger style movement, and part of what makes that era of hip-hop still so much fun, so fun to look at, so fun to think about. Can you describe the, can you describe the style that those artists were wearing? What did you notice about it then? And how did watches play into that style |
| Jeanette Beckman | ? Well, I think you know, watches uh like jewelry, really, you know, obviously functioning jewelry. And you know, back in the day, everybody wanted to look fly. Everybody wanted to, you know, have bling. They wanted to go, you know, I've got the chains and then I've got the watches and people were wearing Adidas and gazelles and Kangals and you know tracksuits and it it there were all different types of styles to be honest and um people usually had watches on. In fact everybody had a watch on, actually when you think about it at the time. You know, I think watches back in those days was super important. What kind of watch you were wearing. |
| Nick Marino | You know, said what kind of person you were. Let's go through these images that we pulled together. The first one is Tulag Crew from 1988. And it's interesting to hear you talk about coming out of the punk scene because to me, Tullab Crew are one of the most punk rock hip-hop groups ever. And I I love that in this image, Luke, the leader of the of the group, is wearing this gold Rolex day date, you know, the president watch. Because it's it's it's actually an establishment watch. You know, it's it's known for being kind of what diplomats would wear, what at what actual presidents would wear. You know, this is the watch that you wear if you're going to speak at the United Nations or try to make partner at the law firm. You know, it's a successful uh buttoned up conservative Swiss dress watch being worn by a guy who at the time was one of the most host most notorious artists in any musical genre. I I love that irony that he's playing with. Um I love the way he owns that watch and makes it his and sort of makes the case that he deserves it as much as anyone. You know, I I don't want to read too much into these things, but there's there's a reason he's wearing that particular watch posing in front of the American flag. Can you can you go back to shooting these guys in 88? And am I am I crazy or does does does two lab crew kind of connect with punk in the way that I'm seeing. |
| Jeanette Beckman | Fabulous, you're right, it's very punk. I mean it's what should really I guess say who you are. I took that picture of them and we decided to put them in front of an American flag because at the time they were trying to ban records that had uh suggestive lyrics in them from being sold and there was this whole protest going on and as you can see they,'re wearing these T-shirts. And it it's I mean, even though it's a serious subject, they're still having fun with it. And we did have a fun time on that shoot |
| Nick Marino | . Your LO Cool J photo shoot is significant for all kinds of reasons. Um, you know, we're interested, of course, in the watch. And he's wearing something called a gruen gold nugget, at least as best we can tell. And this thing is amazing. It looks like someone sort of spray painted gold onto uh some tin foil and then crumpled it all up, made a watch bracelet out of it, and then attached it to a case. Um, it's an amazing piece and a lot of rappers wore it back then. Of course, LL also has this three-finger gold ring with his name on it, this giant gold chain, which at that time was his signature. And then he's making the double LL sign uh with his hands, um, plus this red bucket hat. You know, th this is sort of quintessential LL to me. Uh what was he like to shoot back in those da |
| Jeanette Beckman | ys? Uh that is like the second photo shoot I'd done with LL because the first photo shoot I did for him was his first ever press shoot and I think you know there's a picture of him a lot of people know this picture he's got a big boom box on his shoulder so that was 1985 I believe. And this is a couple of years later. And it was actually for Melody Maker, the Brit one of these British music magazines, and it was a cover shot. And so I wanted to get some close-up pictures. And you know, they wanted color and it had to be really bright. So I, you know, back in the day we had these bright colored seamlesses. And um, he obviously had got a bit famous since I'd taken that first crush out of him. So, you know, he has a nice watch on he's got a lot more jewelry on in this picture than he did in when I photographed him in 1985 and he's got all his moves down and he's doing the LL sign. LL stands for ladies love and |
| Nick Marino | everybody did love LL called it. So this EPMD shoot is super iconic, one of your I think most famous shoots. Um I love this whole session with them by the water uh wearing these matching outfits with the bucket hats. And there's serious watch action here. Um we've got a Seiko Chrono and we've got a yellow Rolex daydate plus assorted rings, chains. It's just kind of everything that you want from an 80s rap duo all in this one image. What was happening uh on this day when you took their picture |
