Article
Men’s Book
October 2009
The modern big-budget music tour balances outsize ambitions with the reality of hauling sets cross-country. When the artist on the marquee is Kanye West, however, restraint and compromise aren’t usually part of the equation. Factor in his Daft Punk fetish, retina-scarring detail on massive screens and a crew of gangly Jim Henson puppets and you begin to approach the indulgence of the rapper’s 2008 Glow in the Dark worldwide tour, the subject of a new coffee table tome by Rizzoli.
“Kanye is super-talented, driven and he wants what he wants,” says Nabil Elderkin, whose photos are featured in the book, also called Glow in the Dark, alongside Kanye’s sketches.
“It” entertainer West dreamed up an entertainment epic of Roman proportions — Rihanna in sci-fi body armor, orchestral scores for all his songs and a HAL 9000-like female voice, J.A.N.E., that tells Kanye he’s the brightest star in the universe mid-set. Elderkin captured a fan-level view of these neon-drenched proceedings, but the real standouts are the backstage photos — a Kubrick-like shot of Kanye in a dressing room, the rapper munching on cereal, gold chain contrasting nicely with Cap’N Crunch — that detail touring life.
Elderkin’s intial contact with Kanye was part go-getter and part GoDaddy. The photographer, who spent most of his youth in Australia and started out shooting surfers, was living in Chicago and heard one of Kanye’s early mixtapes. Impressed, he searched for kanyewest.com. When he realized the domain name wasn’t taken, he bought it. Reps from Roc-a-fella records called a few months later to see if they could buy the website, and Elderkin gave it away for free — under the condition, that is, that he get a chance to shoot the up-and-coming rapper at his West Side studio at Sacramento and Lake. The result, a photo of Kanye posing with a Louis Vuitton backpack, was his initial press photo circa College Dropout and the beginning of a long-time photo and music video collaboration.
Kanye isn’t the perfect person to photograph — Elderkin prefers beautiful Brazilian women — but he’s an intriguing study who combines myriad influences, styles and subjects. “Sometimes during shows, before he went on, he would be near the stage watching and the people next to him wouldn’t know it was him,” says Elderkin. “When they recognized him he wouldn’t get weird, he’d just say what’s up. He knows he’s a regular guy, a human being like all of us. He’s very humble in those regards.”