Ricky Powell

The original Rappin’ With the Rickster aired from 1990–1996, as Powell interviewed numerous stars on the show including: Russell Simmons, Doug E Fresh, Harold Hunter, Kool Keith, Rahzel, Laurence Fishburne, and Cypress Hill.

“Rappin’ With the Rickster” often has been called the world's hippest-ever public access TV show, as Powell gave insight into the artistic phenomena of the day, with an excess of candid footage, impromptu interviews, and a vision of Powell's New York. Powell considered the show “a time capsule of someone growing up in Manhattan during that era and being around the music scene”.

A DVD collaboration with long-time friend and respected graffiti artist Brian Nobili on “Rappin’ With the Rickster”, released in 2010, was declared a must-have by Juxtapoz.

The Ricky Powell Art Funk Explosion! was Presented by Frank151 at Sacred Gallery NYC from December 9–28, 2010, and celebrated Powell's guest curation of Frank Chapter 43: Bug Out!, which highlights his photographs and interviews with renowned street artists.

Powell exhibited both his photographs and his signature street style at BRAVE Art, Whistler in 2006.

Released in 1998, Oh Snap!: The Rap Photography of Ricky Powell featured 88 photos, 53 of which were in full color. Powell's first book, “Oh Snap!” was a ten-year retrospective of some of the best known rap and hip hop artists of all time, including old school rappers Public Enemy, Run DMC and LL Cool J to some of the biggest stars of the day.

In 1986, Powell ditched his job selling lemon ices out of a street car to tag along with the Beastie Boys on Run-DMC's Raising Hell tour. Some of the photographs that he took while on tour became significant, and Powell gained notoriety, becoming the unofficial “fourth Beastie Boy”. He toured with the group as Def Jam Records’ de facto in-house photographer on their Licensed to Ill tour in 1987 and Together Forever: Greatest Hits 1983–1991 tour with Run DMC and then again in 1992 on their Check Your Head tour and the 1994 Lollapalooza. Powell is famous for being featured in the song "Car Thief" on the Paul's Boutique album, with the lyrics: “Homeboy throw in the towel, Your girl got dicked by Ricky Powell".

Powell originally saw photography as a hobby; taking pictures of family and friends at random. But in 1985, when a girlfriend “played [Powell] like a soggy cannoli”, as he described in an interview with The New Yorker, he took the camera she had left at his place and vowed that “She would be mad sorry she dissed [him] like this”.

With Public Access: Ricky Powell Photographs 1985-2005, Powell celebrated two decades of capturing moments in his signature style, documenting much of the early era of hip-hop and presenting the actors, musicians, performers, and artists that inspired him, including Method Man, Doze Green, Bill Adler, Slick Rick, Run DMC, Eric B & Rakim, Keith Haring, Steven Tyler, Barbara Walters, Cindy Crawford, Eazy-E, and Fab Five Freddy. These photographs are distributed amongst graffiti splattered renderings by Lee Quiñones, Ron Galella, Ron English, and others. Powell depicts a nostalgia for New York's back-in-the-day with universal downtown cool with sentiments from Zephyr, Charlie Ahearn, Glenn O'Brien, and Zoe Cassavetes.

Powell's "Frozade Moments, 1985-2003," ran at Bill Adler's Eyejammie Fine Arts Gallery in New York from July through September 2003.

Powell's “Public Access: Ricky Powell Photographs 1985-2005” exhibition was featured at the colette in Paris, the powerHouse Gallery in New York, Milk Bar in San Francisco, and Lab 101 Gallery in Los Angeles.

Ricky Powell (born November 20, 1961) is an American photographer. He is the author of four books. Powell is a photographer who specializes in the environmental portrait. Though Powell initially rose to fame because of his relationship with the Beastie Boys, he is now well known for his intimate photographs that have been featured in The New York Times, the New York Post, the Daily News, The Village Voice, TIME, Newsweek, VIBE, The Source, Rolling Stone, and many other publications.