LA MESA, 1981, Joe Conzo
“I was blessed to be around to document the birth of Hip Hop with my camera as a young Latino growing up in The South Bronx. But when I wasn’t hanging out with my childhood friends, I was hanging on my Dad’s coat tails. You see, my dad, Joe Conzo Sr., is known as the foremost historian of Afro Latin music, and it was with him I documented some of the genre’s great talents and great events. The late 1970’s and early 1980’s were a thrilling high point for Salsa —Tito Puente hated that word!— and I was right there with Dad, a fly on the wall, capturing moments among the giants. Growing up listening to Puente, Celia, Lavoe, Eddie, and Charlie, I was in heaven and in awe that I got the chance to photograph them. I was a teenager with “all access,” and the legends treated me like family: ‘Déjalo. Es el hijo de Conzo, is all good!'”