Cornell University Library Digital Collections

Joe Conzo Jr. Archive

Unidentified dancer at the Roseland Ballroom

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Cold Crush Brothers at Club Negril

Street scene, 164th St. and River Ave., Bronx

About this collection

The archive of photographer Joe Conzo, Jr. features more than 10,000 of his negatives and prints. Called "The man who took Hip-Hop’s baby pictures" by the New York Times, Joe Conzo captured images of the South Bronx between 1976 and 1984, including early hip hop jams, street scenes, and Latin music performers and events. These rare images capture Hip Hop when it was still a localized, grassroots culture about to explode into global awareness. Without Joe’s images, the world would have little idea of what the earliest era of hip hop looked like, when fabled DJ, MC, and b-boy/girl battles took place in parks, school gymnasiums and neighborhood discos. More than 6,000 images have been digitized from this collection.

Historical context

In 1978, while attending South Bronx High School, Conzo became friends with members of the Cold Crush Brothers, an important and influential early Hip Hop group which included DJs Charlie Chase and Tony Tone and MCs Grandmaster Caz, JDL, Easy AD, and Almighty KayGee. Conzo became the group's photographer, documenting their live performances in many of Hip Hop’s legendary early venues, such as the T-Connection, Disco Fever, Harlem World, the Ecstasy Garage, and the Hoe Avenue Boy's Club. He also took pictures of other Hip-Hop artists and groups, including The Treacherous 3, The Fearless 4, and The Fantastic 5.

Using the collection

The items in this collection have been geocoded and can be browsed by location, as well as by year, venue, and names of individuals.

For more information about the collection, please contact the Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections at rareref@cornell.edu.

More information

Collection steward
Katherine Reagan, Ernest L. Stern '56 Curator of Rare Books & Manuscripts; Ben Ortiz, Collection Specialist, Cornell Hip Hop Collection
Metadata creation
Cornell University Library
Credits
This collection overview was last reviewed by Katherine Reagan, collection steward, in 2024.
Collection sources