| Jeanette Beckman | ? So I was shooting that for their album, um, I think it's unfinished or is it strictly? I think it's unfinished business. So I it was the third album cover I'd done for them. And that day it was kind of like a sort of October-November type of fall day, sun went down early. So they told me to meet them out in Babylon, Long Island. But by this water, they gave me the street address. I drove out there. I found it we're supposed to meet at noon. So I'm out there with my assistant, and it's in the middle of nowhere. It's by the water, it's by the ocean. And you know, still bearing in mind no phones, no cell phones, no nothing. And uh they didn't turn up at noon, no surprise, hip hop, always late, then waiting. And the sun's starting to go down. So around three o'clock, we drove to a phone box, remember those things? So you put put the quarter in, and I call the manager, and he's like, Oh yeah, yo, they're getting their the rims shined on their cars in the Bronx. And I'm like, holy crap, because the sun's gonna be down in literally like an hour or so, and I hope they hurry up. So go back to the spot and about 15 minutes, you know, before the sun was about to go down, I hear this roar of the V8 engine. And to me, there's something about V8 engines and watches that's sort of connected or motorcycles. I don't know why. Anyway, they come down and they got, you know, they come down and I think one of them had a Mercedes I think the other one had an IRO we better hurry up we've got fifteen minutes so they got out and they just sat exactly where they're sitting and they were like, what do you want us to do? And I'm like, you look great like that. It's interesting. You can see the watch really well, which I didn't really think about. More than the watch, I will say, what was extraordinary to me was what they were wearing because it was a style that like the bucket hat and this kind of flowing kind of pyjama-y looking things. I'd never seen a rapport wear anything like this before. But I just thought, well, this is really cool. They must be, you know, they've got it. They know how to flaunt this stuff and they obviously have these outfits made and matching outfits. And they looked amazing. And this is actually one of my most famous photos. Should we look at run DMC? |
| Nick Marino | Yeah, let's look at Run DMC. All right, so Run DMC, massively famous rap group, massively famous watches. Uh we've got a Rolex date just and a swatch here, not to mention a couple of fedoras, some chains, um a b-boy stance, all shot in this amazing timeless black and wh Can you take us back to shooting those gu |
| Jeanette Beckman | ys? So um Jammas or J. I was doing a story for um spin, I think. It was about you know rock stars at home and I went to photograph Jan Master Jay in his home. And yeah, he had this giant not only was he wearing a swatch, but he had this giant swatch thing. I mean it was about double the height of him hanging off the wall. And it's it's really cool looking. That particular picture of Runde and C, I had photographed them before of course, before they got famous in 1984 on the street where they lived and that was a really cool photo shoot and this was a couple of let's see 88 so yeah that's four years later and you know they really had their look down they' gotve the hats they've got the glasses you know they just they just look good and we were just trying to get a tight shot I mean that's always a challenging thing I don't really like posing people but when you're trying to do a group shop like this, everybody has to be close together and they all have to be looking in the camera and that's somehow not always so easy. So there's a contact sheet for that and you can kind of see the development of you know, one person's looking over there, and you know, eventually you get everybody focused. Um, I was working with film back in the day, and that particular camera that I used to use, the Hasselblad, onlyly has 12 shots on a roll. So you didn't shoot that many rolls. It wasn't like these days you'd do a hundred shots just to get one. You know, we would do maybe 30 or so So. uh it was more challenging, but there they |
| Nick Marino | are. I'm really happy to see Heavy D in the mix here. He's an artist that I loved as a kid and who I think is sort of forgotten today. Um, but in this image, he's wearing this sort of beautiful regal purple jacket, a Rolex and a pinky ring with these smoky glasses. He looks actually kind of sweet. Uh for for people who don't remember him or maybe never heard about him to begin with, who was he and what was he like |
| Jeanette Beckman | ? Heavy D and the boys. Ye yeah,ah they had a special place and I mean for me personally they remade now that we found love remember and that was one of my favorite jams I mean I thought what they did was spectacular I. was really that was just on my well, actually, it still is on my playlist. I think I shot that for my first hip-hop book that I was doing in 1991. It was called Rap Portraits and Lyrics of a Gener |
| Nick Marino | ation of Black Roppers. This is eighty-nine and I guess uh maybe that's a question. Right. Start you started shooting hip hop culture in the early eighties. Well eighty-two is my first ever hip-hop shoot. Yeah, and so now here we are at the late 80s. How did the style, the style, for forget the music for a moment, how did the style evolve from eighty-two to to eighty-nine |
| Jeanette Beckman | ? You know, I think in eighty two and eighty three or when I shot that Fearless Four cover, for instance, they're all in matching red leather head to toe. And they've got jerry curls and you know they've got little chains and it's it's a look and it was really an amazing look and it's a great I mean that's just a great moment that really I think that was eighty-three, it really personalized exactly, you know, there's a lot of leather going on and stuff. And then, you know, as the eighties went on, people like Runde MC, as I say, kind of made streetwear more popular and you know guys like Gangstar for instance you know they were you know they'd be in timberlands and you know baggy jeans and some kind of loose jacket. It was a completely different look. So I think that's the main thing. And of course, you know, as artists got more popular, the gold got bigger usually |
