Ricky Powell has seen enough. It was bike messenger, dog walker, a substitute teacher, salesman iced lemon (for a dollar more, especially the drink was named after a little rum), columnist and host of cable TV, among others. But he is best known as a man of nerve who took his talent to "penetrate the party" and its hit-good nature of people to become a classic figure of the night scene of New York in the 80s and an indispensable chronicler the hip hop scene of the city, then blowing the rest of the world. Where he had a hip hop show, a scrolling function, he was there with his camera around his neck.

In the beginning, photography was just a hobby, but the picture has changed when in 1986 he joined the friends and members of the Beastie Boys, Run DMC's Raising Hell tour. Some of the pictures he took then, the right place at the right time, gained notoriety, and Powell ended up becoming a sort of "fourth Beastie Boy" unofficial, from traveling with the band on several tours, and serves as inspiration for partners (recognize the strophe "Homeboy throw in the towel, Your girl got dicked by Ricky Powell"? / Car Thief song, the album Paul's Boutique '). They are precious few images of this golden age of the Beastie Boys captured through the lens of Powell that we show here.

Ricky Powell was born in New York in 1961, where he graduated with a "AA" in Liberal Arts at the University La Guardia CC and Physical Education at Hunter College. His work has been published in vehicles of the caliber of The New York City, New York Post, Daily News, The Village Voice, Time, Newsweek, VIBE, The Source and Rolling Stone, to name a few. He currently lives and works in West Village New Yorker.

The photos of the post, with the exception of the above, courtesy of Google Images, we took the site of Interview Magazine .