The Book of Rhyme & Reason: Hip-Hop 1994-1997

The ultimate backstage pass: a photographic inside look at the making of the pioneering hip hop documentary Rhyme & Reason

An accompaniment to Peter Spirer’s classic 1990s documentary, this coffee table book presents over 130 of the incredible Rolleiflex photographs Sprier captured while filming.

The volume features candid images of a multitude of the artists integral to this formative period – many of the photographs never before seen or published.

In the mid-nineties, documentarian Peter Spirer embarked on a three-year odyssey to offer a realistic view of Hip-Hop and the people and culture it encompassed, interviewing over 80 artists involved in the art form. Spirer managed to capture a seminal moment as the culture balanced on the cusp of the mainstream. This coffee table volume features over 130 of Spirer’s photographs from 1994 to 1997. As Hip-Hop commemorates its fiftieth anniversary in 2023, it is particularly fitting that many of these images from this formative period are being seen and published for the first time.

While filming, Spirer took accompanying stills using a medium format Rolleiflex camera. It is these photographs that form The Book of Rhyme and Reason.

“The Rollei allowed me to capture some amazing moments: Puffy getting a trim in his office while doing three tasks at once, Biggie opening record plaques on his couch, Ice-T and Mack 10 hanging with their homies, Heavy D at the barber, playing pool. There was the Jack The Rapper convention with Death Row making a statement, at a Disney World Hotel, that ended in chaos. There were magical moments such as Redman and Erick Sermon freestyling on the mic to amazed onlookers at a block party in Newark and watching Wu-Tang Clan chop it up on the block in Staten Island on a cold winter’s day before they exploded.”