| Nick Marino | . We have just a few images left. Um, let's do flavor flav. Flavor flavor of course, famous for the clock, but this is a stopwatch. What's going on in this image |
| Jeanette Beckman | ? This image was shot, I shot this also for British magazine and I was doing uh a story about public enemy. It came to my studio and um it was right around fight the power time and everything. And this was before he got the clock. This was probably Flavor Fle's first clock, which was a stopwatch. I mean, I'm really glad I have that image because, you know, as we all know, he soon had his own TV show and was wearing these clocks that were like bigger than he was and then giving them out to girls and all sorts of things. So you know this was the start of it. It started small and those things for what like five bucks or something. I had one too. Everybody was wearing we would just wear them with you know the jewelry you had around your neck. Like I often had a lot of chains and things, not big gold chains, but chains and, then you'd have a stopwatch. What kind of character was he in 1987? He was hilarious. Yeah, just say he was hilarious. I mean it was funny because people said to me, you know, public enemy, coming to your studio, it might be difficult because you know, fight the power and there was all this you know racism going on and the spikey movies and everything and it might be a difficult shoot. But I always loved public enemy. I mean I still do. I think Chuck D, you know, Chuck D for president as far as I'm concerned. But they were delightful and Chuck D was so smart and thoughtful. And you know, Flavor was there playing the clown and being funny as usual, but really sweet. He was just always fooling aro |
| Nick Marino | und. Take me back to this day in 1986 with salt and peppa on the lower east side. It seems like a really candid moment. They they look like they've just busted out of a bodega with a couple of juice bottles. Uh then there's a random kid walking through the frame. What what's happening |
| Jeanette Beckman | here? Once again, it was for a magazine in England we'd somehow heard about these two girls that were, I don't know, I guess they were rhyming, but they did not have a record deal. So that I was living on Avenue B and 8th Street, which was on the Lower East Side, right on Tompkins Square at the time. So I was like, okay, it's hot summer's day, really like New York steamy hot day. And I said to them, just meet me at my apartment, we'll just walk around in the neighborhood. And the Lower East Side, you know, back in the day was not really gentrified. In fact, forget the really, it was just not gentrified. So I knew that there were a few murals in the neighborhood, and I just thought it might be nice to get them, you know, standing in front of a mural or something. So we just spent the afternoon sort of walking around and then go, what do you think of this spot? They go, Oh, this is cool, and they kind of strike a pose in front of some got a picture of them in front of this fabulous mural, this lady dancing outside of local Kifu supermarket on AUC uh or maybe it's D, I don't even know. Oh I know that supermarket on M U C, yeah right that's the one. So you know and I it was uh you know it, was um it was a neighborhood, it was the lower east side. People some people were scared to go down there. But we just hung out all day and they were giggling, they were like also like a couple of sisters, really, or best friends just hanging out and uh you know they had their little chains on and they it was very it was very colorful and bright and fun they said to me, Oh, let's just stop off for a soda. So, you know, we went to the deli and they came out, they got a soda, and this kid's walking by and I took that shot and I really like it because it's just a kind of that's a really like a moment in time shot, just a style and everything. So I guess they had a nice time hanging out with me that day, and they're like, oh, we we're gonna do a record. Do you want to be our record cover photographer? And I was like, sure. You know, back in the day we didn't get a lot of money for doing these record covers. You know, if you got $500, you'd be pretty happy. So I ended up doing the first record cover, then I did another one, then I did another one, and then I did that famous shot of them in those eight ball jackets, which were made by Dappadan, by the way, the one and only Dappa Dan. And you know, I watched them grow up. It was amazing. So these images are many decades old. What are you working on now? Right now, actually, I'm working on a book that is 10 decades since you mentioned decades of my photography so it starts in the punk era and it finishes with you know shoots for lebis and dior but it goes through punk, hip-hop, a lot of street photography, all sorts of bikers, East LA gang members on the way. And I'm very excited about it. It's coming out on a with a publisher called Drago at the end of this year |
| Nick Marino | . And if someone wants to buy one of these hip hop images or even just see additional stuff from your work, how do they do that? Um they could go to the |
| Jeanette Beckman | Faithy Klein Gallery in LA. So they obviously have an online presence and have a look. That's where you can buy all my photos and uh um or go to my website, which is Jeanette Beckman.com, or follow me on Instagram, Jeanette Photo. Jeanette Beckman, thank you so much for being with us today. Nick, thank you for having me. I learned a lot about watches and I honestly didn't know that half these people were wearing I mean who knew that Luke Skywalker was wearing the president watch? That blows my mind. That really blows my mind. It's fabulous. Thank you so much. |