Barron Claiborne

One of Claiborne's most significant achievements in the urban music community is a series of portraits of The Notorious B.I.G wearing a plastic gold crown in front of a deep red backdrop.[6][7][8] The pictures were made in Claiborne's New York studio in March 1997, only three days before the rapper's untimely death in Los Angeles, resulting from a drive-by shooting. The most known image from the series entitled "The King of New York,"[9] is one photograph from a couple of dozen images of the rapper from the photo session.[10] Most of these other photographs from the session had never been seen by the public before being included in the 2018 book Contact High: A Visual History of Hip-Hop. In a 2019 exhibit based upon the book, (hosted by The Annenberg Space for Photography in Los Angeles), an entire installation of this memorable photo session was constructed. In addition to a 100 cm x 150 cm print of the principal image, the museum exhibit installation of "The King Of New York" featured one of The Notorious B.I.G's music videos playing on a small screen alongside of two enlarged contact prints as well as the original two-dollar plastic crown that Claiborne had purchased specifically for the shoot, displayed in a glass jewel case as if it was made of real gold.