-During the 1990s, a wave of photographers challenged misperceptions of hip-hop and offered alternative ways of experiencing it as an art form.

-Ras Kass and this is his first photo shoot in Carson.

-Today, I'm meeting one of hip-hop's most prolific photographers, Brian B+ Cross.

-Xzibit, abandoned house in Angelino Heights.

There was so many abandoned houses in LA after the earthquake in '94.

It was full of places to shoot.

-Hailing from Limerick, Ireland, B+ connected with hip-hop's message and produced some of its most iconic images.

Hundreds of album covers, promotional materials, and portraits of hip-hop artists like Biggie, MF Doom, Eazy-E, and Snoop Dogg.

I want to know how photography changed the way we see and feel hip-hop.

[music] -In the '80s and '90s, as hip-hop grew in popularity, there were efforts to censor it and shut it down.

The culture saw hip-hop as an expression of creativity, innovation, and resilience, and photographers set out to put a lens to it.

On the West Coast, B+ was part of this movement and he set it upon himself to cultivate a unique style.

-CeeLo Green in his earlier life in a disused army testing area outside Atlanta [chuckles] that they wanted to shoot in.

That cover was one of those ones where I was like, "Yes.

I saw the impact it had on other people."

These dudes wore no shirts, no nothing.

It wasn't until later when you had 50, and Ja Rule, and all them dudes in that era, late '90s then it became like, "Oh, snap.

All right.

Shirt off."

It's a vulnerability thing I think.

The notion of hip-hop and the notion of the centering of Black masculinity in and of itself was a very radical thing.

It wasn't the ferocity of it, the physicality of it, the brutality of it.

You know what I mean?

The violence of it.

All of that was really making a new kind of ground, a new kind of visuality really in this culture.

You saw the athletic body.

You didn't see the urban, poetic.

It was just a different thing.

They aesthetically read differently.

[music] -The real story here is about generosity.

I was accepted into a community for the most part and people took me in, showed me around, told me when I was doing wrong, told me how to fix it, and accepted that I was sincere and trying to do right.

-B+'s interest in hip-hop started as a teenager in Ireland where the music's message of struggle and rebellion resonated with his upbringing.

-You have to imagine in our stories, in our mythology, the '80s were a bad time.

A kind of apartheid existed where Catholics or nationalist community didn't have access to jobs, didn't have access to resources.

It all kicked off in the late '60s and it's an era which they call the Troubles.

We had hunger strikes.

We had bombing campaigns.

Obviously, this is all in retrospect to come here and to be interested in hip-hop and to actually realize, "Wow, this is something that maybe my seriousness and maybe my perspective I can actually contribute something here in a meaningful way."

-B+ moved to the US in the late 1980s as a student, a time when hip-hop was being challenged by society.

Police were shutting down NWA concerts, states restricted 2 Live Crew and Geto Boys' album sales.

There were campaigns against hip-hop's explicit lyrics.

News media frequently depicted hip-hop as a threat to American youth.

B+ took this moment in time to really get to know what hip-hop brought to global culture and what it had to say about American life.

He started out in the underground hip-hop scene in LA, but as an outsider, he had to find his own way into the community.

-If you're making art in a certain community, then that work needs to make sense there first.

I always understood it as like, I was really just providing a service.

As far as somebody on the ground doing it that was serious, there wasn't really anybody else.

-There was vulnerability and intimacy in B+ and his contemporaries' work and it immediately stood out.

Hip-hop's rebellious and spontaneous image was showcased alongside its quiet, subtle, and introspective side.

-There's no version of photography where you're over there and I'm waiting for you to generate the right performative moment and then I capture it and then I go off and do me with it.

What's ideal is we get to go hang out for a while and you learn me a little bit, I learn you a little bit.

You start to understand what I'm interested in and I start to understand what you're interested in.

Often, there's one moment where all the things line up and then hopefully my finger is on the button and then it happens.

It is very fragile.

It doesn't always work.

There's no map, so it's like jazz.

[laughs] You know what I'm saying?

My argument would be, so it's like the music itself.

That's the deal, actually.

In order for you to be good, you have to be vulnerable, you have to take risks, you have to create a space for yourself to be able to exist.

I just want the environment of the photo to somehow be an extension of that.

-B+'s process was about letting artists feel free to reveal parts of themselves they otherwise wouldn't and to really let go for the camera.

Each of B+'s photos brings us closer to the artists, offering us a glimpse into their personal journeys, their struggles, and their triumphs, revealing the often hidden human side behind the spotlight.

It's capturing this human side that really matters because it's what keeps the artist's lessons and values alive long after they've left us.

-Primarily photograph people that are in a demographic that die younger and by virtue of their job, even younger.

I'll put it to you this way.

One of my least favorite parts of the job is the phone call that happens the day the word gets out to somebody.

Whether it's Doom, whether it's Dilla, whether it's Eazy, whether it's whatever because they call here looking for photos.

The day.

I am responsible for keeping these people's images.

This moment is gone.

Will never exist again.

-B+ continues to explore the lives and emotions of the hip-hop community through his lens.

His images filled with depth and color.

Hope you like this episode of Outside the Lyrics, where we're looking at hip-hop's impact with the folks who've helped shape its culture.

Make sure to check out our other episodes, where we dig into the origins of krump and streetwear, right here on PBS Voices.