With her superb book _Contact High: A Visual History of Hip-Hop_, author Vikki Tobak shares the behind the scenes stories of some of the music’s most iconic images. The book presents contact sheets from a plethora of legendary photographers — within these invaluable visual diaries are never-publicly-seen outtakes alongside classic shots, providing a fascinating window into the creative processes of these artisans of emulsion and light. On the latest episode of Across 135th Street, host Chairman Jefferson Mao is joined by Tobak and two of _Contact High_’s most esteemed contributors: Joe Conzo, the photojournalist who began chronicling the dawn of hip-hop culture while still a Bronx teenager, and Danny Hastings, the lensman whose images of Wu-Tang Clan, Gang Starr, Nas, Big Punisher and others have been immortalized on classic album covers.
