On Saturday, December 3rd Morrison Hotel Gallery presented Parental Advisory: Explicit Images, a Hip-Hop and photography exhibit. As part of Art Basel, the intimate event was co-hosted by gallery owner and photographer Timothy White and Darryl “DMC” McDaniels from Run-DMC at the EAST Miami hotel.
One of a kind photographs by Timothy White, Danny Clinch, Janette Beckman, Clay Patrick McBride displayed as a centerpiece at the event and were for sale capturing iconic images of hip-hop legends Run-DMC, Tupac, Jay-Z, N.W.A, TLC and Beastie Boys amongst others in their youth. The evening also included never before seen footage from films, videos and photo shoots that brought back the essence of the start to the Hip-Hop era.
Darryl “DMC” McDaniels performed a larger-than-life show to an intimate crowd of a few hundred fans, media and VIPs. Check out our exclusive coverage with the legend himself:
Q: What brings you to this event and Art Basel, did you get a special invite?
DMC: Three years ago I put out a graphic novel comic book and the Morrison Gallery out of New York City and L.A. have all these pictures of me. To make a long story short, I hooked up with Tim one of the photographers. He said he was doing this event down at Art Basel and that I needed to come. Because this is about art, photography is an art, graffiti is an art, sculpting is an art, music is an art. He suggested I bring my comic book down to showcase. We have iconic pictures of the Run-DMC group. I’m also showing my comic book art which is based on all of that cool style of the 80s so it makes sense to be here.
Q: What’s the name of your comic book?
DMC: The name of the company is Darryl Makes Comics- DMC, the superhero is DMC but it’s me, Darryl but it’s in an alternate universe. In this universe my superpowers is hip-hop and rock-n-roll but in the alternate universe I never meet Run or become a rapper, I graduate from St. John’s University and I become a teacher. And in that universe I’m the super hero running around fighting the bad guys which all other super heros do.
Q: How do you think Hip-Hop has transformed over the years?
DMC: In this generation right now, a lot of the younger people who are doing Hip-Hop don’t realize that they got to keep creating Hip-Hop. Hip-Hop just didn’t create rappers. It created journalists, it created writers, it created scientists, it created novelists, it created animators, it created teachers and astronauts. Everything right now is so misguided. When you say Hip-Hop right now, what you think about is some stupid ignorant rapper but in my generation when you thought of Hip-Hop you thought about wow De La Soul, you thought about a guy that was writing a book, you thought about a guy who was about to get his degree and become a professor. It was so much broader and that was because Hip-Hop was based off of creative artistic expression and that’s why I’m here at this event.