An Insider’s Guide to the Golden Era of UK Hip-Hop

In the UK, hip-hop culture started emerging in the early 80s with rappers, DJs, graffiti writers and breakdancers who took their cues from what was happening stateside and put their own spin on it. Crews formed across the country as like-minded people started making music together and building communities. And in London, there was a British-Jamaican teenager with a film camera documenting it all. Normski Anderson grew up in north-west London. His parents bought him a camera when he was 10 years old, and he began photographing friends, family, and everything that was happening around him. His mum and stepdad both worked for Transport for London and brought darkroom equipment home from the Transport Photography Centre, which they set up in the bathroom. “I’d bunk off school just take to pictures and go and do fucking printing in my darkroom while my mum was at work,” he remembers. “Everyone now talks about OCD and ADHD – I had all of that. The dark room was a way for me to release all of that. I’d be in there all day, sometimes all night.” Normski was drawn to hip-hop and street culture after seeing Beat Street in 1984, a coming-of-age film...