JAMIL GS is dubbed the Godfather of the Ghetto Fabulous look, blending street style and attitude with high fashion to flawless effect in his photographs and film work. For more than two decades, the Danish-American artist has played a pivotal role in shaping the look of Hip-Hop music and culture, creating works that have been exhibited alongside the likes of Irving Penn and Richard Avedon.

Born in Copenhagen in 1971 to Sahib Shihab, one of the founding members of Bebop and Hard Bop Jazz and Maiken Gulmann, Jamil’s multicultural heritage imbued him with a profound sensitivity to the extraordinary complexity of human existence. Adroit at code switching, Jamil studied fine art and wrote graffiti until a bust at age 16 ended his writing career. He turned to photography, discovering the ways in which he could represent his generation coming of age, through the medium.

Captivated by the jazz album covers in his father’s collection and the Blue Note photography of Francis Wolff, Jamil consciously began to bring those elements to his work. After his father passed in 1989, Jamil decided to move to New York, his father’s hometown, where Shihab made his name as a musician, studying at Julliard, and playing with Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, Miles Davis and Quincy Jones.

Jamil followed the thread from Jazz to Hip Hop, using the music of the people to disrupt and reimagine life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. His photography career took off as he seamlessly blended the boundaries between art, music, and fashion in the emerging Hip Hop scene. A defining moment for the visual legacy of Hip Hop and Jamil’s career, was when he began to shoot photos of then-unknown MC’s from Brooklyn, who went by the names of Jeru The Damaja, Mos Def and Jay Z.

In September 1994, i-D magazine published his first works, portraits of Russell Simmons and Chuck D, in an issue dedicated to International Street Fashion. He went on to shoot for seminal youth mags like the Face, Trace, and Vibe, crafting the look that became known as “Ghetto Fabulous” worldwide. The look, which cast artists and models from the streets, was an intoxicating combination of strength, dignity, and glamour that quickly found mainstream success as Jamil’s subjects paired the hottest local trends from Brooklyn, the Bronx, Harlem, Queens, and Kingston, Jamaica, with the latest prêt-à-porter collections from Paris, Milan, and London.

Jamil lit his subject to sparkle, glow, and shine, driving people to tear his pictures out of magazines and stick them on the walls. Understanding the desire to have something more permanent. In 2000, Jamil launched the GS Stickups Calendar, a series of collaborations with Hysteric Glamour and Dune magazine, and later Supreme. Inspired by Harri Peccinotti’s work for the Pirelli Calendars, Vaughn Bodē’s cartoons, ‘70s Playboy magazines, and Marvel comics, GS Stickups featured multicultural models from streetcasting sessions in New York, Miami, and Los Angeles, as well as Brazilian supermodel Adrianna Lima, creating an updated vixen aesthetic for the new millennium.

At a time when the industry made a hard delineation between fashion and music photography, Jamil blurred the lines with ease and grace, helping to craft a new lane. By 1997, the art world took note, when the Victoria and Albert Museum(V&A) in London purchased his works for the exhibit, Contemporary Fashion Photography, making him the youngest artist featured in the show. A year later, the V&A featured him alongside Mario Testino and Helmut Newton for Fashion Photography of the ‘90s, kicking his exhibition career into high speed. Jamil has exhibited in 20 shows over the intervening years, including with the V&A’s traveling show, Selling Dreams: 100 Years of Fashion Photography, alongside Avedon, Penn, Newton, Juergen Teller, and Edward Steichen.

2020 marked the 20th anniversary of Jamil’s first collaboration with Supreme, namely the premiere 2001 calendar. In commemoration of this Supreme produced a capsule collection featuring remastered outtakes from the shoot. The SS collection included Skate decks, Hoodies, T-shirts, Shorts, Caps and Jewelry.

2019 Jamil blew the wig off the global press and pop industry when he collaborated with Drake on a week long analog shoot created between Turks and Caicos and Toronto last summer. The shoot titled “Album Mode” was published on Drakes instagram @champagnepapi and celebrated by his more than 92 million followers and fans, in addition to every Music, Street Fashion, Pop Culture, and mainstream media news outlet from XXL, Hypebeast, Billboard, CNN, Vogue and beyond.

2018 Jamil made history when he launched the Asia Premiere of American Royalty at HG Street, India’s premiere Street fashion and Culture Festival. This was a followup to the World Premiere of American Royalty presented in the fall of 2017 at Le Fix Gallery in Copenhagen. The solo show features a selection of Jamil’s most iconic portraiture work, including defining photographs of Jay Z, Diddy, Mary J. Blige, D’Angelo, Outkast, Nas, Beastie Boys, and A Tribe Called Quest. The show has gained global interest and continues to travel so stay tuned for updates to follow.

In addition to collaborations with visual artists Brent Rollins, Ebon Heath, KAWS, Rostarr and Todd “REAS” James, as well as commercial work for clients including Campari, Jamil also pays it forward by giving back to the community. He works with Young Stringers, an innovative educational program for youth in both have and have not sections of Copenhagen, providing them with photographic training to help them see beyond the limitations of their world, gain conscious and critical eyes to society and equip them with the skills and perspectives necessary to overcome the challenges of today.

Jamil currently lives in Copenhagen, Denmark and travels when needed.

You can follow his visual explorations here and on instagram @jamilgshere

Jamil GS dropped his Genesis Collection on December 4th.

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