MADE YOU LOOK: How Hip Hop Impacted Creative Culture in Europe

Polaroid are excited to announce the public release of their documentary, Made You Look, exploring the influence of Hip Hop on creative culture in London, Amsterdam and Paris.

Exploring art, music, lifestyle and photography from various disciplines and across generations, Made You Look tells the stories of UK pioneers including Charlie Dark (founder Run Dem Crew), Solomon ‘Soulz’ Boyede (co-founder Places+Faces) and Joseph McDermott (founder Victory Lap Radio). Contributors also include Amsterdam’s Edson Sabajo (co-founder Patta) and Paris’s James Dridi (founder Paperboy).

From left to right: Charlie Dark (founder Run Dem Crew), Joseph McDermott (founder Victory Lap Radio), Edson Sabajo (co-founder Patta) and James Dridi (founder Paperboy)

With the Polaroid medium having been used for decades to document the rise of Hip Hop, today Hip Hop influenced communities in Europe continue to embrace the heritage of Warhol era Polaroid portraits and its unfiltered DIY nature.

It’s inevitable to see the impact Hip Hop has had around the globe. While there has been a lot of reference material educating us about its emergence from a US perspective, there are still many untold stories about how this movement made its way across the North Atlantic Ocean to Europe, where the music genre was adopted in the early ‘80s. 

“I think what happened with Hip Hop is, it was one of the first forms of music that arrived where you could look at it and be like, those people who were making it look like me. They think like me. They come from the same social circumstances as me.”

– Charlie Dark MBE

Polaroid – in partnership with some of Europe’s most prominent communities – has explored the influence of Hip Hop on creative culture in London, Paris and Amsterdam. The documentary takes the perspectives of art, music, lifestyle and photography, through a variety of disciplines and generations, featuring the stories of Charlie Dark (founder Run Dem Crew), Edson Sabajo (co-founder Patta), James Dridi (founder Paperboy), Joseph McDermott (founder Victory Lap Radio), Solomon ‘Soulz’ Boyede (co-founder Places+Faces) and others.  

“It’s holistic, we saw the whole package. It was fashion, it was attitude, it was graphic design, it was graffiti, breakdance. It’s an art in itself. It’s an art-form.”

– Farida Sedoc

The Polaroid medium has been used for decades to document the rise of Hip Hop since its emergence from the Bronx, New York, allowing for important milestone moments in the movement beyond just album covers to be preserved. Today’s Hip Hop influenced communities in Europe, amongst many other creative circles, are still embracing the heritage of Warhol era portraits and the unfiltered DIY nature that drew them into the movement in the first place. 

“Kids growing up with access to all technology and everything at their fingertips is super liberating now. But maybe in ten years kids are wanting to return back to human touch, and analog, and what will be seen as archaic.”

– Joseph McDermott 

MADE YOU LOOK first debuted during three screenings hosted by communities in Amsterdam (April 13th), London (April 25th) and Paris (May 17th). All screenings were accompanied by an photography exhibition featuring a wider curation of local creatives shot on Polaroid film by Elisabeth Ouni and Randy Soewarno. The documentary will see its public release via Wax Poetics (www.waxpoetics.com) on May 18th, 2024.