During a career that spans seven decades, Kwame Brathwaite (1938–2023) became known for his photographs of Black fashion, music, and events.
This exhibition focuses on Brathwaite’s passion for music, for it not only ignited his photography career and led to his writing music reviews for numerous international publications in the 1970s, addressing the distinct sounds of soul, R&B, and funk, but his love of music also informed his pictures and his approach to photography. Brathwaite has stated a lifelong desire to depict “the essence of Black experience, as a feeling, a drive, and an emotion” that are heard and felt through music. Fittingly, the presentation’s title comes from the headline Brathwaite wrote for his review of Stevie Wonder’s 1976 album, Songs in the Key of Life. Brathwaite’s title, Things Well Worth Waiting For, both conveys how eagerly anticipated Wonder’s album was and also captures his own view of the 1970s as a period of uncertainty as well as great possibility.