Hip Hop, Galveston, Texas

A Mississippi native, Earlie Hudnall was inspired by his grandmother, the keeper of the family scrapbook, and his father, an amateur photographer. Hudnall began taking pictures while in the Marine Corps in the 1960s, and after serving in Vietnam he moved to Houston to study art at Texas Southern University, eventually becoming the school’s official photographer. Hudnall immersed himself in Houston’s Third Ward community, producing a wide-ranging record of African American life there and throughout the South. He became especially adept at making photographs of people on the street, documenting his subjects with dignity and respect. In this striking portrait, a young boy poses like an adult, borrowing exaggerated signs of hip-hop status to project a mature identity even as his youth remains apparent.