It happened while Fab Five Freddy was asking Dre and Cube some interview question about 75 yards away, so I wasn’t really sure what to focus on.an hour long episode of Yo! MTV Raps being created about Eazy and N.W.A, hosted by Fab Five Freddy being shot on a number of different days and locations around Los Angeles,” says Ithaka. I’m pretty sure Eazy was signing someone’s skateboard, a longer street board. I’m not even sure he ever knew I took those five or six pictures or not. “Eazy wasn’t skating as part of the shoot, he was just skating for the fun of it. To capture these moments of candor Ithaka had to be a keen observer of visual intricacies both big and small. I wasn’t even sure I should have been using too much film on the shot.”

The skateboard wasn’t his own, he’s signed it for someone and I think kind of borrowed it without asking. Literally anything could have gone down that day. “This was at the height of his fame and Venice was a bit rougher back in those days. “I think Eazy was wearing the vest for legitimate reasons,” recalls Ithaka. Eazy-E died of complications related to AIDS some seven years after these photos were taken, in 1995. The rest of the proof sheet is a deep dive showing members of N.W.A spending the day with Fab Five Freddy for Yo! MTV Raps. Taken in 1989, shot #27 on the contact sheet, shows Eazy-E born Eric Wright in all his bravado and swagger. Stored away for 25 years and just recently seen for the first time (pictured below in “The Shot”) it’s one of those shots that reveals, in hindsight, a moment in time when LA hip hop was becoming a force and a nascent group of MC’s and producers was crafting their sound and vision.

The image of Eazy-E skateboarding in Venice Beach, wearing a bulletproof vest was never published. We spoke with Ithaka Darin Pappas the photographer behind some of N.W.A’s earliest promo photos about the rarely seen image of Eazy-E skateboarding in Venice Beach while rocking a bulletproof vest… Ithaka Darin Pappas On Photographing a Bulletproof Vest-Wearing, Skateboarding-Riding Eazy-E by Vikki Tobak (originally published in Mass Appeal Magazine January 5th 2017)

Eazy e album cover drawn by himself