It's been a while since Tampa Bay's own Benjamin Booker saw ink in the digital pages of this blog, but that's changing today with James Emmerman's gorgeous portrait series from Afropunk last weekend.
Booker performed at the Brooklyn Festival, and we're happy to see him captured by the 23-year-old Pitchfork photographer both solo and with his band, which features longtime drummer Max Norton as well as new members bassist Mikki Itzigsohn (who also sang vocals on Kate Nash's 2013 LP Girl Talk) and guitarist Matt Zuk (roommates with FIDLAR??).
Emmerman, a Vanity Fair photo associate whose next project is a portrait series focusing on LGBTQ youth in New York City loves Booker's band, so the name stood out as he was on assignment to grab as many portraits of performing musicians as possible (Thundercat, Angel Haze, Saul Williams, Flying Lotus, and LSDXOXO are all photographed beautifully along with several crowd shots).
"I love how there's a sense of calm in both photos," Emmerman told CL in an email, "it's hard to find that at festival so I was happy to capture two very peaceful, at ease portraits of Benjamin and the band."
We thought Tampa emcee' Prince Golden's encounter with J. Cole was cool, but this might trump that for sure.
See the whole gallery via P4K. Check out more of Emmerman's work at his website.
This article appears in Aug 25 – Sep 1, 2016.
