‘I saw hip-hop street style and cowboy culture merge. I felt I belonged’: Ivan McClellan on his images of America’s Black cowboys

For a man who spends a lot of time around horses, Ivan McClellan isn’t much of a rider. “The last feedback I got was that I sit on a horse like a sack of potatoes,” he says. “I’m also a big fella, so people always put me on the biggest horse they have, some giant dinosaur of a horse. A fall from that height would be devastating, so I’m nervous. The horse knows I’m nervous. There’s a lot of work I need to do.” Since 2015, when McClellan first attended the Roy LeBlanc Invitational in Okmulgee, Oklahoma, “the Super Bowl of Black rodeos”, the US photographer’s name has become synonymous with Black cowboy culture in the country. “It was a culture I knew nothing about,” McClellan says. “I saw young men riding horses around with no shirt on, wearing diamond stud earrings, gold chains and Jordans. I saw women with braids and long acrylic nails riding 50mph. People were frying chicken, barbecuing, dancing … There was gospel music, R&B and hip-hop in the air. It was an incredible, otherwordly experience.” For McClellan, who grew up in Kansas City but moved to Portland, Oregon in 2011, Black cowboy culture provided a...